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The Main Six - A Story about Reckless Ladies in Power Armor

Discussion in 'FanFic' started by DaRedOne, Mar 20, 2018.

  1. DaRedOne

    DaRedOne Morat Warrior Philosopher
    Warcor

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    @Danger Rose I appreciate the sentiment. You were a big inspiration for this story. I haven't commented on your Wrecking belles yet because I haven't finished reading them, but I shall soon!
     
    jherazob, stevenart74 and Danger Rose like this.
  2. DaRedOne

    DaRedOne Morat Warrior Philosopher
    Warcor

    Joined:
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    Enhanced Information Gathering

    Saleem AlQadir was a very frustrated man. If he could sum up all his frustrations in a single word, it would be ‘Bakunin’. He hated that ship so much, sometimes he just felt like gathering all the ordnance of the Human Sphere and seeing if the humongous Mothership could survive sustained bombardment... However, as a Private Military Contractor (Mercenary was such an awful word), he often had to deal with the Nomad Ship, or at least with its denizens. And to make matters even worse, they often didn’t pay on time, or insisted on paying with their so called ‘Social Energy’, whatever the blasted Hell that was.

    His other ocasional Contractors were better, but not by much. Sure, the Hexaedron had the horrible habit of using the old ‘bullethole discount’ when a contract was finished. In fact, he often caught himself wondering why he still accepted Pan Oceanian contracts when they were the ones more likely to try to burn his ship down for any given reason. Hell, not even the Yu Jing fanatics were that big on double-crossing.

    But his wanderings and ponderations often returned to the fact that, unlike everyone else, the Hexaedron was reliable. They could be relied to pay well, and then betray you the moment it became more convenient to do so. With these Bakunin folks, he couldn’t rely on anything: they would make contracts for drug running and turn it into rescue operations; or make contracts for rescue operations that were actually a front for drug runs. It gave him migraines just trying to understand it all.

    Eventually he had decided the best thing to do was hiring some local muscle, this way he could get a little insight into these Nomad minds… And to no one’s surprise, there were a lot of people wanting to work for a Haqqislamite with lots of money and very little questioning. In fact, he had spent the last few days just reviewing CVs like a Bourakite Silk Tycoon. It wasn’t fancy work, but at least it broke the monotony of wrangling his men and waiting for his contact.

    If there was one thing he liked about Bakunin, it would be the entertainment: The tobacco, the alcohol, the women… Everything was surprisingly cheap for the quality of the goods or services offered. In fact, he had a thick cigar between his fingers, and the aroma was so great he was seriously reconsidering his opinions of the ship…

    And then he took a look at the young, armored woman in front of him and reconsidered his reconsiderations. She was not intimidating at all, despite the heavy armor she wore and the shotgun she had stuck on a mag-lock on her back. Instead she looked meek, her hands shaking slightly, curled up in fists that rested uneasily on her lap. Her purple suit somehow matched her hair, and the stylish pink streak going down her locks made it seem like she was more worried about looking good than being a professional. This was why he hated Bakunin.

    “So, miss Tejano… Let’s talk business.”

    He sat down in front of her, taking a drag from his cigar while reading up her file and her friends’. Unlike the woman, Saleem was all intimidation, from his broad shoulders, to his combat jacket, looking both expensively maintained yet constantly used, to his black hair and closely trimmed beard, all the way to his pearly teeth holding the cigar between them. He was a bad man, and he both knew that and wanted others to know so too.

    “Twilight.”

    The girl’s voice was oddly melodious, but what made Saleem stop was not her pretty tune, but how she had the gall to interrupt him. Damn Bakunin imbeciles had no sense of respect.

    “What?” His voice tethered between annoyed and genuinely surprised.

    “I would prefer it if you called me Twilight. Tejano might be my name, but here in Bakunin we-”

    “Ah, yes. You nomads and your chosen names. I never got why you folks do that. What’s wrong with Tabitha Tejano? That’s a perfectly serviceable name right there.”

    He had interrupted her to take back control of the conversation, as it was clear the little bitch was too nervous to realize this was a job interview and not a chit chat with one of her carpet-munching friends from Beauvoir. What made him the most irritated was how she was trying to mask her shaking hands. He could take some nervousness, he caused that reaction in people, but the brown woman trying to hide it irked him more than he would like to admit.

    “Well, mister Qadir” At least the bitch was smart, she hadn’t called him AlQadir like some ignorant Atek “It’s a matter of identity. You have probably heard about how powerful names are, and most Nomads subscribe to the notion in one way or another. In Corregidor, a nickname carries the battle history of a fighter. In Tunguska, it’s a way to hide one’s identity, as they need to ensure total information security in that ship. And here in Bakunin…”

    She took in a deep breath, stopping for a moment as if she expected him to ask a question. He didn’t, of course, so she continued talking anyways.

    “It’s a way to show that we are who and what we choose. One cannot choose their given name, but in this day and age where one just has to buy a new LHost to be whatever they want, why can’t we choose our names too? In Bakunin, we believe that yes, we can change anything.”

    Saleem blinked a few times. He sighed inwards as the girl’s Tinbot took a step forward and pointed at him. The girl, Twlight, ugh, he hated her even more now after that little speech… At least she was polite enough to push her bot back behind her chair.

    “Not now, Spike.” she talked to the machine as if it was a pet.

    The Haqqislamite Mercenary groaned, leaning back onto his chair and taking in his environment. They were in his office, inside his heavy freighter, which was landed on one of Bakunin’s many cargo ports located along the main drive-pillar of the ship. Two of his bodyguards stood by the door, their rifles at the ready, even if the little girl sitting in front of him looked absolutely harmless. She was supposed to be a Riot Grrl, but that was not the image he had of them.

    The Beauvoir Harpies were supposed to be rough and tumble bitches in heavy armor, toting big guns and bigger attitudes, but this shaking waif was nothing like that. However, her file told a wholly different story: A holographic screen on his desk showed a very violent, if short, record and Saleem browsed it as he tried to take control again.

    “Well, miss Tejano.” No, he was not using that stupid name. “I have your file here, and it is fairly impressive. You and your friends… your ‘Main Six’, that’s a nice service track for only one year of combat as a unit.”

    He expected the bitch to smile, but she didn’t. Usually, he would start by buttering the prospective hirees up, talking about their accomplishments, before smashing them down and breaking them into the kind of worker he wanted for his company. It was satisfying to watch their smiles and smirks fade away, but the purple haired girl didn’t change her nervous expression at all. She didn’t even stop with the trembling hands.

    “I see here: Dawn, Yu Jing, even a few sorties on the Wotan Gate. You fought off a Combined Army incursion into the Don Peyotte? Impressive.”

    “Purely accidental. My team was on reserve in the Don Peyotte when the Morat assault torpedo hit our quarters. Some of the girls literally had their pants down when the hull was breached.”

    Fuck her modesty! Saleem took a drag from his cigar again, once more leaning back on his chair and trying to rein in his increasingly more foul mood. According to the file, she and the other five armored termagants had fought off a full Morat Aggression Forces incursion, completely annihilating the twenty man boarding team, including several of the Daturazi witch-soldiers and of the Vanguard infantry. That would be a highlight for any fighting force in the Human Sphere, and she was brushing it off as an accident!

    “Well, it is impressive.” He shrugged his shoulders, every movement he made only showing more of his growing frustration. “However, there is a problem with your record, miss Tejano. Would you like to hazard a guess?”

    “Actually? Yes. Looking at your bodyguards, they seem uneasy, the grip on their guns is a little too tense, their teeth are clenched, their eyes are shifting too fast. They’re nervous, and I would wager it is because your men are not used to women in aggressive positions. That is odd for a Haqqislamite, considering how enlighted Bourak society is, but I believe it comes from the fact the women in your company all have support positions: hackers, engineers, medics. All extremely important, of course, but if you hired my team it would be the first time you deployed an all female shock squad. And I guess that’s at least a little intimidating.”

    There was the smile he wanted. Little bitch liked her big words. Her hands still shook, but now she seemed more confident, sitting straight with her shoulders more spread, showing off her chest. Now it was Saleem’s chance to break her will.

    “Well, I would rather call your attention to this: In Dawn, you broke off the main Nomad Forces to rescue a farmstead; In Yu Jing, you broke off the main Nomad Forces to rescue a Japanese Neighborhood. Even in Wotan, your sorties were all defensive.”

    Saleem put his hands down on his table, spread out and grinning wide at the girl. He took a moment to put out his cigar on a nearby ashtray, and made it longer by deliberately closing the holographic screen where the file on the Main Six had been shown.

    “You and your ladies have a hero complex. You like to save people, to be humanitarians.” He scowled “Well, miss Tejano, this is not a humanitarian company. We want professionals, we want people that will follow orders and do what the client asks for, nothing more, nothing less. If you work for the Hollow Sands Company, you follow your orders. And it seems to me you don’t know how to follow orders. Am I right?”

    Now, if she wanted the job, she’d be mortified. Little girl probably never had a commander try to put her in her place, considering how the Beauvoir Riot Grrl Corps was so loosely organized. Hell, Bakunin barely had a Command. They were a bunch of freaks with no direction, but Saleem knew he could put the purple armored lady and her reckless band on their tracks, he was as sure as he could be.

    Her smile, as small as it was, didn’t change. The Tinbot behind her took a step forward, its tiny head bobbing as it raised its stubby hand towards him, slow and lazy, making a finger gun gesture.

    “Maybe you are.”

    Saleem AlQadir was a professional, and so were his men. He had the girl double checked for bugs and had two guards watching her all the time. His men were the best money could buy, they were seasoned fighters that had survived countless battles all across the human sphere. At no point during their interview had the guards lost sight of the little purple haired waif, and that would be their undoing.

    The Bot’s eyes glowed like a supernova, a burst of searing light engulfing the room just as Twilight’s armor powered up, neon purple fibers shining as artificial muscles boosted her into superhuman speed and strength. Her visor came down, shielding her eyes from the bright flash while everyone else was blinded for a brief second.

    It all happened in the space of a breath. Twilight stood up, grabbing her chair and sweeping it around her back to smack the two guards with it. The chair hit the first guard’s head on the side, then continued on to crack against the second guard’s shoulder, splintering and breaking his shoulder as the Riot Grrl pulled her pistol out, firing left handed.

    Her suit did most of the work, leading her arm on as she put one shot into each guard’s head, instantly killing both. Before they hit the ground, she had already kicked Saleem’s table against him, pinning him to the wall. Then she drew her shotgun, the *click clack* of the pump action drawing the Haqqislamite mercenary’s attention.

    His eyes were bloodshot, his gut hurt, one was rib broken, his ears ringing as he stared into the barrel of the gun. For one moment, he saw the tinbot’s eyes streaming with data, then looked at his own terminal, eyes widening as he realized what was going on.

    Bitch had duped him, somehow… She had come into his ship, and despite being isolated by his hackers she still managed to casually steal his database right from under his eyes… He would have been impressed if he weren’t so mad with rage.

    “Thank you for the information, mister Qadir” Twilight said before shooting his face off.
    ________________________________________________________

    Jack sat down on the table, putting down three large beer mugs in front of her and her friends. She groaned at the caramel liquid when she realized it was one of those horrible Bakunin brewed brands. How come everything in Bakunin tasted so good, except the beer? That corn syrupy piss water was pure torture.

    “What’s takin’ Twi so long? She shoulda’ve been here an hour ago.”

    They were waiting for their purple armored leader in a bar near the cargo port where Twilight was conducting what she called ‘enhanced information gathering’. Which was a fancy way of saying she needed to get close enough to something to hack it. The bar, called Red Tails for some reason, was the kind of place where four heavily armored women and one Daktaris doctor wouldn’t look out of place at all.

    “Oh, relax, darling. She’s doing a job interview, you know how these can take forever.”

    Jewel took a look at the beer, then twisted her nose at it. Thankfully RD took the diva’s mug, poured it into her own and swallowed it all as if it actually tasted good. The five of them were sharing a single table, but Butterfly and Pinkie were both distracted with their Comlogs, the former arguing with one of her patients and the later playing some game about flinging birds into castles.

    “Yeah, besides… It’s Twilight. She’s probably talking the guy’s ear off or something…”

    The punk chuckled and turned her head to look at the entrance as the bar doors slid open and two women walked in. Evidently, those were mercenaries, as they carried boxy chainrifles on their backs, but wore little clothing to show off their generous endowments and toned bodies.

    RD clearly enjoyed what she saw, her eyebrows raised in awe. The cyan armored woman had brown eyebrows, despite being able to permanently change her hair color. She thought the rainbow style looked ridiculous on her eyebrows, so they went their natural brown.

    “Ohohow! Damn, I wish I was born in Bourak.”

    Jewel cast a quick glance at the two women coming in, then noticed they sat with two men, all of them wearing jackets and thick cargo boots. They had the tattoos of a Kum clan, but which specific one eluded the blue haired diva. However, she would take anything to get rid of her rowdy friend for a few minutes.

    “You know what, RD? Those are Kum riders. I’m pretty sure you have a chance with them. Got get them, tigress”

    As Jewel slapped RD’s armored shoulder for encouragement, her eyes met Jack’s bewildered ones. The blonde USAriadnan waited until their Bakunin born friend was out of ear range to finally lower her face and ask, completely dumbfounded.

    “Are ya serious? There’s a chance those two are-”

    Jewel batted her perfectly made up eyelashes twice, flashing the yellow armored woman a naughty, mischievous smirk.

    “Those two guys’ ladies? Yes. And even if they aren’t, they might just be offended at some Atek coming in to try and woo one of them.”

    Jewel looked over her shoulder as RD struck a conversation with the four bikers. One of them turned on her chair to look up at the Riot Grrl, but the two men had their grips firm around their knives. Back at her own table, the diva was still smirking wide as she continued talking.

    “If we’re lucky, we’ll get to watch Rhona get in trouble. If not, she’s distracted and out of our hair. Win win”

    As Jewel let out a very ladylike laugh that was one octave away from a soap opera villainess, Jack groaned and sulked her shoulders. The amazon rubbed her temples, massaging the sides of her head while casting a glance at Butterfly, who finally closed her Comlog and sighed in abject annoyance.

    “What? Where’s-”

    She looked around, seeing RD take the hand of one of the biker ladies and lead the girl on to a dance, much to Jewel’s annoyed huff. That sight made the pink haired doctor giggle.

    “Are you- Are we playing ‘let’s get RD in trouble’ again?”

    Jack chuckled, giving the rainbow haired woman a thumbs up as she led the biker into a quick, energetic dance. The blonde even contemplated getting up herself and either getting another beer or enjoying the pulsing ambient music on her own.

    “Eeyup. Although it seems Jewel’s not very good at it.”

    She chuckled, and would have continued her playful ribbing on the diva if it were not for the loud explosion that rocked their ground. Another loud boom sounded out, followed quickly by a third. Guns were drawn, everyone in the bar pulling out a weapon, except for Pinkie, who continued to fling birds at castles on her Comlog.

    “Girls! Come in!”

    As Twilight's voice buzzed on their coms, all other five ladies stood to attention. Jewel lowered her visor to access the leader’s viewpoint, while Jack and Butterfly stood quiet with their hands to their ears. RD groaned, quickly exchanging phone numbers with the biker before hurrying to join her friends, and even Pinkie closed her game and leaned into the circle.

    “What’s going on, Twi? What’s it with the explosions?” RD asked as soon as she sat back on the table.

    “I got the files.” The purple haired hacker seemed to be running, as they could hear her armor whirr and her breath go ragged “But the Hollow Sands didn’t like me snooping around.”

    “Oh, really, darling? We thought the explosions were the welcoming committee.”

    Twilight sighed at her friend’s snark, but before she could say anything else, she was interrupted by a very energetic voice.

    “Ooh, that’s a good idea for a welcoming committee! We should-”

    “Not now, Pinkie!” Twilight screamed as she hit something hard “I’m pinned down! They’ve got a Djanbanzan fireteam watching the access ramp! If I make a run for it they’ll turn me into swiss cheese.”

    RD shook her head, doing a simple gesture with her hand to stop the conversation before it went on.

    “Stay put, babe. We’re going to get you out.”

    RD punched her palm, nodding and glancing around her friends.

    “Alright, let’s do this! Twi, you find some place to take cover, we’re coming. Pinkie, you’re on point, Jack brings the rear with Butterfly, while me and Jewel watch the flanks. The Djans outrange everything we’ve got except for Jack’s tube, but no way we can rely on that when they’ve got a-” She stood silent for a moment, hearing the audio of the gunshots “That’s a Bourak heavy machinegun, yeah. Our suits won’t do much against it either.”

