āIn this story, it might just be that the princess slays the dragon.ā
No sooner had Stella jumped into the smoke than she heard a quartet of gunshots, and she ducked, throwing up a hasty barrier. Really, the way that guy could just see though things, or predict trajectories or whatever he was doingāit was uncanny. No impact resounded against the barrier, however, and a familiar voice, employed as usual for a snarky quip, told her why.
He was here.
āI cede to your absolutely superior skills at pissing people off,ā she replied dryly, though a little smile tugged at the corners of her mouth. Here they were, in the middle of what might just be their very own death scene, and they were still trading little verbal jabs with each other. It was almostā¦ comforting.
It was at about this time, however, that they were interrupted by yet more bullets, and she dove to the opposite side from Uno, so as to present as wide a range of targets as possible, and minimize the potential damage to both of them. It was all for naught, however, and his request for help would have to go unanswered, because Project Zero had found them, and she was a whole other problem to handle. A marksman with a shot like that was nothing to be sneezed at no matter what powers you had, but the androidā¦ well, she was something else entirely.
Stella just barely managed to get out of the way of a swing of that energy blade again, knowing that her barriers probably wouldnāt deflect nearly enough. Bearing down with a concentrated gravatic field, she attempted to bring the android to her knees. Darcia slowed in response, her eyes flaring a bright, fire-hued red, and against all the pressure Stella could bring to bear, she straightened, leveling her sword out to the side as if to charge.
But thenā
Violetās cry of alarm left her with almost no time to reactāshe had to let go of her gravity and create a barrier, something she had only partially managed before a large piece of shrapnel slammed into her from the left and took her off her feet, dissolving what sheād managed to erect in the milliseconds before the explosion took full effect. āHnā¦ā There was a massive lesion on one side of her ribcage, and her left arm was sliced down to the bone, useless until her healing factor but things back in working order. It was an incredible amount of pain, almost too much to process, and her vision blurred in and out as the GHOST rose to his feet, pointing a gun directly for Uno.
āNo,ā she breathed, reaching for whatever power she had left, but she couldnāt get to it soon enough to stop the bullet, and she flinched and turned away when the gun firedā¦ but the sound of Violetās body hitting the ground never came. Opening her eyes again, Stella observed the wall of blood, and Unoās own shocked expression, mirrored in her face. Maybeā¦ maybe she wasnāt as alone as sheād always thought she was. Still prone, Stella moved her good arm to her pocket, depressing a trigger on her own, more functional, HUD, and then braced it underneath her, forcing herself to her feet.
They werenāt done yet.
The voice on the other end of Caineās last phone call sighed gently. āOf course, Caine. Iāll do everything I can.ā No doubt her job would be unspeakably difficult for the foreseeable future, but sheād known this was going to happen as soon as her meeting had been interrupted by the images from outside the domes. Some quick thinking already had Parliament on her side, and that would go a long way towards settling everyone else, but it would still be far from simple. But she could do it, and that was why she was the best at her job. āDo be careful.ā
Darcia, meanwhile, received the Supreme Generalās orders with a nod. She had no choice but to obey, and in this case, she would have chosen to do so even if the option was hers. She was off to the specified location shortly thereafter, but pulled up short when Uno Summus made his appearance outside. That rather truncated her objectives, and so when she observed the targets separate, she went directly for Stella, who responded by applying a truly fantastic amount of gravity onto the spot she stood. Such force likely would have started to crush a human being, but Darcia, as she was often and occasionally painfully reminded, was not one of those, and after some adjustment for this new pressure, she was ready to move forward againā
Until the explosion.
She was picked up off her feet and hurled back into another pillar, but her damage was not extensive. Abrasions to her synthetic skin, and a dislocated right shoulder, which she promptly moved back into place. She observed almost immediately that her partner was in much worse shape than she was. What happened next was only explicable one way, as far as Darcia could tell.
āJenkins, Theodore. Sanguikinesis, regeneration. Seven of ten. Powers highly unstable, sociopathic tendencies render subject extremely dangerous. Date of termination: September eighteenth, year three thousand.ā The ability to manipulate blood had belonged to one of the original subjects, one of those who had been out in the general population for some time before his termination. Given the mathematics, it was not infeasible that Uno Summus was descended from this individual, which mandated a change of strategyā
Darciaās progress forward, in hopes of backing up her partner, was halted. The reason was not something external, nothing that either Stella or Uno had done, or even a factor of the recent environmental damage. Rather, something strange was happening on the inside of her systems. If she was to use the common terminology for itā¦ she was being hacked, by someone moving faster than her current schematics allowed her to counter. She froze in place, once again beholden to the whim of an outside force, and something in this felt malicious, as though she were being dissected by some outside intellect, scrutinized the way the human child would examine a still-living insect staked to the ground with needles. And indeed, she was just as immobile.