    A glance at Jewel was all it took for the diva to open up a map of the port and the Hollow Sands’ ship hangar. Visors came down, all the women in the squad sharing the same image as RD continued to talk.

    “We have to approach from this angle.”

    She highlighted a route that appeared as a glowing yellow trail on the 3D map of the hangar bay. That made it easy to see the bulk of the Hollow Sands ship, and the way it was sitting in a large open field. A vigilance tower in front of it was marked with a ‘!’ sign for danger, and the tubes RD wanted to use were behind the ship, putting the team across from the loading ramp, but out of sight of the tower.

    “Down the feeding tubes here, from behind the cargo crates. Hopefully this will take us close enough to leverage Pinkie’s spitfire against their big gun. Jack, if you have the chance, turn the bastards into pink mist. Sound off, bitches.”

    “Ready to roll!” Pinkie grinned as she checked her ammo drum before slotting it on her gun.

    “Let’s go save Twilight.”

    “Ah’m ready.”

    “Waiting on you, darling.”

    RD thumbed her rifle’s shot selector to hollow point rounds, then grimaced as she stood up, nodding at the pink armored one to lead the way. Her blood was pumping, her suit powered up. This was going to be interesting.
    _______________________________________________________

    Pinkie crawled down a fuel tube, her gun locked to her back as she used her suit’s enhanced strength to dent the metal and make little holds where her hands and feet could find purchase. Above her, her friends did the same, following the path she made for them as she climbed down. She was the first to hit the metal floor, pulling her gun up and scanning the position.

    Even from a distance the pink armored Riot could hear the clatter of a heavy machinegun, but it was impossible to see the enemy fireteam yet, as they had climbed down opposite to them. The whole length of the Hollow Sands’ ship, a good hundred metres of spacecraft, stood between the Main Six (now Five) and the vigilance tower the Djanbanzans had claimed.

    RD hit the ground behind Pinkie, and then came Jewel, both women taking a moment to help Jack down, Butterfly clinging to her back like a child. They quickly huddled behind the cover of an oversized container, moving in silence despite their armored suits. As they advanced, their ear sensors pinged out, revealing an enemy patrol a few feet ahead.

    Jewel ran the tactical scanner, her suit heavily modified to serve as the focus point for all the information gathered by the rest of her squad. Combining pings from all four suits she could triangulate and identify the patrolling team: three men, heavily armored, all equipped with boarding shotguns. Typical ship security.

    The NeoTerran diva just had to give her pink armored friend a nod and she led on, stepping out of cover with her gun at the ready. Pinkie shouldered her light machinegun and grit her teeth, biting back the shout she wanted to let out. This was the time to be silent, and even if she disliked that, she’d rather stick to the plan.

    The first security operative went down under a hail of high powered shots, and his two companions turned around, bringing their guns up too. The second one raised his shotgun, shouldering it with surprising calm despite the storm of bullets all around him. But the third, he seemed to flicker out of existence for a moment.

    “Oh shit.”

    Pinkie’s eyes widened as the third security operative suddenly became a much lighter armored, sleek bodied man. That was not the problem, the problem was the rocket launcher on his shoulder, the superheavy gun pointed straight at her, ignoring the dense deluge of bullets she was unleashing on them to fire off a streaking rocket at her feet.

    “ROCKET LAUNCHER!” she screamed out, stealth be damned. Her friends’ suits all powered up, the three women behind her scattering to different directions to avoid the explosion as flames engulfed Pinkie’s body.

    RD rolled to the right, banking and smacking her back against another container. Her hair was singed but she was otherwise fine. Jack pulled back, hugging Butterfly to her larger body and shielding the doctor from the flames as they licked past her more heavily protected back plates, the two women completely unharmed by the fire.

    Jewel managed to clear the flames, but as she rolled to the left she came up against a fuel canister. Eyes wide, the diva tried to protect her face as the canister swelled up and exploded in a violent and ear splitting chain reaction. She felt tiny metal slivers cut into her suit’s armorweave, severing her thigh tendons, cutting into her stomach, a large shard embedding into her chest before she fell on the ground, screeching in pain for a second, then going silent.

    Despite being in the epicenter of the explosion, Pinkie waded through it completely unharmed, firing on like the devil incarnate. Flames reflected on her bright, glowing pink armor, turning her visage into a roaring, laughing demon. Her gun kept spitting fire, pulping the second guard and continuing on to take the rocket launcher wielder’s head off.

    She shot the bodies a few more times in anger, stopping when the ammo counter on her visor was down to 271 shots. Most would have said it was too many bullets to kill three enemies. Pinkie thought it was not enough.

    “Fuck! Jewel!”

    RD was the first to reach the diva’s unconscious body, motioning for Butterfly to come over while the two heavy weapons specialists watched their flanks. The pink haired doctor ran with her head low, hitting the ground while already opening up her Comlog to survey the damage.

    “Punctured lungs, severe thigh lacerations, saphenous vein punctured. This is bad. The suit is keeping her alive, and I can save her, but-but she’s out, RD.”

    The cyan armored woman punched her thigh in anger before a shout from Pinkie made her pull the unconscious form of Jewel into cover. Not a second later the container they huddled behind was being rattled by high powered shots. Great, the enemy Djanbanzans had found them too.

    “Shit.”

    RD looked around, eventually noticing a lowered bunker that looked to be a supply depot. It was a short run across the fire zone, but once they were inside the lowered, reinforced structure, Butterfly would have the chance to operate on their friend without the risk of taking a bullet.

    “There!” RD pointed the bunker out “Jack, Pinkie! Cover us! On three. One. Two. Three!”

    She didn’t look back, she just groaned as her armor lit up, the artificial muscles going into full power as she slung the unconscious Jewel over her shoulder and broke out of cover to run. Butterfly ran with her, lowering her body to present a smaller target as RD sprinted across the field at full speed.

    Heavy machinegun fire came their way. The Djanbanzans were a Haqqislamite mercenary corp that dabbled in heavy genetic enhancement, their troops well known for their severely improved vision and the fact they could regenerate from light wounds. Five of them stood watch on a raised platform, the improved height and armored bulwark of their watchtower making their position nearly unassailable.

    Jack hammered them with a missile anyways, then hit them with another just to make sure. No matter how armored, how enhanced or how fanatical they were, unless they were wearing a tank, they’d put their heads down. The blonde fired a few more times to cover her friends, the missiles leaving large scorch marks on the tower but failing to wreck it.

    Cursing Bakunin’s sturdy construction, Jack sprinted across the hangar towards her friends, followed by a Pinkie that was still shooting vaguely towards the watchpost to keep the Djanbanzans pinned down. They all slid into the supply bunker from one of the windows, armors skidding on the metal floor as RD hurried to close the doors and seal them.

    They were locked inside a hexagonal bunker no more than ten square meters wide, it was basically just a box with a single access ramp and filled with stacked power cells and maintenance tools. Jewel was laying against a wall with Butterfly crouched over her and peeling the diva’s suit open, exposing her bloody chest. Butterfly grit her teeth while working frantically to remove all the shrapnel from Jewel’s lungs. It was bloody and looked awful, but at least now the doctor had enough time and room to do her job properly.

    “Oh, damn. Is she gonna be alright?” Jack asked while slotting a new clip into her gun.

    “She’s fine.” Butterfly said without looking at them “Just… let me…”

    She stapled the wounds shut, then pressed an injector to the blue haired woman’s side, the little machine making a snap hiss before Jewel gasped in pain.

    “Ah! Oh! God, that hurts.” Jewel tried to move her arms, but only the left was responsive “Is it that bad?”

    The silence was so thick it could be cut with a knife. Jewel raised her one good hand up, closing and opening it in front of her eyes as if she were on a daze. Then she grinned, and asked the Daktaris.

    “Can I play the piano anymore, doctor?”

    Butterfly huffed at her friend trying to be funny, then checked her vitals to see if the drugs hadn’t left her delirious. She was fine, if she could crack jokes, she was fine. Next was the left thigh armor, that the Daktaris opened up to begin the very cautious process of shutting down the saphenous bleeding and knitting tendons and muscles back.

    “That’s a good question, though. Is it bad?

    “Not- not enough to need a new LHost, and- but enough that she won’t be going- she won’t be any use in this fight”

    RD nodded, but just as she turned to look at the two heavy weapon specialists, Pinkie perked up, her ear sensors turning and twitching. Soon everyone else’s was doing the same, the long, ear like antenna pinging out as they twitched and turned, trying pick up more clear sounds.

    “Hey girls, you hear that?”

    “Eeyup. Sounds like… jump packs?”

    “Yeah, but that’s not Corregidor Hellcat, it’s too loud… Fuck, sounds like a busted up engine too.”

    Jewel groaned, pushing herself up on her left arm, her suit glowing as she grunted and grimaced the pain away. Her visor lowered down, once more taking in the information coming from all her friends as she gathered the sounds and cross checked with her database. She didn’t have the chance to say anything about it, though.

    “Hey! Look! It’s raining men!”

    As Pinkie called out, the three remaining women all looked out of the bunker’s window slits, watching in a mix of awe and fear as the heavy winged packs of the Yuan Yuan powered down all over the hangar. Yuan Yuan were mercenary troops well known for using surplus equipment, and their winged jets made a distinctive loud noise as they carpeted the field in oily smoke, making their descent reckless and chaotic.

    “Body count, fast!”

    RD screamed as she held her gun at the ready, watching as the mercenaries descended all around them. One fell behind the fuel tubes to their left, streaking past the same pipes the girls had crawled down earlier. Another streaked all across their field of vision before landing messily behind the Hollow Sands’ ship. Two more descended perfectly behind the ship too. Too many. Way too many.

    “Ah count three.” Jack shuddered.

    “Counted four!” Pinkie added.

    “I counted four too.” RD shook on her heels.

    Jewel sighed, as moving around with just one arm made her chest hurt. She closed her eyes and inhaled deeply, her mind reaching into her suit’s AI and commanding it, collating all the sensory input from her friends until she could make a map and transmit it to the others. There were seven Yuan Yuan total, and one had fallen… Right on top of them.

    They had half a second of reaction time before the door to their bunker exploded inwards and a large figure stormed in. The man was muscle on top of muscle, carrying an oversized gun that looked as wicked as it looked impractical.

    “Surprise, bitches!”

    His voice echoed like a war horn in the small, cramped bunker. That high powered shotgun would turn them into mincemeat, and he raised it with a wide grin on his huge, bearded face, his finger going for the trigger…

    Jack tackled him in, bodily lifting the large man and slamming him against the wall of the bunker, knocking his gun out of his hands. He was big, but she was taller and wearing power armor, her artificial muscles whirring and glowing yellow as she punched him in the face, breaking his cheekbone.

    The man drew out a large, curved sword from his hip, the blade thrumming with power as he swung it at the amazon. His blade skid across her forearm armor, sparking off her suit as she drew out her Bowie knife. It lacked the shiny energy glow of a more advanced weapon, but the bluish blade was pure, Ariadna mined Teseum. It was all but unbreakable.

    High tech, subsonic vibrating sword met fine USAriadna steel in a quick clash as Jack deflected his blows, driving the large Yuan Yuan off her and kneeing him in the gut. He staggered, drawing a pistol and shooting the tall blonde on her armored stomach twice, the bullets flattening onto her armorweave and failing to penetrate.

    The Yuan Yuan dashed at Jack again, but just as they clashed blades one more time, a pair of cyan armored hands wrapped around his mouth, grabbing him from behind. RD pulled his struggling body in against her chest, locking her own artificial muscles around his neck. She stood motionless, letting him struggle and claw at her glowing arms as she twisted his neck until she heard a crack.

    The punk kept twisting the Yuan Yuan’s neck until he stopped moving on her arms. She casually tossed him aside when he stopped moving, letting his dead body land face down on a heap next to the destroyed bunker door.

    “We don’t have time for this.”

    RD practically snarled, then looked at Butterfly, who was still busy taking care of the diva’s many wounds. Outside the now exposed bunker, smoke started to blanket the whole hangar as grenades came out from unseen angles, the remaining Yuan Yuan tossing them from out of the Main Six’ very short viewpoints.

    “They’re trying to smoke us out, Rho.” Pinkie groaned as black smoke spread across the hangar. “Djanbanzans have Multispectral Visors, right?”

    “So do we.” Jewel groaned, holding her own chest with her good hand. “But theirs are better. We’re going to light up like Christmas on their sights.”

    “Fuck that noise.” RD snarled again “Butterfly, can you and Jewel stay here? We’re gonna make a run for it.”

    “Are you crazy?!”

    Butterfly stood up wiping her bloodied hands on her white skirt. For now all she had to do was to keep watching Jewel’s vitals, and her Comlog could do that. The Daks looked out of the bunker’s viewslits, seeing only black smoke everywhere.

    “Didn’t you hear what she said, RD? The moment you step out of this box they’ll have you dead to rights! That’s insane! We’re stuck here until the smoke clears.”

    “Yeah, but… What about Twilight? She’s still in tha’ ship, right? If we take too long ta get ta her the Hollow Sands will.”

    “Besides…” Pinkie put a hand to her chin as if she were thinking really hard “Aren’t the Yuan Yuan everywhere on the port? If we stay put they’ll corner us before the smoke clears. We’re trapped, like rats.”

    The pink armored girl even made a little gnawing sound, her fingers crooked like little claws as she mimicked rats chewing on something.

    Jack was not looking at her friend to see her little mimicry. The amazon had her eyes focused on the battlefield, her gun resting on her shoulder, her muscles, the real ones, taut and tense as as her visor tried to adjust to the shifting vision conditions, blinking and pinging as smoke kept billowing in her sight.

    “Hang on, sugahcube. Ah think Ah got an idea…”

    Jack pushed the viewport open, peeking outside and hopefully making the enemy pick up her heat signature. It was a gamble, a damn dangerous one too, but they were running out of options as it was...

    A gunshot slammed the viewport, just an inch away from the amazon’s face. She grinned behind her visor, shouldering her heavy gun again. Behind her, Jewel was also grinning as she commanded her suit to triangulate the sounds and muzzle flash, plotting a firing solution that was relayed back to the blonde, the location of the shooter pinpointed even within the smoke.

    Jack’s heels dug in, and she remembered to yell “Ease!” Before firing. The girls around her opened their mouths to relieve pressure in their heads as a missile streaked off the tube launcher. Then another. And a third. And a fourth.

    Jack only waited long enough for her gun to cycle before firing again. “Ease!” she kept calling out, each shot bucking on her shoulder but she held it on. The pressure and heat inside the bunker was almost unbearable. “Ease!” another missile streaked off, leaving mouths parched and ears ringing on its wake.

    At the watchtower, Djanbanzan Sameer Barat cursed as his shot flew wild. He had the blonde one on his sights for a second, but then she was gone, back behind the armored bunker. Of course, with the smoke cover he could just watch and wait, as either the Yuan Yuan would close around the Riot Grrls or they’d try to push out and he’d take their heads off.

    When the first missile came at him, he managed to huddle behind the armored bulwark and take the bucking impact. He smirked at the audacity of that shot, and put his head back up to keep watch. That was then the second missile hit the tower and Sameer lowered his head behind the armored walls again, only for a third missile to shake the whole building up.

    Bakunin construction was sturdy, but the hammerblows of the missiles were taking their toll. At the fourth impact, one section of the wall buckled in and exploded in thick shrapnel, a shard the size of Sameer’s hand embedding into his point man’s throat. When the fifth missile hit the tower, it hit the team’s heavy machinegunner almost dead on, the man exploding in a cloud of pink mist and bloody chunks.

    The sixth missile took the tower out. Sameer watched in shock as the reinforced supports gave in under so much bucking, half melting and collapsing in a fiery bloom. He tumbled out, falling face first towards the metal floor. His body hit the ground with a sickening crunch, and the tower came down on top of him.

    “That takes care of tha Djanwhatevahs.” Jack dropped her now out of ammo missile launcher on the floor. “Let’s go save Twilight”

    Without a word, Jewel kicked her combi-rifle towards the amazon, who picked it up and checked the sights and ammo feed. RD peeked outside the bunker, then nodded at Pinkie, who took point in an enthusiastic run.

    Her pink suit lit up, neon glowing in the smoke as she ran off, the punk and the amazon behind her, guns at the ready too. Behind her visor, Pinkie had a humongous grin, her ear sensors twitching and pinging out as she led the way towards the loading ramp.
    __________________________________________________________

    Twilight huddled behind a crate, shotgun held to her chest. Her visor was pinging and blinking with all kinds of warnings, showing the results of her little bout with an enemy hacker. She had managed to fry their brains out with her own counter hacking, but not before having her comms cut off and isolated.

    Alone, surrounded by enemies, she looked at her Tinbot. Spike was silent, her little head filled with so much dangerous, stolen information. That bot was worth more than Twilight herself right now... The thought made her chuckle.

    “What would a brave woman like RD do in this situation?” She thought, giggling to herself as she broke cover “Charge!”

    Her suit powered up, neon purple lights shining as she dove between two crates. She dove under a blast of superheated metal that passed an inch away from her back plates before coming up again and seeing the two Yuan Yuan stalking up the loading ramp. Her shotgun made that satisfying *click, clack* again before she took the nearest one out, ripping a melon sized hole out of his chest.

    The second one opened up with an armor piercing rifle, and she banked to the side, dodging the burst with less than a hair’s breadth to spare. Pulling out a flash bang, she tossed it in a low arc, the blinking cylinder landing at the Yuan Yuan’s feet.

    Visor down, Twilight dashed in as the grenade went off, her vision protected from the blinding flash. She planted her high heeled armored boot on his stomach before putting her pistol to his temple, shooting until she saw pink mist come out the other side.

    “Twilight?!”

    A voice came from behind her, and the purple armored girl turned around in time to see a white armored woman come down the loading ramp. Her blue hair was impeccable, and she held a combi-rifle with underslung E/M launcher across her chest in a perfect military stance. Her visor was down, ear sensors twitching around.

    “Jewel?! Phew. Where’s the rest of the girls?”

    “They’re coming. They’re stuck with the Djanbanzan fireteam, but I managed to move around the ship and come up an access shaft. Put the gun down, Twilight, let’s get out of here.”

    Twilight looked at her friend up and down. Her armor was pristine, just like her file picture. But, if she had been in a fight, there should have been scorch marks, bullet impacts, anything... Twilight knew Jewel was usually not the first one in a shootout, but she seldom would simply not take part in it.

    “Ah. Okay… Aham, Jewel… I’m sorry, but I let their hacker fry my comms. You’ll have to rebuild the whole system from scratch.”

    She sounded really dejected at the idea too, knowing how much her friend loved their suits and how much trouble it would be to replace the damaged systems, especially considering how Twilight’s suit had been modified to allow her to carry a built in hacking device.

    “It’s okay, dear. I can do that later. Don’t worry, I’m here now.”

    Twilight raised her gun, pointing it at Jewel’s chest.

    “No. You’re not.”

    She shot the diva two times in the chest, shredding her waist and letting the woman drop dead on the floor. As she hit the metal ramp, her body flicked, and soon there was a Haqqislamite wearing a complex jumpsuit and facemask on the ground, her guts exposed from the high powered shots. Damn holoprojectors.

    Turning around, Twilight dashed down the ramp just in time to meet her friends, as the trio of Pinkie, RD and Jack came up from her right. They looked battered, their suits scorched and chipped, and Jack had Jewel’s gun on her hands.

    “Hey Twilight! We found you!”

    Pinkie laughed as she hugged her friend, squeezing her tight despite the armor. The other two women kept their watch, the smoke around them giving some respite, but they weren’t about to let their guard down.

    “Come on, girls, you can do that later!” RD called out, motioning for them to head out “Let’s go get Butterfly and Jewel and get off here before the Moderators show up.”

    They all nodded, just waiting for Spike to wobble down the ramp before Twilight picked the bot up, cradling her like a baby. The group stormed off back to the bunker, Pinkie at the lead, Jack and RD at the flanks and Twilight in between them where she’d be better protected.
    ____________________________________________________________________

    They arrived at the supply bunker to see Jewel standing up, even if her legs felt weak and trembled slightly. There was another Yuan Yuan glued to the wall, and one of Butterfly’s adhesive grenades was missing, but no one wasted time talking about it..

    There was a quick exchange of hugs and greetings before they left the bunker, taking a maintenance hatch out of the Hollow Sands hangar. This time RD took point, her compact weapon better suited for close quarters.

    Jewel would spend the rest of the trip complaining about either the state of Twilight’s suit, or the smell of the maintenance hatch, or how much her legs hurt and if Jack would be a darling and pick her up. Eventually, the amazon relented, and ended up carrying the NeoTerran diva on a piggyback ride all the way back to their home in Beauvoir.

    Leading the group, RD turned to Pinkie, the two women closer to the front to keep the rest of the group safe.

    “You know, I just realized… What if that biker babe was working for the Hollow Sands too?”

    Pinkie laughed out loud, whistling and shrugging.

    “That’s gonna be awkward.”

    Pinkie’s giggling just showed how relieved she was, glad they were safe despite all being quite battered. Butterfly walked close to Jack so she could keep Jewel’s vitals on monitor for the whole trip, worried but believing the worse had passed. As for Twilight herself, she was satisfied.

    Saleem AlQadir had been waiting for a Hexaedron operative that was going to use him as a way out of Bakunin. Now said operative was trapped in the Mothership. With nowhere to escape, it was time the Main Six hunted him down.

    END
     
    #22 DaRedOne, Apr 1, 2018
    Last edited: Apr 24, 2018
  3. DaRedOne

    DaRedOne Morat Warrior Philosopher
    Warcor

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    Hi guys! New chapter in.

    I am The Law

    Slicer was a Bakunin Moderator, which meant he wasn’t paid for this shit. He wasn’t paid to huddle behind his patrol car while steady and relentless gunfire rattled against the vehicle’s plating. And he definitely wasn’t paid to watch his team die all around him.

    The visored Moderator held a Spitfire Light Machinegun to his heaving chest, his breath ragged and painful as he looked one way and another, screaming at his hacker when he noticed she was huddled next to him, clutching her bleeding stomach.

    “Where’s the fire support?”

    Like most of his team, the hacker was too busy trying not to die to answer back. They had attempted to storm the house across the street, but had been met with a violent burst of retaliating fire that ended with the hacker heavily wounded. But a gaping, bleeding stomach wound was nothing compared to the unlucky Moderator who was left sprawled across the street, his white armor stained red and his green skin slowly turning pale as he laid dead.

    “Damn! Get me Msizi here!”

    Slicer stood up, pulling his gun up to his shoulder and unleashing a hail of suppressive fire at… No one, really. He couldn’t see the shooters across the streets, just the dark windows of what was supposed to be an illegal drug lab. Not even the muzzle flash of their guns could be seen, and Slicer was pissed off that they had vanished so easily.

    At his call, a dark furred cat lady sprinted across from the other patrol car, running on her fours to keep her profile low before she hit the pavement next to the bleeding hacker. The catgirl opened up her Comlog, already running a diagnosis before the Moderator barked at her.

    “Can you bring her back, Msizi?”

    “Kutomba wewe! Let me do my job, shoga! Shut up.”

    Slicer grinned behind his visor, chuckling at the doctor’s filthy mouth. That was good, too, Daktaris were known for working way better when they were spouting more swear words than a drunken sailor.

    “I love you too, hun. But I need her up and running. We need reinforcements fast.”

    There was a buzz on his ear and the Moderator fell back behind his patrol car, snarling once more. He put his hand to his ear, opening up the channel to the Jurisdictional Command and bringing up a very happy, pixie like face to his VR vision. It was hard to keep a big, sharp grin from showing on his chapped lips when he saw that pretty pink face.

    “Slicer! Good news: I got you reinforcements. There’s a SWAST unit on the way right now.”

    “Oh, Puckie, my dear, you’re an angel. Who are you sending?”

    “Luna.”

    Slicer’s grin widened as he gripped his gun a little harder. Next to him, a string of Swahili curses signalled the Daktaris was about to finish her job. Slicer’s visor seemed to glint with newfound excitement at the news, his sharp teeth showing as he nodded back to the Communications officer.

    “Ooh, praise Mary.” He snickered in irony “These fuckers are gonna wish they had surrendered. Thanks, Puckie.”

    “No big deal, Slicer. Good luck, keep your head down!”

    Slicer nodded, closing the comm feed and looking back over to the rest of his squad. His point man was lying dead on the street while his hacker was getting her guts sewn back in by the Daks. Behind the next car, he could see his sniper put her gun across the hood and take a couple shots at nowhere, and next to her another Moderator was loading a repeater into the underslung barrel of his rifle. The sounds of gunfire were so loud he had to scream to be heard.

    “Brace yourselves, boys and girls! We’ve got SWAST coming in!”

    It didn’t take long for the black armored grav truck to arrive, humming as it floated a few centimeters off the ground. It banked to a halt in between the two patrol cars, attracting a sudden hail of gunshots that rattled uselessly on the truck’s armored plates as it came to a halt. Once the grav engine died down, the armored side door opened up, hissing when pressurized air met artificial atmosphere.

    The first thing to come out of the oversized black truck was a large, spider-like Salyut zond, the machine equipped with an EVO hacking device, its antenna pinging out as it moved in a lazy gait. The lumbering machine had the large bags on its back filled with extra medical supplies and ammunition, both of those very welcome to the battered Moderator team.

    Behind the Salyut remote came a larger, heavily armored Lunokhod, its bulky chassis a reinforced version of the Salyut, with much more armor and weaponry stacked on top of the four legged frame. Lunokhods were usually equipped with a pair of heavy shotguns and underslung flamethrowers, the kind of heavy ordnance perfect for the cramped spaces of a building.

    Someone was about to hit the drug lab with the force of an angry god.

    Goddess would be more accurate. As the black armored woman stepped out of the truck, her remotes scuttled to the side to let her pass through. She stood a good three meters tall inside her suit, the superheavy Taskmaster armor painted black and blue instead of the usual white and orange of the Bakunin Jurisdictional Command. She held no weapons, but Slicer knew that suit was bristling with firepower just waiting to be unleashed. It was hard not to grin at it.

    “Sergeant Slicer?”

    The woman had jet black hair, a long braid falling around her armored neck as she stomped next to him. Her face was stern, locked in a pissed off scowl as her tapered ears twitched in disgust when she looked down at him, measuring him up with her cold gaze. Slicer was as tall as her chest, so he had to crane his head up to look her in the eyes.

    “Lieutenant Luna, ma’am” Slicer saluted lazily “Thanks for the relief.”

    “You’re welcome.” her grin was small, confident and showing perfect white teeth “What’s the situation?”

    “Drug bust gone bad, ma’am. We barely had the chance to get off the cars when they opened up with some light machinegun. Unknown number of hostiles, possibly heavy armor too.”

    Luna nodded as she took a step back into the armored truck, quickly coming back out of it with a sleek, wicked looking gun held on her armored hands. A ‘Red Fury’ light machinegun, the design stolen from the Morat Forces a few years back. It had a large ammo drum beneath the sleek barrel, and the muzzle glowed a menacing red as the heavy fingers of the Taskmaster suit worked the rack, loading a sliver of liquid metal into the chamber.

    “I’m going in with the rem as backup. You stay here, keep my EVO safe and your men alive. If anything happens to me, scorch the place.”

    Her suit’s helmet closed around her face, replacing Luna’s elegant feminine visage with the smooth black, featureless face of the Taskmaster. The horns at the back of her head unfolded out, glowing silver as the sensor suite inside them activated. Artificial muscles lit up in neon silver light all over the bulky black suit, working to move its immense weight with deceptive agility. As she passed by Slicer’s admittedly awed face, he got a good look at her shoulder plate and the crescent moon symbol she worn with a little too much pride there.

    “Willco. They killed one of my men. Give ‘em hell, ma’am.”

    Slicer chuckled and let the Taskmaster do her thing. Luna walked in a casual stride, stopping to stand unmoving in front of her assault car as her voice was amplified by her suit’s boom vox.

    “Attention, criminals! I am Lieutenant Luna of the Special Weapons and Suppressive Tactics. You have been found in violation of the Social Energy and are now deemed a danger to the Mothership. Surrender peacefully and you will be offered a fair, peer reviewed, trial.”

    Gunfire opened up from everywhere along the house, bullets pinging off Luna’s armored suit, hitting the reinforced plates with no apparent effect. The black and blue monstrosity that was the Taskmaster began moving again in an unhurried gait, slowly breaking into a stride towards the house, resistance be damned.

    Luna lowered her head behind her heavily armored shoulder and started to run. Ironshod feet thundered into the paved floor, boots digging in as everywhere across the dilapidated house the perps kept firing their weapons, guns of all sizes and makes blazing out in a frenzy at the superheavy suit.

    Behind her helmet, Luna grinned. The shots rattled on her suit, but her armor was holding steadily. Her hand on the Red Fury’s grip stayed firm, her other arm curled in a shielding position as she took on the fire. There was a door on the house, but she wasn’t aiming for it.

    The sight of a superheavy suit, three meters tall and weighing more than a ton, breaking through the metal wall as if it were tissue paper was enough to soil several breeches. Debris and shattered plaster ran down around her oversized, black frame as she whipped around, pulling her long gun up and firing in a wide, arcing move to draw as much attention as she could to herself.

    The drug lab was staffed by what looked like an organized gang. They all wore black and red colors, and the symbol on their lapels was from a Tunguskan syndicate. Two of the drug runners opened up with shotguns, but a quick sweep of Luna’s alien weapon tore their throats and chests up, sending the two men flailing to their deaths as the Taskmaster trundled on through the small corridors.

    Panicked screaming and chaos followed in her wake, the ganbangers trying to set up choke points, even funnelling her advance with heavy machinegun fire. Luna turned a corner, coming face to face with a gun nest improvised with a metal table and what looked like an old Tunguska-made heavy gun. Three men manned it, one gunner, one feeder and a guy with a heavy pistol.

    The black arm of the Taskmaster raised up and a tiny, barely visible, sliver opened on her wrist as she fired a single, searing blast of the ‘roomclearer’ Pulzar flare. Another piece of stolen alien tech, the cloud of fast acting viruses ate up flesh, tearing muscle and sinew apart until the three men were reduced to puddles, their equipment left mostly intact.

    Luna kept moving on, unfazed by the increasingly diminishing resistance. She eventually reached the drug labs, the perps working to clean out their chemicals before the oversized suit burst in through another wall.

    Destroyed sections of the plasteel walls rained around her as she raked her machinegun across the lab, breaking glass and causing several miniature explosions where unstable chemicals met the refined atmosphere of the ship. Nothing could stop the Taskmaster once it got rolling, or at least nothing the gang had on hand.

    Or at least Luna had thought so before things got interesting. Across the lab, she saw a shadow move in, its large, bulky frame blocking the doorway out of the laboratory. It stood three meters tall, hissing slightly as ammo drums on its back cycled fast to feed the boxy rifle on its hand. The colors even matched Luna’s suit: black and red to her black and blue.

    “Hey, pig!” The armored figure raised its huge gun “Guess you weren’t expecting this, yes?”

    The Kriza Borac superheavy suit was a Tunguska product. Just as armored as a Taskmaster, but much less subtle, the suit was little more than armor plates on top of artificial musculature and as much ammunition as they could get. This one clearly had a MULTI-Rifle, and Luna was not willing to measure her own suit’s ability to stop armor piercing rounds.

    She rolled to the side, her armor tumbling on the ground with all the elegance of a car flipping over, dodging the stream of fire coming her way. The Kriza fired in impossibly high rates, its unrelenting fire cutting through steel and reinforced plascrete like a knife through butter. Luna had to keep moving, the older suit having a harder time tracking her surprisingly nimble bulk as she ran across the lab.

    The steady whine of the Kriza’s rifle was getting closer and closer as she hit a wall, crouching down to offer a harder target. The back of the Taskmaster opened up, and two Krazy Koala drones launched out with a fizz pop sound. They arced through the air shortly before landing on the ground and rolling towards the Tunguskan heavy infantry, breaking into a run after a short while.

    “Sic ‘im!”

    She pointed at the unyielding Tunguskan enforcer, directing the tiny, bear shaped drones to attack him. Krazy Koalas were made to kill unarmored targets, no way they’d do more than inconvenience the superheavy suit. The first one exploded against his raised arm, then the second hugged his chest and detonated loudly, taking out a section of the nearest wall with it.

    The Kriza took a step back, dazzled but still going. The wall collapsed next to him, but he shoved his way past the debris, his oversized gun held in one hand as the other cleared a path. Suit sensors weren’t picking up the Taskmaster anymore, and he swept his visor from side to side to find the black armored bitch.

    “Stupid pig”

    The enforcer said in a muffled breath, turning his head to the side and pushing a block of half wrecked plaster out of the way. He barely had time to react as a fist the size of a football burst out of the wall next to him, hitting his armored face with the force of a gunshot. The impact rung across the destroyed lab as two giants smashed against each other, black metal on black metal grinding as the Taskmasted came at him, punching over and over again.

    One hand gripped the Kriza’s chestplate, fingers digging in between the hard metal and the flexible armorweave while the other swung at the face, jackhammer punches ringing every time mailed fist met hardened face plate. This close, the Bakunin made suit was faster and more agile, but just as strong, and each hammerblow impact dazzled the wearer even if the suit itself was left mostly undamaged.

    Luna growled, her fingers grabbing the black and red suit’s neck, digging in until she heard a crunch where the metal muscles gave in under pressure. She roared as she lifted the superheavy armor up, her own metal arms straining under the force, their glowing neon silver fibers almost snapping before she slammed the Kriza through a wall, tossing him bodily onto a chemicals table.

    “Let’s do this, хуи́ло!”

    Luna had learned how to curse in several languages of the Human Sphere just for moments like this. Her ability to spew insults in the attacker’s own language was often enough to rile them up, make them fume with anger... And an angry, unfocused opponent was one easily taken out.

    She drew out a long, elegant straight sword. The weapon lit up, glowing deep blue as she lunged at the other armored beast, swinging in a short, underhanded blow. Once more the suits connected in a violent clang of metal on metal, but this time Luna’s blade was stabbing hard in between the soft belly weave of the Kriza suit.

    They tumbled along the lab, two huge metal monsters slamming fists on each other, the Taskmaster’s blade stabbing in between joints and armor plates, steadily eating out, drawing blood with every other attack, stripping off coolant fluid, artificial musculature, flesh and bone, anything it could find and stab into. Little by little she was killing the huge Tunguskan enforcer.

    The Kriza knew he was dead. He didn’t feel any pain by this point, but his body was slowing down, but he didn’t want to give up yet. Grimacing beneath his armor’s cracked face plate, the big man reached for the heavy sidearm on his thigh, pulling it out to press the oversized barrel to the Taskmaster’s smooth face.

    “Die, pig!”

    The sound of the pistol shot rang loudly on the cramped corridor, but the first impact stopped on the armor plate. The second shot ripped it off, taking half the helmet and one of the officer’s eyes with it. Luna roared in painful rage, her face locked in a berserker growl, completely unfazed by the bleeding as she spat a wad of gore on the Kriza’s armored face.

    “Not today, cyka”

    Were the last words the Kriza operator heard before a final stab took the lights off his eyes. Luna stood up, her face bleeding and half her helmet gone. She heard footsteps behind her, and turned around to look at two more drug runners coming at her. They had guns at the ready, but the SWAST officer just snarled at them while drawing one of her own heavy pistols in a smooth move.

    “What do you want written on your gravestone, punk?”

    The two men looked at the hellish hag in front of them: one eye a black, bleeding void, her teeth bloodied and clenched hard enough to show her gums. She should be in tremendous, body wracking pain, but her arm was steady, the oversized barrel of her pistol pointed straight at the first of them.

    Both criminals dropped their weapons, raising their hands as quickly as they could. One of them let out a loud breath as the other shook in place.

    “‘Death of old age’, ma’am! We surrender!”
    __________________________________________________

    Celeste had a wide smile as she waded through the tables of the SWAST Command, and several officers gave way to the big woman as she passed by them. Her size was intimidating enough, but those who knew the blonde also knew how dangerous her smiles tended to be. Eventually she got to her table, sitting down to look at the raven haired woman who sat across her.

    “Hi Lulu!”

    Luna had a cigar between her lips and seemed to be busy typing away on a holoscreen, but when she raised her head to look at her sister, Celeste gasped in shock.

    “What happened to your eye?!”

    “Drug bust. Perps got a little agitated.”

    Celeste frowned at the answer, taking a moment to look at the holoscreen and read it up. The biggest advantage of a holoscreen was that it was impossible to hide what was being seen on it, so most offices employing them had a sharp increase in productivity. The report Luna was typing spoke of a rather violent, if short, altercation in a drug lab.

    “Sixteen arrests, ten deaths, eight wounded…” Celeste read it out loud “A Kriza Borac? What kind of drug dealer has a superheavy suit?”

    Luna stopped typing, taking her cigar off her lips and dabbing the burning tip on the nearest ashtray. Her face had been cleaned and the wound cauterized, but the black void where her left eye should have been was unnerving to look at. It did help the raven haired woman’s snarl sound even more intimidating, though.

    “The kind that’s backed by the Tunguskan Mafyia. Come on, Elly, what do you want?”

    “I’m sorry, I can’t focus on anything with the fact your eye is missing! How are you not in the hospital right now?”

    Luna scoffed, shrugging her shoulders as she put her cigar back to her lips.

    “It’s just an eye. I have a spare.” She snickered, then put her tongue out as if it was some cute joke “Besides, I’m so high on painkillers right now, I feel like I could fly around the ship like a cute little fairy.”

    Celeste groaned, looking at her sister’s cigar, then at the black hole on her face. She shuddered, shaking her head and raising a hand. However, before she could say anything, Luna kept on.

    “I promise I’ll go get a new eye as soon as I finish my shift, okay? Now, what do you want, Elly?”

    The blonde nodded in reluctance before tapping her own terminal, quickly sending a file across the table to her sister. Luna swiped her unfinished report to the side, saving it before opening the new file up and groaning when she saw it was a series of profiles on some Beauvoir hags.

    “Oh, come on!” She rolled her eye at the words and pictures floating in front of her “I know this one here: Dmitry. Oh, and Ventura too… And Tejano… These girls are criminals, Elly.”

    “Yes. Now read where the Jurisdictional Command is sending them to next week.”

    Luna kept scrolling the file down until she found the part about them being deployed by the Jurisdictional Command to aid in the Japanese Uprising. Yu Jing. Her eye widened, and she quickly tapped the holoscreen closed before leaning in, making her sister twist her nose both at the smell of her cigar and the big, gaping mess that was Luna’s face.

    “You want to send them after that B4CKDOOR lady, right?”

    Celeste managed to grin despite the smell of high quality tobacco making her want to cough. She leaned in closer, lowering her voice to an almost whisper.

    “Not exactly. I know Legion has a contact in Yu Jing, some PanO bloke selling weapons to the Japanese. I was thinking we could get him, and then we find the bitch. However, if we step off the ship, she’ll know we’re going after him.”

    “So you want to send some random group of Riots, make her look the other way.” Luna smirked “Clever. But these harpies aren’t gonna follow you, Elly. Not these three here: Dmitry and Ventura hate the Command with a passion, and Goldstein is never going to trust you either.”

    Celeste nodded, leaning back as the conversation got more casual again.

    “Which is why I’m going to browbeat them. It seems Twilight used to study in Tunguska, and we have just arrested a massive drugs operation in Vaudeville, and oh, look: they’re Tunguskan too!”

    “You’re a bitch, Elly.”

    Celeste’s grin was so large, she could have bit off a piece of the office table.

    “Yes. And that’s why I need you. I’m pretty sure they’ll get pissed off when I approach them. I need a bodyguard.”

    Luna smirked back at her sister, chewing on her cigar while opening the files again, reading up on them. She nodded a few times, then turned to her sister.

    “Fine. I’ll go with you. Suit up?”

    Celeste gasped, showing her open arms as if her younger sister had pointed a gun at her.

    “Good God, no! Civilian clothes. We’ll go once the expedient is finished. Oh, and Lulu?”

    “What?”

    “Put on an eyepatch, at least. You’re freaking me out.”
    ___________________________________________________

    Twilight smiled as she closed her laptop, just in time to get one of the beer mugs RD was bringing for her and the group. The cyan armored Riot was all smiles when they shared a toast. They all raised their mugs at once, four mugs of beer, one glass of wine and one of orange juice, all held in five armored hands and one that was just wearing the white gloves of a Daktaris.

    “To the Main Six!”

    “To the Japanese Freedom!”

    “To one hell of a fight!”

    Around the table, the five girls stopped and looked at Pinkie, who was still grinning wide, her eyes fixed on her foamy beer mug as she held it up. Eyebrows were raised before the poofy haired one giggled and shrugged.

    “What? Come on! You guys know it’s gonna go bad, right? Have you seen the news? The ISS is going full on boot to the face on them Japanese folk.”

    Twilight frowned, putting her mug to the table and leaning in to explain to her friend why they weren’t just going to travel across the Human Sphere to pick a fight with one of the best equipped armies of the known universe. The purple haired hacker groaned loudly, drawing Pinkie’s attention.

    “Yes, and that’s why we need to focus on giving them aid. We’re not going there to shoot up some ISS soldiers. We need to show the Japanese that the Nomad Nations support their independence so they might consider allying to us in the future. This isn’t about fun, Pinkie, it is about our duty as stalwart defenders of human freedom against the Hyperpowers.”

    Twilight’s solemn words were interrupted by a loud burp next to her. She groaned even louder, turning to a bored looking RD who just waved a dismissive hand.

    “Oh, leave the politics bullcrap for the politicians, Twi. We’re grunts, we’re gonna go down there and shoot shit up.” She punched her palm “I’m dying to see if those Su Jian are all that shit. Pretty sure I can nail one.”

    “Just imagine what we could do if we managed to steal one!” Jewel could barely mask the excitement on her face as she gestured with her wine glass “Su Jian are the bleeding edge in automated infantry. So much could be learned from them.”

    “Are tha Su Jians tha transformers ones? Tha big lion thingies?”

    Twilight sighed loudly. She rubbed her temple as her friends began discussing Imperial Secret Service gear and equipment, groaning as once more her worries about freedom and the Beauvoir cause were brushed aside for a desire to shoot things up. At least the beer was cold, and she focused on it, swirling the drink before taking a sip.

    “Twilight?”

    A shadow was cast on their table, and the deep contralto voice speaking her name gave the young hacker pause. She turned on her chair to watch as two very tall and muscular women sat down in front of her. Her brains instantly went into alert as she noticed the tapered ears, the colorful eyes, the smooth skin that surely was reinforced with subcutaneous armorweave.

    ‘Ohshitohshiohshtohshit…’ Her mind kept going on. Those two were Jurisdictional Command for sure, but they weren’t the Reverend Custodier who had been assigned as caretaker for her team during the Yu Jing mission. This was some other thing, and by the fact those big women were in casual civilian attire instead of Jurisdictional Command uniforms, it was probably not a good thing.

    “Yes? I’m Twilight. Who are you?”

    Her hands started to shake, and she put them to her lap in an attempt to make them stop. Her shaking was what called her friends’ attention, as they had already learned to notice when their leader was getting ready for some dangerous situation. Slowly, all across the table, eyes started to turn.

    “I’m Celeste, this is Luna.” The taller of the two, the blonde one, spoke “We’re here to talk about your time in Tunguska.”

    All eyes on the table were focused on the two large women by now. Everyone knew Twilight had graduated Social Sciences with emphasis on Feminist History on a Tunguskan University. Everyone had also seen the news about a Tunguskan Drug Lab being bust open by the SWAST earlier. It wasn’t hard to put two and two together.

    “That’s bullshit!”

    RD got up, kicking her chair as she balled both fists, already snarling at the two women. Next to her, Jewel pushed her chair back, and Jack repeated the gesture as Pinkie and Butterfly just stared in a mix of shock and fear.

    “Nach unten, buttenschleck!”

    The black haired woman sitting behind the bigger blonde grinned at the punk, turning to look at her and finally showing the eyepatch over her left eye that had so far been hidden under her smooth black hair. RD was fuming now, cheeks red as she took the insult spewed at her like hot lead.

    “What did you say, you one eyed bitch?”

    “Ich sagte, Sie sind ein inkompetent, übermäßig dramatische, bubi”

    The raven haired woman smirked, almost daring the punk to come at her, and RD was quick to take the bait. Her suit whirred as it powered up, and the rainbow haired Riot charged in, swinging her fist at the still seated woman.

    Luna stood up in a single, fluid motion as RD’s armored fist came at her. She deflected the punch aside with a casual swat of her open palm, using the punk’s own momentum against her to drive RD’s arm along an arcing move. The Riot Grrl armor was strong, but even unarmored Luna could match it in raw physical power, her enhanced muscles flexing as she forced the punk’s arm to extend out in a painful armbar.

    The SWAST lieutenant held a groaning RD with one arm outstretched, gripping the cyan armored hand and twisting it until she heard a crack. Then she twisted harder, the armor glowing bright green where artificial muscles fought against enhanced human strength. There was a snap, finally drawing a painful howl out of the punk’s curled, grimacing lips.

    “FUCK! My wrist! She broke my wrist!” RD’s eyes were wide, less in pain and more in shocked surprise as the big woman ignored her suit completely.

    “I’m gonna break a lot more if you don’t stand down, you cute little Büchsenmasseuse.”

    Luna smirked again, holding the punk’s arm and daring her friends to say or do anything else with one mean glare from her single eye. She nodded at her sister, who continued talking as if there was no struggling Riot Grrl a few centimeters away from her.

    “Anyone else?”

    Celeste asked, grinning as she looked around the remaining five women, her grin growing wider, more confident as they seemed to cower back in a mix of awe and fear. She noticed as hands went to pistol grips, the four remaining armored women clearly figuring out fast that they couldn’t just rely on their hand-to-hand prowess against those two amazons.

    “Nah nah nah.” Celeste wagged her finger in a teasing gesture “I wouldn’t do that, ladies. Here’s what would play out: First, I would thrust my open palm against miss Tejano’s face, breaking her nose before she could draw her sidearm; meanwhile, my sister here would finish breaking miss Dmitry’s arm and toss her on top of miss Applebuck to knock both of them down. That would leave the gorgeous scion of house Goldstein back there to draw her gun and shoot me in the chest or face while miss Ventura would take a couple shots at my sister.”

    The use of their given names was a calculated step. It showed that Celeste knew who she was dealing with, while the girls were completely blind. It was unnerving, the tension enough to make them second guess their actions.

    There was a hiss of breaths being sucked in, as each girl could imagine exactly that same scene playing out in their heads. They didn’t draw their weapons, instead keeping eyes trained on the two large women. Their grips did not leave their guns, though, so Celeste knew she had to convince them to quit their attack with her next words, or she’d have a very large fight breaking out.

    “Now, I am not doubting the effectiveness of your aim. Even though miss Ventura is not exactly a sharpshooter, I know from her records back at NeoTerra that miss Goldstein is. So, let’s assume she would hit me square on the forehead. That would do all of… Nothing, really. As you have figured out…” Celeste made her tapered ears twitch “We are chimeras. Reinforced bones, denser muscles. Naked we are as well armored as you are, and those pistols are not rated to penetrate combat armor.”

    Twilight was the first to groan as Jewel’s visor came down, running a quick scan and confirming that yes, the two women were fitted with enough subcutaneous armor to make an ALEPH aspect feel inadequate. In fact, given their statuesque sizes and painfully gorgeous, and fake, looks, Jewel would hazard they were actually converted Asuras. She’d never get to prove that theory though.

    “She’s right, Twilight. We’d need heavy weapons to hurt them before they leveraged their strength and martial training against us.”

    Another row of sighs and groans sounded out as the women let out their breaths, but did not release their guns. Luna twisted RD’s arm a little bit more, making the punk groan in pain as her sister raised a finger again, leaning forward to grin while drawing out a heavy looking pistol. It was obscenely large, looking more like a cut down rifle than a pistol.

    “And this. This is rated to pulp a light power suit like yours. So trust me when I say this isn’t a fight you can win, ladies. Lucky for you, we aren’t here to fight.”

    Celeste’s words, her shameless boasting, were the kind of thing Twilight hated about any authority figure: the blonde bitch had power, she knew it, and she was going to abuse it shamelessly to get what she wanted. The thought that not even her beloved Mothership was free of this kind of people made the purple haired hacker’s stomach churn.

    “Fine. I’m sure you’re not here to arrest me, there’s no armed response team on the door. So what’s the deal, Celeste?”

    Celeste smirked, leaning back on her chair and nodding as she knew she had the girls listening now.

    “It’s simple. You girls are going to Yu Jing in a week. I want you to either capture or rip off the cube of a specific man, then bring him or his cube to me. Don’t ask why, I’ll just send the files over to you later and you do it.”

    “What if we say no?”

    “Then I arrest you all for helping a Tunguskan crime syndicate, trash your Social Energy records, and ensure that none of you will ever be useful again as anything other than fodder for the Black Labs.”

    Twilight gasped. She knew her friends had criminal records, she herself had some from her time as a researcher for a company that turned out to be a Black Labs front. But they were citizens, soldiers, they had all more than earned their share in the Bakunin Social Energy. That this horrible woman could so easily threaten them like that was revolting.

    “I have no involvement with any Tunguskan crime. You can’t-”

    “She can.” Jewel sighed, shaking her head “I’ve seen it happen before. Not here, but I’ve seen it. I’m not eager to exchange the oppression of one tyrant for another… But I’m sure she could do it, Twi.”

    Looking at the sunken looks of her friends, Twilight also deflated, sighing loudly as she nodded. She felt like she was going to throw up any time now.

    “Fine. We’ll do it.”

    Celeste smiled, standing up and nodding to make her sister release RD. Luna shoved the punk against her friends, leaving her half laid across Jack’s lap, clutching her broken wrist. Perhaps in a moment of levity, the black haired chimera blew a kiss at them, taunting the girls one last time before she ran to join her sister.

    “You’re smart, Twilight.” Celeste grinned at the six of them “I’m sure this will be a good, fruitful partnership.”

    They left as Butterfly dashed to help a heaving Twilight, with Jack and Jewel slowly checking out on RD’s wrist. Luna stopped at the door, casting a final look at the obviously scared women before turning her back to them and walking out.

    The moment they were alone outside, the younger sister put a hand to her blonde companion’s shoulder, forcing her to slow down.

    “You… You’re not going to chew them up and spit out, right, Elly? Those ladies aren’t like the average, overly violent Beauvoir product.”

    Luna’s voice sounded genuinely worried. She had seen her sister leave too many loyal citizens of the Mothership high and dry before to just accept the whole ‘break a few eggs’ discourse. Celeste knew that, and turned to regard her sister with a stern, seething look.

    “I don’t intend to. Honestly, I’ll just get the files we need and let them do whatever the hell they usually do. I promise.”

    The black haired one frowned, not believing any of it for even a moment. She shook her head, but resumed walking, wanting to put as much distance as she could between them and the seedy bar they had met the Main Six in.

    “You’re a bitch, Elly.”

    “Yes. But someone has to be.”
    ________________________________________________________

    That had been a good two months ago. The night at that bar when Luna had helped her sister browbeat six promising young women into chasing an enemy they didn’t even know.

    The black haired SWAST officer stood alone, watching the hustle and bustle of the secondary hab dome from the humongous window of her private apartment. She had a cigar on her lips and a cup of whiskey laid untouched on her bedside drawer.

    The Main Six were the subject of her thoughts much more often than she would like to admit. Her sister had just received the cube, ripped from the now dead contact of their elusive Pan Oceanian nemesis. And in even fresher news, their conscripted Riots had just blown up a Haqqislamite mercenary company that would have extracted the so called Legion out of the ship.

    Luna scowled. Legion was such an odd name. This Hexaedron operative allegedly was selling information on Bakunin to several PanO corps… and even worse, she was selling to the Combined Army too. At least that was what her sister said, but Luna herself hadn’t met this ‘Legion’ person yet, just read the files and heard the stories.

    Her comlog buzzed and Luna just flicked her wrist to the side to make her window become a massive monitor. It lit up in blue light, showing a dark skinned, purple haired lady overlaid across the cityscape below.

    “Twilight? What’s going on? How did you get my-”

    “Observance contacts!” the young hacker interrupted a little too loudly “I don’t have time to explain. We need your help! I tried to contact Celeste but I think she’s not on the ship.”

    Luna nodded, her face locking into a deeper scowl as she put her cigar off on an ashtray.

    “She isn’t. Jurisdictional Command Business, out of your clearance.”

    “I don’t care! We need help! Someone took RD’s little sister!”

    Luna felt her fists ball up. Damn you, Eleanor, you bitch. They both knew Dmitry had adopted a street urchin a few years back. A noncombatant, a civilian, an innocent. The thought made the young Taskmaster growl like a beast. It seemed this ‘Legion’ person was real after all, and she had just asked to have a meeting with Luna’s super heavy boot.

    “Don’t worry. I’ll help.”

    END
     
    #23 DaRedOne, Apr 18, 2018
    Last edited: Apr 25, 2018
  4. Kathara_Khan

    Kathara_Khan Capricious and Whimsical

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    'Kay, finally had the time to go through it all. Definitely a fun read!

    Here's my quick "the good, the bad, and the ugly" take and impressions from the story so far
    (though going in reverse order, to end on the high notes :stuck_out_tongue:).

    The Ugly:
    The whole thing could definitely use an editing pass or two. There's some decidedly awkward phrasing in there, and some grammar slip-ups. Most egregious is the almost constant use of "on" where you should use "in", and sometimes vice-versa.

    The Bad:
    Definitely subjective here, so take with a big pinch of salt, but...
    Timeline seems a bit confused. It apparently takes place in the "now" of the setting, the Japanese uprising having just happened... Yet you have Senhor Massacre competing in Aristeia, which I'm pretty sure he doesn't do "now". At least that's the impression I get from his character description in the books. Though I might be wrong on that. 'Course, you can always say he took it up again just recently, of course. So I'm really just nitpicking. :stuck_out_tongue:
    Also, I kinda found Twilight boring, I'm sorry to say. Of all the girls, she's the one that I care for least. Which is strange, usually it's Applejack. :laughing: She kinda seems the most OOC, relative to the pony original. And she's supposed to be a hacker... Yet we have yet to see her do any interesting thing with it "on screen" as it were. The first battle against the Uhlan was especially disappointing in that regard...

    The Good:
    All the above being said? Everything else was quite good! Not the way I'd do MLP in Infinity myself (I know, 'cause I already did! :sunglasses: ), but then we had definitely different "design goals" in our approaches. And I found yours highly entertaining! Fun takes on (most) the girls, with my faves being the pitch-perfect Fluttershy, and the surprisingly technological Rarity (the most superficially canon-divergent one, and yet so fitting!)... Well, and Pinkie, but I'm terribly biased, and Pinkie is always my favorite! :yum: Rainbow with Scoot is so heartwarming, aww! And loved her "death to the patriarchy" moment! :smile: Also looking forward to more badass Luna! Good thing she had a spare eye... Though a bit of a shame she didn't keep the eyepatch. Just to mess with Celestia. :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

    Will definitely be looking forward to the next chapters! :+1:
    (Though I personally hope that, though there may be drama, it does not take a turn into grim and dark...)
     
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  5. Golem2God

    Golem2God Just a Kooky Kumotail serving others.

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    Rarity is best pony.:blush:
     
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  6. Danger Rose

    Danger Rose The Wrecking Belles

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    Even though I have Apple Jack as my personal favorite, I have to agree, Rarity is unique.
     
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  7. Golem2God

    Golem2God Just a Kooky Kumotail serving others.

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    Rarity is similar to my Italian grandmother on my father's side. They both work in the fashion industry but there are a few other instances where their personas blur together. I guess that is one of the major reasons for me liking Rarity as a character. The others would be: me and her love our chosen art forms, we are both very generous to people around us & I always loved the Purple/White color combo. I struggle to find an army that I feel looks good in that scheme over other colors. But I at least want one force that has that combo in it.
     
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  8. DaRedOne

    DaRedOne Morat Warrior Philosopher
    Warcor

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    Oh my gosh, this. You have no idea how much I've been searching for a reviewer. I am not a native English speaker and these little details are things only natives pick up on and I know they exist and I review every chapter 3-7 times on my own and they still slip up. It drives me nuts! :face_with_head_bandage:

    If anyone would like to be my Beta Reader/Reviewer, I'd love the help.

    First chapter was before I decided on things like 'Jewel is an Engineer' and 'Twilight is a hacker', so it does have some problems with that. As for the timeline, it might be my fault as I really thought he was still competing due to the 'Soldiers of Fortune' game expansion making it seem like that team is mostly of newcomers.

    As for Twiggy, there are two things to consider: First is that I'm trying to make them have paralels but not be carbon copies of their show versions in order to try and make the story stand out on its own. It's very important to me that someone who doesn't know Infinity or MLP can read this story and still get a good kick out of it. This means that they will all be at least a little OOC if compared to their show versions, because they are not the same characters, so the comparison is (or at least is supposed to be) tangential at best.

    Twigs will get more chances to show off her hacking prowess and her own brand of magic in the next few chapters, so hopefully that will make her more interesting. Strangely enough, she and RD are my favorites to write :grin:.

    Luna is best pony :D

    It won't turn grimdark. This is an adventure and intrigue story. I am aiming for a few emotional moments but it's no going to be some dark thing that leaves them scarred for life. There will be a lot of violence, though. This has been heavily inspired by the Judge Dredd comics too. :grimacing:

    Anyhow, thank you so much for taking your time in reading and reviewing, I appreciate it and will try to take it all in consideration as I keep writing. Really hope to hear more from you in the future, and that you enjoy the read!


    Cheers, mate!
     
    #28 DaRedOne, Apr 22, 2018
    Last edited: Apr 22, 2018
    Danger Rose, jherazob and stevenart74 like this.
  9. Golem2God

    Golem2God Just a Kooky Kumotail serving others.

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    @DaRedOne So if the characters were placed in a list wouldn't it look like this?
    [​IMG] Main Six with Big Sistas in the mix + a Dragon & a Screwdriver
    ──────────────────────────────────────────────────

    [​IMG]10
    [​IMG] RIOT GRRL Boarding Shotgun, Stun Grenades + TinBot B (Deflector L2) / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 30)
    [​IMG] RIOT GRRL MULTI Rifle, Stun Grenades / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 32)
    [​IMG] RIOT GRRL Spitfire / Pistol, Knife. (2 | 34)
    [​IMG] RIOT GRRL (Specialist Operative) Combi Rifle, Blitzen, Stun Grenades / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 30)
    [​IMG] RIOT GRRL Missile Launcher / Pistol, Knife. (2 | 33)
    [​IMG] DAKTARI Combi Rifle / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 14)
    [​IMG] ZONDBOT Electric Pulse. (0 | 3)
    [​IMG] TASKMASTER Heavy Rocket Launcher, Light Shotgun, CrazyKoalas / Heavy Pistol, DA CCW. (2 | 47)
    [​IMG] TASKMASTER Boarding Shotgun, Pulzar, CrazyKoalas / Heavy Pistol, DA CCW. (0 | 43)
    [​IMG] CLOCKMAKER Combi Rifle, D-Charges / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 18)
    [​IMG] ZONDBOT Electric Pulse. (0 | 3)
    [​IMG] MODERATOR Lieutenant Combi Rifle / Pistol, Electric Pulse. (0 | 9)
    [​IMG] ZONDBOT Electric Pulse. (0 | 3)

    6 SWC | 299 Points

    Open in Infinity Army
     
    #29 Golem2God, Apr 22, 2018
    Last edited: Apr 22, 2018
  10. DaRedOne

    DaRedOne Morat Warrior Philosopher
    Warcor

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    Both Aleph and Nomads could work with the Purple/White Scheme.

    Actually, this list is a lot like the original list I used that ended up leading to this idea. My original idea was to do something more along the lines of my MAF stories in that everything they do is based in an actual game I played, but after the first chapter I decided to take a more narrative approach and so I condensed what would be a 10-13 model list into 5-7. This means that:

    Twilight is a Wip14 hacker with a regular hacking device with the Sucker Punch and Kalleidoscope programs as upgrades. She studied in Tunguska and was raised up by the Observance nuns, so she knows a lot about hacking (She will show it on the next chapter ^^).
    RD has Fatality Lvl2 and a CC score of 21. This explains why she's so good at brutalizing stuff. She is a former criminal so that's how she's so good at violence.
    Pinkie has Full Auto Lvl2, but her BS is 12. So. much. Dakka, but she doesn't even care about aiming, and her actual skill would be close to a 9 out of the suit.
    Jack has CC22, Natural Born Warrior and a light shotgun, because AMERICA! Also because it fits with her story as a sole survivor of an antipode attack.
    Jewel is a Wip 15 engineer. She's basically a clockmaker in power armor, and she's the one that's easier to show her skills because of how often the armors get damaged.
    Butterfly is a Wip14 Akbar Doctor with NWI but No weapons that can cause any lasting harm. She has a stun pistol and adhesive grenades, but that's it.

    Luna is a monster with NWI, CC 23 and MA3/Berzerk. She's basically the more agressive and violent of the two sisters, but also the more passionate and the one who identifies more with the others.
    Celeste also has Fatality Lvl2, and instead of a Pulzar her suit has a heavy flamer, to keep with her sun and fire motif. I'm considering whether or not her chimera physique translates into extra PH score.

    Of course, some stuff that happens in the story actually happened in some games I played (Jack pulping a whole Djanbanzan fireteam; Luna CCing a Kriza Borac to death; RD shredding that Uhlan...), but while before I wrote the story based on games, now I actually have a plotline and things that I want to write or places I want to take them, so I'm not very worried about a perfect representation of them ingame. I'm still painting my Riot Grrl fireteam and my Taskmasters/Krizas to look like them, though :D
     
  11. Golem2God

    Golem2God Just a Kooky Kumotail serving others.

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    @DaRedOne What do you think of making a StarCo. list with the Main Six? Luna & Celestia have to be Brigada but it is similar yet unique set of options to try out.
    [​IMG] Starco. Free Company of the Star
    ──────────────────────────────────────────────────

    [​IMG]8
    [​IMG] EMILY (Chain of Command) Combi Rifle + Light Grenade Launcher (Normal and E/M), Nanopulser / Assault Pistol, Knife. (0.5 | 35)
    [​IMG] RIOT GRRL Boarding Shotgun, Stun Grenades + TinBot B (Deflector L2) / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 30)
    [​IMG] RIOT GRRL MULTI Rifle, Stun Grenades / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 32)
    [​IMG] RIOT GRRL Spitfire / Pistol, Knife. (2 | 34)
    [​IMG] RIOT GRRL (Specialist Operative) Combi Rifle, Blitzen, Stun Grenades / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 30)
    [​IMG] DAKTARI Combi Rifle / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 14)
    [​IMG] ZONDBOT Electric Pulse. (0 | 3)
    [​IMG] ALGUACIL Lieutenant Combi Rifle / Pistol, Knife. (1 | 10)
    [​IMG] CSU (Specialist Operative) Rifle + Light Shotgun, Nanopulser / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 12)

    3.5 SWC | 200 Points

    Open in Infinity Army
    [​IMG] Starco. Free Company of the Star
    ──────────────────────────────────────────────────

    [​IMG]8
    [​IMG] AVICENNA Combi Rifle, Flash Pulse / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 27)
    [​IMG] RIOT GRRL Boarding Shotgun, Stun Grenades + TinBot B (Deflector L2) / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 30)
    [​IMG] RIOT GRRL MULTI Rifle, Stun Grenades / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 32)
    [​IMG] RIOT GRRL Spitfire / Pistol, Knife. (2 | 34)
    [​IMG] RIOT GRRL (Specialist Operative) Combi Rifle, Blitzen, Stun Grenades / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 30)
    [​IMG] BRAWLER Heavy Rocket Launcher / Assault Pistol, Knife. (1.5 | 18)
    [​IMG] BRAWLER Lieutenant Rifle + Light Shotgun / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 16)
    [​IMG] CSU (Specialist Operative) Rifle + Light Shotgun, Nanopulser / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 12)

    3.5 SWC | 199 Points

    Open in Infinity Army
     
    #31 Golem2God, Apr 22, 2018
    Last edited: Apr 22, 2018
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  12. DaRedOne

    DaRedOne Morat Warrior Philosopher
    Warcor

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    I actually plan on extending my Main Six into starco in the future, yes ^^. My plan is to convert some Mobile Brigada and an Anaconda to get them more in style. Perhaps paint Avicenna differently too. The problem is right now I am not able to purchase any new models, so this will probably be something I'll do later down in the year (I really, really should finish my Morat Collection first too)
     
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  13. Golem2God

    Golem2God Just a Kooky Kumotail serving others.

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    @DaRedOne I forgot to list this one too. You can change the hacker to a HMG for one point less.
    [​IMG] Luna, Tia, Candace, Shy & some other guys
    ──────────────────────────────────────────────────

    [​IMG]8 [​IMG]1 [​IMG]1
    [​IMG] MOBILE BRIGADA Lieutenant Boarding Shotgun / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 33)
    [​IMG] MOBILE BRIGADA Missile Launcher / Pistol, Knife. (2 | 40)
    [​IMG] MOBILE BRIGADA Hacker (Hacking Device) Combi Rifle / Pistol, Knife. (0.5 | 43)
    [​IMG] DAKTARI Combi Rifle / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 14)
    [​IMG] SEÑOR MASSACRE Breaker Combi Rifle, E/M Grenades, Eclipse Grenades / Pistol, AP CCW, E/M CCW. (0 | 29)
    [​IMG] ZONDBOT Electric Pulse. (0 | 3)
    [​IMG] IRMANDINHO Chain Rifle, D-Charges, Smoke Grenades / Pistol, AP CCW. (0 | 8)
    [​IMG] JAGUAR Chain Rifle, Smoke Grenades / Pistol, DA CCW. (0 | 10)
    [​IMG] JAGUAR Chain Rifle, Smoke Grenades / Pistol, DA CCW. (0 | 10)
    [​IMG] JAGUAR Chain Rifle, Smoke Grenades / Pistol, DA CCW. (0 | 10)

    2.5 SWC | 200 Points

    Open in Infinity Army
    You do that. The sooner you complete them the sooner you can have 3 different armies available to play with.
    [​IMG] Starco. Free Company of the Star
    ──────────────────────────────────────────────────

    [​IMG]9 [​IMG]1 [​IMG]1
    [​IMG] RIOT GRRL (Fireteam: Haris) Combi Rifle, Blitzen, Stun Grenades / Pistol, Knife. (0.5 | 30)
    [​IMG] AVICENNA Combi Rifle, Flash Pulse / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 27)
    [​IMG] RIOT GRRL Spitfire / Pistol, Knife. (2 | 34)
    [​IMG] BRAWLER Engineer Rifle + Light Shotgun, D-Charges / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 20)
    [​IMG] BRAWLER Doctor (MediKit) Rifle + Light Shotgun / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 20)
    [​IMG] CSU (Specialist Operative) Rifle + Light Shotgun, Nanopulser / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 12)
    [​IMG] CSU (Specialist Operative) Breaker Combi Rifle, Nanopulser / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 15)
    [​IMG] IRMANDINHO Chain Rifle, D-Charges, Smoke Grenades / Pistol, AP CCW. (0 | 8)
    [​IMG] BRAWLER Heavy Rocket Launcher / Assault Pistol, Knife. (1.5 | 18)
    [​IMG] BRAWLER Lieutenant Rifle + Light Shotgun / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 16)

    4 SWC | 200 Points

    Open in Infinity Army
    [​IMG] Starco. Free Company of the Star
    ──────────────────────────────────────────────────

    GROUP 1[​IMG] [​IMG] [​IMG]9 [​IMG]1 [​IMG]1
    [​IMG] RIOT GRRL (Fireteam: Haris) Combi Rifle, Blitzen, Stun Grenades / Pistol, Knife. (0.5 | 30)
    [​IMG] AVICENNA Combi Rifle, Flash Pulse / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 27)
    [​IMG] RIOT GRRL Spitfire / Pistol, Knife. (2 | 34)
    [​IMG] BRAWLER Engineer Rifle + Light Shotgun, D-Charges / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 20)
    [​IMG] BRAWLER Doctor (MediKit) Rifle + Light Shotgun / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 20)
    [​IMG] ZONDBOT Electric Pulse. (0 | 3)
    [​IMG] ZONDBOT Electric Pulse. (0 | 3)
    [​IMG] CSU (Specialist Operative) Rifle + Light Shotgun, Nanopulser / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 12)
    [​IMG] CSU (Specialist Operative) Breaker Combi Rifle, Nanopulser / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 15)
    [​IMG] IRMANDINHO Chain Rifle, D-Charges, Smoke Grenades / Pistol, AP CCW. (0 | 8)
    [​IMG] BRAWLER Heavy Rocket Launcher / Assault Pistol, Knife. (1.5 | 18)
    [​IMG] BRAWLER Lieutenant Rifle + Light Shotgun / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 16)

    GROUP 2[​IMG] [​IMG] [​IMG]6 [​IMG]1
    [​IMG] UHAHU Hacker (Hacking Device Plus. UPGRADE: Icebreaker) Pitcher, D-Charges / Assault Pistol, Knife. (0.5 | 25)
    [​IMG] TRANSDUCTOR ZOND Flash Pulse, Sniffer / Electric Pulse. (0 | 8)
    [​IMG] STEMPLER ZOND Combi Rifle, Sniffer / Electric Pulse. (0 | 17)
    [​IMG] HARDCASE FRONTIERSMAN Tactical Bow, Light Shotgun / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 12)
    [​IMG] JAGUAR Chain Rifle, Smoke Grenades / Pistol, DA CCW. (0 | 10)
    [​IMG] JAGUAR Chain Rifle, Smoke Grenades / Pistol, DA CCW. (0 | 10)
    [​IMG] ALGUACIL (Forward Observer, Deployable Repeater) Combi Rifle / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 12)

    4.5 SWC | 300 Points

    Open in Infinity Army
     
    #33 Golem2God, Apr 22, 2018
    Last edited: Apr 22, 2018
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  14. Danger Rose

    Danger Rose The Wrecking Belles

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    This! So much THIS!!! That's exactly what I wanted to do with my Wrecking Belles. I do have the Powered-Up version of them on paper and I use it when I want to have a result out of my control (to surprise myself, since being "the writer" gives me a very clear idea of where I'm going); because I love having unpredictability along the road. And I enjoy the challenge of thinking up a narrative for an unexpected result.
     
  15. stevenart74

    stevenart74 Well-Known Member

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    Just wanted to add that while an "Expanded Standard Miniature Stats" could be also be rightfully employed by Kithbashing together an "Advanced Troop Veteran" with the Paradiso Special Forces rules, now there is another interesting option. . .

    To avoid "Rule Lawyers Purists" that will scream "This Experienced Troop is O.O.P. / Broken / Mary-Sued / Too Much S.W.C. !!!" the context of the Roleplaying Games (where many of the N.P.C, Foes are DIRECT PORTINGS of Standard Vanilla Miniature Profile) could give some interesting Options to "Check" if a peculiar change of "Stats" (something simply as a Multirifle on a Miniature that usually sports JUST Combis or Chainrifles, or even "Over-The-Top" as a Supersoldier Veteran, that while starting an L.I. has so much Cybernetic Military Implants to be like an A.L.E.P.H. Posthuman H.I. !!!). . .

    The official R.P.G. by Modiphius is tested and checked by Corvus Belli staff and so the Stats of the two different "Systems" (from Miniature Wargame to Role-Playing "Pen & Paper" and Vice-Versa) SHOULD be well-balanced enough to allow for this. . .
     
  16. Kathara_Khan

    Kathara_Khan Capricious and Whimsical

    Joined:
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    With all the things on my plate nowadays, I can't guarantee I'd be able to get on it immediately...
    But if you like, you can always send me a note when preparing to publish a new chapter.
    I'm not a native speaker myself, but, though I sadly never finished it, I did put in a few years of formal
    higher education toward an actual degree in English, and the general consensus seems to be I do alright... :blush:

    Yeah, the Aristeia! timeline is not synchronized with the Infinity one. I mean, Musashi is in there, when we
    know for sure he's not an Aristos anymore for a long time now in the Infinity "now"...

    Well, I think you're succeeding admirably in that! :+1:
    But still, you manage to have all the girls quite recognizable... Except Twilight (so far, at least). That's why it feels jarring.
    Still, that's just my subjective feeling on the matter. No huge deal.

    Good to hear! As I grow older (:stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:), I get increasingly tired of grimdark...

    You're welcome! Will be looking forward to more good things from you!
     
  17. DaRedOne

    DaRedOne Morat Warrior Philosopher
    Warcor

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    Hi guys! not a story update, just something nice I finished this weekend. We have an upcoming ITS in Campinas here in Brazil and I'll be taking my Nomads for their first ITS. I'm not taking the full main six this time because I'm still missing some key Bakunin models, so I'm doing Vanilla. However, these two are ready:


    Celeste and Luna01 - Cópia.jpg Celeste and Luna02 - Cópia.jpg

    Sorry for the low quality of my phone camera! Anyways, I'll update later on how these two did on the actual games. Oh, and sometime this week I should have a new chapter too.
     
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  18. Danger Rose

    Danger Rose The Wrecking Belles

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    Good luck and have fun in your event!!!
     
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  19. DaRedOne

    DaRedOne Morat Warrior Philosopher
    Warcor

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    Good Morning Guys! New Chapter coming up. This one took me a long time to write, and its huge, so I split in three parts.

    My Name is Legion - part 01


    Hello Ladies,

    You might not know me, but I know you. I have watched you six bumbling idiots trash and break everything around me like a bull in a China shop, and I am tired of it. Over the last few years I have worked in this silly ship of yours completely unmolested... And in less than two months you have brought all of that hard work spiralling down with your reckless actions.

    I do not think you realize who you are dealing with, and I do not intend on clarifying it anymore. But I am going to act now, and you will help me fix all this mess. As you have already noticed, your little ‘sister’ Ana Maria Santiago, also known as Scooter, has vanished.

    I have her. This means now I have something you want, and you have something I want. Here is what we are going to do: you idiots are going to deliver the Cube you stole from my contact in Yu Jing to me, and then I will return her to you. This delivery will be made in Kurosawa Park, Secondary Hab dome, at Twelve hundred of Tomorrow. You will see a purple painted trash can under the main font, leave the Cube inside it.

    Fail to do so, and the next time you see ‘Scooter’ will be on an Illegal Holo Vid about Shasvastii Sexual Habits. You have one day, ladies, hurry up.

    Legion


    Every now and then, Twilight looked to the screen on her left and reread the email, using the rage it gave her as fuel to continue her quest for a few more minutes. Her eyes were bloodshot, and she had been searching nonstop ever since the dreaded communication had been received two hours ago. By now her arms had started to burn and shake as tension overtook them, and a steady and insistent ache boiled at the base of her neck as she tensed her muscles to focus on the many screens before her.

    By this point, that email had already surrendered everything it could to her: Legion was a Hexaedron Operative that had gone rogue some time during the Wotan Incursion, and apparently they had stowed into the Don Peyotte and returned to Bakunin with the Nomad forces. This person had allegedly leaked secrets that had allowed both the Hexaedron and the Combined Army to intercept, destroy or capture many Bakunin vessels over the course of the last year…

    And Celeste had sent the Main Six against this shadow of a shadow without so much as a sliver of information. Hell, they didn’t even know their original target had been working with this person!

    “That which is unseen and unknown commands the greatest power.”

    Twilight muttered to herself as she broke through another wall of code. She had been submersed in the Social Energy for two hours now, her mind and armor connected to it, allowing her to move and wade through the cyberspace permeating the Bakunin Mothership as if she were a submersible exploring the ocean.

    Hacking had been likened to magic by many people over the years, and if hacking was magic, Twilight was a natural sorceress. A firewall tried to stop her advance, but she tore it open with a wave of her virtual hand, revealing another faint trail that connected back to the wretched letters still floating by her side. She snarled, gritting her teeth and diving into the new opening, swimming through the Social Energy like a shark looking for prey.

    The Social Energy was Bakunin’s bread and butter. A mix of cryptocurrency, social records and information network, it allowed every citizen to both know each other’s reputation with a click of their Comlog, and to use that reputation to acquire goods and services across the ship.

    The problem of the Social Energy was that anyone could use it to hide in plain sight. Twilight swam past a man who was cheating on his wife with his own wife, watching the two of them wear different visages to surprise each other; she swam past a plastic surgeon who did wetwork for a local crime syndicate; she dove across a five way argument over the custody of a child that was actually a robot…

    It was all small fry, not what she was looking for. However, the silver thread she had been following led her through all that mess and more, forcing her to dive into the virtual underbelly of the ship. She swam upwards, as if taking a breath, one hand holding the open email in the air before her, and the other hand gripping the shimmering silver thread that she had been following diligently so far.

    Something that looked vaguely like a deep sea fish attacked her from the side, but she rendered it in half with a wave of her hand. Stupid automated antiviruses would never stop an Observance alumnus, and especially not one of their best. The purple haired hacker was sure she would get to the end of the thread, eventually... But time was not on her side.

    So she took a deep breath, closing her eyes and willing her tinbot to start full defensive protocols. It was time for a really deep dive. She felt the warm caress of her new cybernetic armor forming around her virtual body, her arms spread like an olympic diver as she gripped the silver thread she had been following so far, closing her hand firmly around it.

    Her mind plunged into a vertiginous drop, her hands burning around the faint silver line that she kept pulling on, using it as a mix of lifeline and breadcrumb trail. It hurt, it made her ears ring and her eyes nearly pop, but she could take it; she could taste her own blood where she had bit her tongue in a spasm, but she could take it.

    The sea of information around her became murky, all the windows, the shapes, the sounds blending together in her vertigo inducing dive. She had to narrow her eyes, trusting her tinbot to reroute all the extraneous info, while her mind only focused on the thread glowing like a star on her hand. It tried to split, to form decoy lines, but Twilight dismissed the fake proxies, cut off the loose ends, doing it all with practiced ease.

    The last wall was a shield, a neon green shield with an hexagonal shape. Psh. Pan Oceanian protocols looked so simplistic... Twilight allowed herself to grin as she stopped her plunge for a second, bracing herself before diving headfirst against the virtual wall, colliding with it like a neon purple missile.

    There was a loud buzzing in her ear as she straightened herself in the dark, the Hexagon Wall opening up to allow her to pass through… Then it closed around her, a textbook trap and she had fallen for it in her haste. Tentacles came from the walls closing around her, wrapping around her armored arms, lashing at her throat.

    “Spike! Defensive protocols!” She called out loudly as she closed her hand, her eyes shining bright purple as she willed a blade to form around her wrist.

    Now this was a real challenge! She spun around, chopping a tentacle off with a downwards strike as more of them came at her from behind. The greenish tendrils stopped on a protective barrier that formed around the armored girl, each lashing tentacle making the wall falter when they smashed against Twilight’s protection.

    The dark skinned girl knew these were just a distraction, just something to stall her, and she wasn’t going to waste any more time. She raised her hands up, and willed the glowing neon blade to turn into a much more familiar weapon: neon light formed around her hands until she was holding the trusty shape of her shotgun, blasting the tendrils away even as they tried to encroach on her.

    There was a lull in the attack as her defensive protocols endured the trap and her offensive ones broke through. Before it could reboot, she was diving through again, and this time she could see the silver light that she wanted: the origin of that email was within her grasp.
    __________________________________________

    “How long has she been like this?”

    Luna asked as she looked at the armored hacker sitting on her chair, her armor connected to all the many terminals around her. Twilight was sitting on her room, and aside from a slight tremble on her lips and the faint trace of blood coming out of her left nostril, she looked as if she had fallen asleep on her chair.

    “Two hours now.”

    Jewel answered before looking at Butterfly, who had her own Comlog Open to monitor the leader’s vitals. Twilight’s room felt cramped with Butterfly sitting on her bed and Jack, Jewel and Luna all standing up around the silent and still form of the purple haired woman.

    “Wow. She contacted me with a virtual avatar… Nice.”

    Luna had her arms folded. She wanted to pull at her cigar, but it wasn’t even lit up. The SWAST Lieutenant had tried to smoke, but Butterfly had stopped her. It took a long, heated discussion for Luna to even be allowed to suck on the inert roll of prime tobacco like it was a pacifier.

    “Wait a minute… Aren’t you girls six? Where’s the other two? Ventura and Dmitry?”

    “Pinkie’s gone ta Scooter’s school. Said she wanted ta talk ta her teachers. Rhona said she was goin’ ta investigate another possible lead. Didn’t say much about it.”

    “And the three of you are just gonna stand here with your thumbs up your asses? Well, the two of you. At least the daks is keeping your friend alive.”

    Jewel fumed, but Jack just sulked back and said nothing back to the stern looking Lieutenant. The silence between them dragged on until Jewel broke it.

    “What do you want us to do? Run around the ship while Twi is left here and vulnerable? I’m sorry, but I don’t abandon my friends like that.”

    The barb had been well pointed, and Luna nodded with some respect to the diva before turning back to look at the inert, occasionally twitching body of Twilight.

    “Let’s hope she remembers to come back. If she goes on for another hour, we pull her out, okay?”

    The girls all nodded, every single eye now focused on their leader and hoping her long dive wouldn’t be a waste of precious time.
    ________________________________________________

    A pink armored fist rapped a few times on the door, and it opened to the side with a very satisfying hiss. Pinkie stepped into the workshop and was greeted both with the delicious scent of baked goods and a loud chorus of cheerful voices.

    “Pinkie!” “Miss Pinkie!” “Aunt Pinkie!” they said, five different voices as five different youngsters ran to dogpile the Riot Grrl with hugs.

    This was one of those moments where enhanced strength was really helpful despite it not being a fight. She could stand up even as all those five teenagers jumped onto her and nearly knocked her down.

    “oof! Calm down, girls!” Pinkie waded towards the nearest table, carrying all five teens hanging onto her armored form “Let me breathe first.”

    She put two of them down onto the table while the others let her go. The atmosphere was cheerful, with smiles reflected on the many different faces around her as Pinkie also sat down on the table and turned to pick up a muffin from a tray behind her. They were on the Home Management workshop of the Van Dorp College for the Beauvoir youth, one of the many places a young woman could get her education within the Beauvoir module.

    Pinkie knew these five by name: the tall one was Blossom; the one with pink skin was called Diamond; Babs was the one with the channel hair; Silvermane was impossible to miss with her distinct hair color; and the last one was Aura, who had quite a nice singing voice. They were all part of Scooter’s Home Management classes…

    Pinkie snickered when she thought about how she was the only one who would know to go to that specific Workshop. Scooter had never told RD she had taken Home Management, afraid the punkish Riot would mock her for being ‘girly’. Good thing Scooter sucked at doing anything with her hands and had asked Pinkie for help both with baked goods and the occasional repairs.

    “Say, has Scooter came to class today? I was supposed to meet her earlier today, but I think she forgot me and went to the skateboard ramp again.”

    “She was here earlier, yes!” Blossom said.

    “She isn’t skipping classes anymore, Pinkie.” Silvermane was quick to add, trying to stop an accusation from coming.

    Pinkie put a hand to her chin, nodding while taking a bite off the muffing she had taken earlier. It wasn’t perfect, but it wasn’t bad either. Thinking on what would have been the young punk’s routine in the morning, Pinkie suddenly had an idea.

    “Who’s the acting coordinator today? McPherson?”

    “Nope. It’s miss Santos. Miss McPherson hasn’t shown up in a week.”

    Pinkie stood up after getting her answer. Her poofy pink hair bobbed as she another bite off her muffin while waving her free hand. She had to act quickly now, so she hurried to leave the workshop before it was too late.

    “Thanks girls! Oh, and this needs a bit more baking soda, it’s a little mushy.”

    The Coordinator’s office was just a few corridors down from the workshops, less than five minutes walking distance. Pinkie covered it in two, her high heels making such a loud noise on the metal paneling of the floor that whoever was inside the office was already standing up and waiting for the door to open when she passed through it.

    Miss Adriana Santos, often called Blueballs, was a former Riot Grrl, and her highly scarred face showed her history even before one looked her up on the Social Energy. She was a tall, amazonian woman with a broad build and a stern face that had been forever marked by the blade of a Swiss Guard a good twenty or so years ago.

    Pinkie hated her. Sure, Twilight would say they had to respect their elders, and Pinkie would agree in all cases but this one hag. Blueballs had no business teaching little girls basic skills such as maintenance, first aid and even housekeeping. The woman was too political, the kind that would complain about the ‘male centric world’ even when they lived in a place that literally had less men than they had pet dogs.

    “Blueballs.”

    “Ventura.”

    Pinkie raised an eyebrow, but shrugged quickly after that, figuring the dislike was mutual. After all, Pinkie was part of the newest generation of Riots, the one that was more worried about putting bullets into alien faces than making a social statement. Things change.

    “I just wanted to check on Scooter. But I can’t find her anywhere. Can I see her records for today? RD asked me to make sure she isn’t skipping classes again… It seems she’s been involved with Gil again.”

    Blueballs nodded as she opened her Comlog, shifting pages with student names and profiles until Scooter’s wide, happy grin showed up. The Coordinator had it all, and it seemed the young punk had been diligently coming to every class in the last few months. Pinkie smiled with pride when she saw that attendance, Scooter really had been trying her best.

    “You could have accessed it from your own Comlog. You know that, right, Ventura?”

    Pinkie wrinkled her nose and her hair seemed to deflate for a moment as she gave the coordinator an icy look.

    “Yeah, I could. But It’s not like Scoots couldn’t have hacked my Comlog and changed my files, right?”

    She stuck her tongue out. Living in a world where everything was online made it so nothing was one hundred percent trustworthy. Everything could be hacked. However, Blueballs raised her hand, waving a finger to call the pink one’s attention.

    “Wait a minute, you mentioned Gil? The morlock? Is Santiago involved with those gangers again? You know she’s going to be expelled if she is arrested-”

    “I know! But if she’s been here every day, she can’t have been with the DiveBombers, so that’s fine, right?” Pinkie narrowed her eyes “Did you see her today, by the way? Maybe she just forgot to come home and Rhonnie has already picked her up at the skate ramp.”

    Blueballs nodded a few times, casually closing her Comlong before waving her hand, making the door behind Pinkie open up with a very unwelcoming hiss.

    “Yes. She left after the Basic Maintenance Class. I’m sure she’s fine” The old woman made a smile that others would have found comforting, but Pinkie just thought it was freaky. “I’m sure she’s fine, Ventura. She’ll show up at your doorstep again in no time.”

    Pinkie nodded, then turned to leave, walking with a slight sulk on her shoulders. She looked dejected, shaking her head as she stepped towards the door, heels digging in…

    Her armor suddenly lit up and she spun around, drawing her pistol and pointing it straight at Blueballs’ forehead. It was a Corregidor model, the long muzzle and extended magazine looking just as distinct as the axe-like blade that extended from the barrel to her grip guard. It was bright pink, even the inside of the barrel was painted bright pink.

    “Who are you and what did you do to miss Santos, bitch?”

    Blueballs raised both hands, gasping in shock as she stared into the barrel of that pistol. Pinkie’s armor shone in neon pink where the artificial muscles ensured she held the gun perfectly aimed, unfaltering and nearly pressing the blade attachment to the coordinator’s forehead.

    “What are you talking about, Ventura?! Are you mad?! Security!”

    She tried to open her Comlog to call for the College security detail, and even the moderator corps, as no way some simple security officer was going to stop a fully armored Riot Grrl. But Pinkie was faster, punching her in the stomach and kneeing her in the jaw in such a quick and brutal combination that before Blueballs could even realize what was going on she was left sprawled on the office floor, bleeding from her mouth and nostril.

    “I’m not going to ask you again.”

    Pinkie kept her gun trailed at the woman, her other hand waving at the door to close it, then a swipe of her fingers sealed it shut. As if to prove she wasn’t joking, her visor came down, lighting her face in pink neon as it began analyzing the woman before her. Sure, without Jewel’s enhanced sensor array she couldn’t be sure, but her own suit’s sensors were already scanning Blueballs’ face to confirm her fears.

    “One, Blueballs wouldn’t call me Ventura. My mom doesn’t call me Ventura! You PanO fucks really need a lesson on Nomad naming conventions. But I could buy that, since old Blueballs never liked me, I guessed she was just pissed I was telling her how to do her job. But then you called Scoots Santiago… What the fuck? It’s like you’re not even trying!”

    Pinkie heard the boots outside the office door that meant the security guards were already trying to undo her simple lock up protocols. Thank Twilight for automated hacking routines. She had to get the woman to confess and show her real face before they breached in.

    “But here’s the catch: Scooter’s final class today was Home Management, not Basic Maintenance. It doesn’t show on her digital curriculum because, as you said, we can follow that from our Comlogs, and she didn’t want RD to know about it. I guess you didn’t ask the real Blueballs about it, right?”

    Blueballs, or the woman wearing Blueballs’ face, smirked as she sat up on the floor, grinning and spitting a wad of blood next to her hand.

    “Who cares? Do you really think the Moderators are going to believe any word of what you said, you stupid mare?” She snickered “The moment that door opens, you’ll be just one crazy woman putting a gun to-”

    The gunshot rang like the strike of a church’s bell in the small office. Assault pistols had such hair triggers it was a surprise Pinkie managed to squeeze off only a single shot, and it was even bigger a surprise that she managed to hit ‘Blueballs’ on the side of her waist, hurting but not killing.

    The pain was lancing, and it had the exact effect Pinkie hoped. Maintaining an holographic disguise required concentration, and pain was the easiest way to disrupt it. Very few people in the human sphere could keep their holo disguises up after taking a shot. However, the woman before her didn’t flicker in front of her eyes… She seemed to melt.

    Pinkie covered her mouth in shock as Blueballs’ face contorted and rippled, losing the scars and the wrinkles to reshape itself into a much younger looking face. She had dark green eyes, and a pale, greenish complexion that looked sickly. Even her hair was green too, a moss-like color that looked as if it was half rotten. That was beyond even what the Black Labs could cook up.

    “What. The. Fuck?”

    Pinkie’s shocked cry was echoed by the security guards as they came in and realized they had some sort of alien-human hybrid in the middle of their school. They rushed to arrest the woman as she said nothing, just stared at Pinkie with pure rage on her eyes while being carried off to a detention cell.

    Pinkie raised a hand to her ear, activating her communications suite and calling her friends on it. It took a moment for Jewel to finally answer her.

    “Yes, darling? Twi is still on the deep dive, so she can’t pick up.”

    “No biggie. But get her back to realspace. I found this ‘Legion’ woman.”
    ___________________________________________________________

    Gale looked over his watchpost with a bored groan. He turned to the girl next to him, who was nearly asleep despite it not even being an evening cycle yet, and poked her with the butt of his rifle.

    “Hey, Garra, wake up.”

    Garra groaned and shook herself awake. Fucking morlocks and their hyperactive metabolisms. At one moment they were hulking out and tearing chunks out of the nearest anything they could put their hands on, and on the next they were half asleep from boredom. At least Garra was lucid enough to not think the man next to her was part of her lunch.

    “Bite me, Gale. You’re the watcher, I’m the troubleshooter. Tell me when you see some-”

    “I see something!”

    He elbowed her on the ribs and pointed out of their lookout, down the street that was way too dark for a day cycle. There were on a module composed mostly of slums, down the secondary drive-pillar of the ship, the lowest of the low. Their fortress was little more than a stack of hollowed out containers reinforced with metal plates and goodwill, and the watchpoint was a raised tower bolted on to it. Gale watched with a scoped rifle, sitting precariously at the top of the flimsy ‘watchtower’.

    There was a speck of cyan light running their way. Gale looked over his scope and swallowed his breath as he recognized the armor first, the rainbow hair second. He barely had time to scream “Get off!” and push Garra off the tower before a burst of armor piercing rounds chewed the supports off their tower and he fell down, face first on the floor.

    Garra turned on her combat drugs injector, the snap hiss of her arm mounted device giving her a split second of ecstatic thrill before she leapt over the wrecked watchpost towards their assailant. Her highly enhanced, avian-like body flew through the air, holding one knife on each hand.

    Halfway through her flight she realized who she was charging, and instantly regretted her decision as a cyan armored fist smashed her chin in a violent uppercut that broke her jaw in two different points. She landed on a heap, clutching her mouth and foaming as her injector went into overdrive trying to keep her conscious.

    RD tore into the makeshift fortress with the force of a bulldozer. Her rifle was set to stun, but even the stun rounds hurt when they hit the mostly unprotected bodies of the gang members, shocking them so violently they were left spasming and foaming on the ground. All around her the gangers looked like they were in a drunken stupor, barely awoken as they tried to defend themselves from a glowing cyan typhoon.

    It looked like they were waking up from a party, but she didn’t care. A guy tried to pistol whip her head, but screamed in pain when he hit the armored visor, then screamed again when she kneeled him in the gut and tossed him aside.

    “Where is her?! Come on, Gil! Show your freaky face already!”

    RD stood in the middle of what was basically a hollowed out, ancient tanker ship, completely repurposed as a ‘living room’ by the DiveBomber Gang. All around her there were the half dressed bodies of gang members and what she figured were joygirls and boytoys. Most of them weren’t even wearing their signature jackets.

    “Oh, come on, Rhona... Is this how you say hello to me?”

    Out of the darkness, a figure walked in. RD could see her heat signature as she moved in the shadows, but her face was only visible when she stepped into the light: Haughty and avian like, with white hair that somehow matched the Riot Grrl’s own punkish looks, the woman stood a good two meters tall, and wore only her bomber jacket and a skimpy thong, showing off her fairly muscular, enhanced body.

    At one point in her life, RD would have thought the woman in front of her was sexy. She had nice thighs and a generous chest, but the scales covering her forearms, and the fact her feet ended in wicked talons, gave her an inhuman, unnerving look that made it hard to look at her endowments. And that was before one looked at her eyes: her feline, green eyes that looked downright murderous.

    “Shut up, Gil. Where’s my sister?”

    RD was about to launch a fist at the morlock leader, but when Gil raised both hands in defeat, she stopped herself. This was new. Gil never backed down from a fight.

    “I don’t have her!”

    That answer made the punk narrow her eyes. Instead of balling her fist, she pulled her gun up, pointing it at the gang leader. Gil knew about Scooter’s disappearance, now it was time to make her talk.

    “You know something. Spill it, Gil, I don’t have time for your bullshit.”

    The avian like morlock scoffed, shaking her head and bending down to pick up a half empty beer bottle from the ground. She gripped it with her clawed hands, holding the bottle almost as if she wanted to crush it.

    “You used to have time for me, Rho. Fuck, I remember you introducing me to that little brat when you picked her up like a stray from the streets of Vaudeville. You were so happy…”

    RD’s aim was firmly at the talking morlock, but she didn’t shoot like she wanted to. She even pulled her finger off the trigger, holding it extended along the guard to keep herself from doing something too harsh by reaction.

    Gil couldn’t stop grinning now. She had Rhona’s attention and was going to milk it as much as she could. The bulky, enhanced woman sat down on a worn out couch, smiling to herself as she pushed aside a gang member that was still sleeping despite the commotion around him.

    “I really wanted to take her away from you. Like, really. But, I ain’t a kidnapper, Rho. And I ain’t a sellout either. Some bitch wanted me to kidnap Scoots for her, but I told her to go eat a dick. She must have gotten someone else.”

    RD was fuming, her face red in absolute, tremendous rage. She kept her rifle aimed true, but her thumb changed the shot type from ‘stun’ to ‘hollow point’ as she finally answered the morlock.

    “Fuck you! And you didn’t think of telling me? You’re a fucking bitch, Gil!” The rainbow haired punk stomped on the ground “Who was this woman? Did she give you a name? What did she look like?”

    Gil made herself comfortable on that couch, feeling the old fabric under her barely dressed ass as she lazily pulled a half conscious joygirl to her lap in a stupid attempt at appealing for RD’s lusts. Perhaps she hadn’t noticed how much rage was building behind the Riot Grrl’s visor.

    “I’d have told you if you were here with us, RD. But you’re rolling with the Beauvoir Riot Grrl Corps now” Somehow the morlock managed to make it sound as if the very name was an insult “So go ask your friends for help, sellout.”

    RD shook her head to clear her thoughts. Her armor glowed so bright in the dark room, almost like a flare, casting dancing shadows all over the place.

    “I never sold out, you dumb bitch. You could have joined with me… Fuck, I know every little shit you’ve done, the location of every stash… Did you know I have a SWAST Captain on speed dial now, Gil? And yet I don’t see any armed team rolling down the street... I never abandoned you, you asshole. You abandoned me. So don’t do it again, birdhead, help me find my sister.”

    Gil waved a lazy hand, dismissing the thought but shaking her head anyways.

    “I didn’t do it, Rhona. I’m not that much of an asshole. But I did get her in touch with an outfit from the Draiman Module. They call themselves ‘The Void Sharks’. Bunch’a freaks too, lots of prison ink on them.”

    RD nodded, lowering her gun for a moment as she turned around to leave.

    “Fine. I don’t suppose you’d help me get her back?”

    “Fuck, no. I hate your guts, bitch.” Gil scoffed “Good luck getting your sister back.”

    RD shook as she turned around, her fury so bright, to the point it nearly overtook her rational thought. She even grinned wickedly as she asked the following question.

    “Hey, Gil, do you still regenerate?”

    “Yeah… Why?”

    The punk could have shot both of Gil’s legs off. She should have. She even pointed at those ugly taloned feet for a moment…But she didn’t.

    RD swung her gun back to the mag-lock on her backside and shook her head to clear her thoughts. The worry about Scooter’s whereabouts consumed her mind, and she wasn’t willing to give Gil any more of her time.

    “You should try to grow a heart, then.”

    The punk swallowed her pride and rage before leaving the darkened fortress. She hadn’t killed a single one of them, even if she had broken a fair amount of bones and caused a lot of damage. It wasn’t like these folks couldn’t afford healthcare anyways, and perhaps a stay on the nearest hospital would make them change their minds about following Gil’s orders.

    Rhona left as the morlock leader spat curses at her. The rainbow haired Riot ignored the string of profanity and focused on leaving as fast as she had came in. She’d have to get up to halfway the drive-pillar before her Comlog had power to reach her friends back in Beauvoir. Hopefully they hadn’t done anything stupid by then.

    Continues...
     
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  20. DaRedOne

    DaRedOne Morat Warrior Philosopher
    Warcor

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    My name is Legion - part 02

    Twilight shook herself awake, blinking as her eyes adjusted to the low light of her room. Coming back from Virtualspace always left a dizzying ache at the back of her head, and she didn’t have time to fully recover. She was already reaching to pull off all the plugs and wires connected to her suit even as Butterfly tried to clean the blood off her face.

    “Stay- Keep quiet, Twilight!”

    Sinus bleeding was a common problem for Virtualspace divers that spent too much time in the Social Energy, it was just a result of the stress put on the brain, and was mostly harmless. However, Butterfly couldn’t stop thinking of all the little ways that bleeding could not be harmless, and those possibilities ate at the back of her mind as she kept double checking Twilight’s vitals even as her leader tried to push her off.

    “Do it faster! We gotta find… Wait, where’s Luna? She should be here already.”

    “She was here, but she left a good ten minutes ago. It seems Pinkie found that Legion fella.”

    Jack was sitting on her bed, and Twilight groaned as she looked around, still trying to fight off Butterfly’s fingers while she appraised her room. Jack was there, sitting on the bed and looking dejected, while Jewel was leaning on the door threshold, one hand to her ear as she was exchanging messages with someone.

    “Wait, that doesn’t make sense. Where did Pinkie find them?”

    “At tha Van Dorp Center. It seems she was pretendin’ ta be one of tha Coordinaters…”

    Twilight raised her left hand to make Jack stop, then put the same hand to her chin while sulking back against her chair, furrowing her brows. Those news just didn’t add up with the information she had recovered following the email. It just didn’t make sense.

    “That… That really makes no sense. The email came from the Secondary Hab dome, from a rented apartment right next to the Kurosawa park. If they were at the Van Dorp the whole day… Something is wrong.”

    Jewel came back to the group, smiling as she noticed the purple haired hacker was as healthy as she could be. The diva had her visor down, and Twilight could see the faint traces of written text messages on the HUD, but her vision was still slightly blurred and she couldn’t read the mirrored words.

    “Okay, even more good news, darlings: RD has a lead on who might be holding Scooter. It seems that awful morlock Gil has put our nemesis in contact with some mercenaries at the Draiman Module. Rhona’s heading over there right now.”

    Twilight shook her head again, it was too much information to add to what she already knew.

    “Alright, stop. We need to make sure this stuff adds up. Butterfly, Jack, you two should go and intercept RD before she tries to take on these mercs by herself. Plus, if they have Scooter, she might be hurt. Jewel, you come with me, let’s go check that rented apartment. If Luna is interrogating the person Pinkie found, we have a window to check this stuff out.”

    She snarled. According to her data, this Legion person would have been at three places at the same time in order to do everything she had done in such a short timeframe. Between paying these mercenaries, getting them the info to kidnap Scooter, then sending the email was less than an hour in time. Too fast.

    The four women got up and began moving, and Twilight winced as her muscles felt sore and stiff from sitting down for such a long time. Her back hurt, her palms and stomach felt cramped, and there was that crawling headache on the back of her mind. Her friends all looked happy, but she knew it was going to get worse before it got better.
    _________________________________________________

    The Draiman module was the kind of place that gave Bakunin a bad name. It was dirty, run down and some floor panes felt like they were about to come off if she stepped too hard on them. It was one of those rickety communities that thrived by selling cheap housing to Demogrant benefactors, then the sudden influx of people called for a bunch of second grade services and goods to be brought in…

    RD looked as out of place in that suburban environment as a man in a full business suit would have looked out of place back in Beauvoir. She stood by one of the main access doors, a cigarette on her lips and her suit buzzing lightly as it played some punk rock to her ears. Her cyan suit wouldn’t have looked so out of place if she were further up the drive-pillar, or even if she were in Vaudeville or maybe at one of the hab domes, but in Draiman she stood out like a sore thumb.

    The rainbow haired punk watched a mother wrap a careful arm around her child and tuck him away the moment she saw the Riot Grrl standing by the main gate. They’d probably use another one a few hundred meters down, but the kid was already protesting. RD muttered a curse under her breath, but focused on her cigar instead of giving the concerned mother a piece of her mind.

    The worst part was the Draiman Module didn’t look like a place where a mercenary outfit would hole up. It was just an old housing module too packed with people. Mercs tended to dislike populous places, as it made controlling access and information that much harder.

    “You better not have bullshitted me, birdbrains, or I’m gonna shove my fist so far up your ass I’ll work your mouth like a puppet.”

    As the punk talked to herself to keep her spirits up, something caught the corner of her sight: Movement. Years growing up in the streets had given the rainbow haired girl a natural sense for danger, and it was flaring out like a radar right now, making her muscles tense as she turned her head just enough to get a better view at the two guys moving ‘inconspicuously’ behind an alley a few meters down from her position.

    Amateurs. They were amateurs. RD could see them moving, and they clearly wore baggy clothes to try to mask their body armor under it all. Bald heads too, both of them, so that was probably an organized outfit. She didn’t lower her visor, even if it would have allowed her to know exactly what kind of heat they were packing, she preferred to count on her experience and keep smoking, making them think she hadn’t noticed them yet.

    The one closer to her, behind the dessicated tree that looked dead, he wore a casual jacket, stylish too. Big pockets, so he had pistols, or maybe an SMG. An assault pistol would be an issue, but anything else was too slow and not as strong as her rifle. The other guy, though, he kept his distance, and his pants looked a bit too wide for his body… He was limping too, favoring the right leg like a hunchback. RD would have betted money he had a longarm hidden on his pants.

    The thought made her chuckle inwards as she imagined all the double entendres she could have said right now and there was no one around to hear her. The punk finally flicked her cigar stump into a trash bin and decided to do what she did best: something stupid.

    “Yo, Assholes!”

    As she called out, her visor lowered down and instantly the people around her stopped whatever they were doing to stare in shock and fear as the Riot Grrl suit powered up. It made a satisfying whine as artificial muscles began pumping with green energy, glowing slightly with every other step the punk took. She didn’t even draw her gun, just waved a hand as if they were her friends.

    “I’ve seen you two dipshits already.” She called out while coming closer “You guys wanna talk this out? There’s a lot of people around us and they might get hurt in the shootout. And that would piss me off.”

    The people around them were becoming increasingly less numerous the civilians scampered for cover while the as access guards called for help from whatever passed for law enforcement within the Draiman Module. RD knew the gate guards themselves wouldn’t try to stop her, as even a Moderator team would have trouble dealing with a single Riot, and these guards were even more underequipped than Moderators.

    However, the two men were neither undergunned nor intelligent enough to realize they were in over their heads. The first one pulled out a heavy looking submachinegun from his coat, and RD raised her eyebrows when she realized it was an Ariadnan model. Fuck. Those things hit like miniature trucks.

    She dove in, her back plates flexing as they adjusted to increase her aerodynamics, suit actuators going to max power as she saw the world around her slow down. The first mercenary raised his gun up, while the second reached for his leg, making an hologram flicker on it and reveal a long barreled MULTI-rifle.

    “Holy shit!”

    RD heard her own words in a blurr as she slid down, diving under the submachinegun and taking the first burst on her palm. The smartest move would have been to dodge it, but she couldn’t let the hollow point rounds fly off in an area full of civilians. It hurt, even with her armorweave, the impact hurt as she felt a few bones crack inside her suit and the lancing shards of pain shot up her arm as she balled her other fist.

    One punch was all it took, one hard, bone cracking punch to the gut followed by a quick stomp to the foot. RD moved like lightning, her arm wrapping around the first man’s neck and turning him around to use him as a shield while his friend unleashed a burst of his own.

    RD felt her suit rattle and widened her eyes as she saw the bullet holes on her human shield. The other merc had fired armor piercing! The high impact rounds had punched cleanly through her shield, shredding his armor and losing power to be stopped by her own.

    “Wow. That’s some cold blood.”

    She grunted as she tossed the now dead man onto his friend and dashed in again. Her fist cracked on the MULTI-Rifle wielding mercenary’s face, dazzling him for a brief second. Then she hit him again, and again, and again. By the time she stopped, her fist was bloody red and the man had a caved in cheek, his jaw half broken.

    “Bitch you better be able to talk.” She snarled as she grabbed him by the neck with her other hand, her bloody fist still raised up “Or else I’m gonna make some contemporary art with your face and that wall.”

    As she slammed the man on the wall behind him, he stammered, trying to speak with his broken teeth. There was a gurgle and a fleshy groan as he tried to work his mouth, eventually managing to make a sound that was somewhat similar to a ‘stop!’, just enough to keep the angry Riot Grrl from pulping his face with her balled fist.

    “Oh. Nice. You’re conscious.”

    RD perked up when her ear sensors picked up movement around her. The local law enforcement was coming, and out of Beauvoir her Riot Grrl Corps status was as useful as a wet napkin. She had to be fast.

    “Listen here, ‘buddy’: The local cops are coming in to bag your friend and hopefully take you to a hospital. So just give me the address to where you fuckers are keeping my little sister and I’ll go away get her. With any luck you’ll get a new face and it will be prettier than what you had before.”

    The man gurgled again, making a movement that looked enough like a nod for RD’s tastes. She smirked back at him when he raised a hand, opening his Comlog in front of her. The holographic map he showed was quickly copied by her suit and she dropped him unceremoniously on the ground once it was done.

    “Thanks, asshole.”

    The punk kicked his gun away just to make sure he wouldn’t shoot her in the back as she began running. One of the best additions to her suit was the 3D map system that showed a real time projection of the immediate area around her. It allowed her to quickly trace a route to evade the patrol cars coming in. She had to open a manhole and jump down into it, but unlike some of her friends she wouldn’t complain about dirty maintenance hatches later.

    As soon as she dropped down the maintenance hatch, a message popped up on the corner of her visor.

    USAMAZON: Where are you RD? Were comin down to meet you in Draiman

    RD allowed herself to smile as she rested her head against the metal wall behind her. She could hear the police officers above her, screaming at each other for a medic. Her hiding place was quite obvious, but she was sure the men above her were doing their best to just pretend they were looking for her. They were probably happy she made such a clean mess for them.

    RAINBOWTRASH: Im on some maitence tunel. Hiding from the coppers

    USAMAZON: what?

    DRSCARY: WHAT?

    RD snickered when she saw Butterfly was in the same chat. That was nice.

    RAINBOWTRASH: Mercs tried to smoke me out. I smoked them.

    DRSCARY: Where are you, Rhona?

    RAINBOWTRASH: I said it: maintenance tunnel. Im somewhere near main access gate 05. just follow the coppers

    She snickered again as she overheard someone talk about how they were not going to chase some ‘Beauvoir carpet muncher’ and risk getting their asses shot off by a ‘power armored bitch with enough firepower to level the whole module’. It was an exaggeration, but she liked it. However, the police would be on lookout for Riot Grrls now, and so Jack might get in trouble.

    RAINBOWTRASH: Wait. Cops are looking for Riots. Jack be careful

    USAMAZON: You had to get in a fight RD?

    DRSCARY: Give us your location. We’re going to meet you there. Stay. Still, Rhona.

    RAINBOWTRASH: Sorry Butterball, no can do. Im sending a map to the mercs place where theyr keeping Scoots

    RAINBOWTRASH: Meet me there in 30. I’m going in with or without you

    USAMAZON: Youre an asshole, Rhona

    RAINBOWTRASH: Its my little sis, Jack.

    There was a silence. For a moment RD noticed how alone she was on the hatch, as the sounds above her died down and her suit was absolutely silent too. Even the lights were so dim, she could barely see the wall in front of her. Her hand throbbed in pain, and she closed her fingers to feel around the broken bones, the only thing keeping her hand functional was her suit right now, but it hurt like a bitch.

    DRSCARY: We will be there. Good luck, Rho.

    RD just nodded and huffed to herself, allowing her suit to guide her along the maintenance corridors so she could get closer to her target now.
    _______________________________________

    “You know, I have a question…” Scooter leaned forward, struggling with her bonds but glad they had taken off the gag. “Are you guys getting well paid? I mean, really well paid?”

    The two men watching her said nothing. They looked humongous from where she was sitting, but she knew it was just perspective. Both men looked as if twins, with their armored vests, bald heads and big glasses that clearly were festooned with VR enhancements to feed them any kind of information they needed. They would have looked scary to most people.

    Scooter was flat out grinning at them. Her lips hurt from where they had been taped earlier, but they had removed the tape to allow her to suckle on some tasteless protein smoothie, the kind of horrible food they gave to prisoners working in mining colonies. That made Scooter figure out they had to keep her alive, so she grinned wide and decided to be as annoying as she could.

    “Because we all know how this is going to end, right? My sister is gonna come in here to save me, and she’s gonna hurt you guys so bad. So I hope the pay is good, because RD is going to kick. Your. Asses.”

    One of the two men raised his eyebrows. He suddenly turned to the other guard and asked.

    “Wait, is she talking about that RD?”

    The second guard shrugged his shoulders.

    “Damned if I know. It’s not like that’s an uncommon name, cabron.”

    “There aren’t that many RDs on the Riot Grrl corps, man!” The first guard said as he reached up and took his glasses off, clearly turning off the communications with the rest of their crew “Did we just kidnap the sister of fucking Rhona Dmitry? This is gonna suck.”

    “The fuck you’re going on about?”

    Scooter saw her chance and perked up, grinning as she puffed out her chest. She was tied to a chair, but even with her restricted movement she managed to puff up like a peacock.

    “He’s talking about the youngest woman to ever put on a Riot Grrl suit. The only Beauvoir citizen to be transferred out of the local prisons because she was too much of a hassle. Former associate of the DiveBomber gang, defender of the Don Peyotte, kicker of asses and taker of names.”

    The guard snickered at Scooter’s clear excitement in talking about her sister. He shrugged, clearly unimpressed by all the stuff she said. He sounded more annoyed than scared when he asked.

    “And who are you? The president of her fanclub?”

    “Yes!” Scooter was beaming by now “And she’s my big sister. She’s coming and when she gets here you two are gonna be toast.”

    “You know what, cabron, I’m not gonna stand here waiting for some bitch in a glowing suit to wreck our shit. I’m out.”

    “Chill your ass out, man.” The second guard groaned and punched his friend on the shoulder “There’s more than enough of us out there to hold up a single Riot Grrl, I don’t give a fuck if she’s Saint Mary herself in power armor.”

    As he said that, he turned to Scooter’s beaming face and growled. The man kneeled in front of her and pulled a roll of duct tape from his pocket, gesturing at her with it.

    “As for you, little harpy, we can’t hurt you, but we don’t have to listen to you either.”

    He wrapped her mouth with duct tape, despite Scooter struggling against it, trying to bite his fingers. Once she was neatly gagged again, he stood up and motioned for his friend.

    “Go get someone else who’s less of a pussy to stand guard. What the fuck…”

    Scooter watched with growing wide eyes as the guard left the room, stomping his booted feet in an annoyed walk. His friend was left there watching in annoyed disbelief as Scooter laughed despite her gagged mouth, nearly vibrating in her chair as she waited for her rescue, being so sure it was coming any time now

    Continues...
     
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