A small sound of distress was her only indication that something was wrong, followed by the sound of her energy blade fizzling out of existence for the moment. She was locked in place as the hacker overwrote her command protocols, remaking her very existence. She felt the things she was tear apart and reconfigure, and it was more than vertigo. It was beyond pain. It felt as though something inside her was being unmade.
Unable to do anything else, her eyes sought the person she trusted most. Wisteria searched, sought frantically, the comforting warmth of crystalline blue.
He was here.
āI cede to your absolutely superior skills at pissing people off,ā she replied dryly, though a little smile tugged at the corners of her mouth. Here they were, in the middle of what might just be their very own death scene, and they were still trading little verbal jabs with each other. It was almostā¦ comforting.
It was at about this time, however, that they were interrupted by yet more bullets, and she dove to the opposite side from Uno, so as to present as wide a range of targets as possible, and minimize the potential damage to both of them. It was all for naught, however, and his request for help would have to go unanswered, because Project Zero had found them, and she was a whole other problem to handle. A marksman with a shot like that was nothing to be sneezed at no matter what powers you had, but the androidā¦ well, she was something else entirely.
Stella just barely managed to get out of the way of a swing of that energy blade again, knowing that her barriers probably wouldnāt deflect nearly enough. Bearing down with a concentrated gravatic field, she attempted to bring the android to her knees. Darcia slowed in response, her eyes flaring a bright, fire-hued red, and against all the pressure Stella could bring to bear, she straightened, leveling her sword out to the side as if to charge.
But thenā
Violetās cry of alarm left her with almost no time to reactāshe had to let go of her gravity and create a barrier, something she had only partially managed before a large piece of shrapnel slammed into her from the left and took her off her feet, dissolving what sheād managed to erect in the milliseconds before the explosion took full effect. āHnā¦ā There was a massive lesion on one side of her ribcage, and her left arm was sliced down to the bone, useless until her healing factor but things back in working order. It was an incredible amount of pain, almost too much to process, and her vision blurred in and out as the GHOST rose to his feet, pointing a gun directly for Uno.
āNo,ā she breathed, reaching for whatever power she had left, but she couldnāt get to it soon enough to stop the bullet, and she flinched and turned away when the gun firedā¦ but the sound of Violetās body hitting the ground never came. Opening her eyes again, Stella observed the wall of blood, and Unoās own shocked expression, mirrored in her face. Maybeā¦ maybe she wasnāt as alone as sheād always thought she was. Still prone, Stella moved her good arm to her pocket, depressing a trigger on her own, more functional, HUD, and then braced it underneath her, forcing herself to her feet.
They werenāt done yet.
āBut what if the dragon was inside your mind?ā
The voice on the other end of Caineās last phone call sighed gently. āOf course, Caine. Iāll do everything I can.ā No doubt her job would be unspeakably difficult for the foreseeable future, but sheād known this was going to happen as soon as her meeting had been interrupted by the images from outside the domes. Some quick thinking already had Parliament on her side, and that would go a long way towards settling everyone else, but it would still be far from simple. But she could do it, and that was why she was the best at her job. āDo be careful.ā
Darcia, meanwhile, received the Supreme Generalās orders with a nod. She had no choice but to obey, and in this case, she would have chosen to do so even if the option was hers. She was off to the specified location shortly thereafter, but pulled up short when Uno Summus made his appearance outside. That rather truncated her objectives, and so when she observed the targets separate, she went directly for Stella, who responded by applying a truly fantastic amount of gravity onto the spot she stood. Such force likely would have started to crush a human being, but Darcia, as she was often and occasionally painfully reminded, was not one of those, and after some adjustment for this new pressure, she was ready to move forward againā
Until the explosion.
She was picked up off her feet and hurled back into another pillar, but her damage was not extensive. Abrasions to her synthetic skin, and a dislocated right shoulder, which she promptly moved back into place. She observed almost immediately that her partner was in much worse shape than she was. What happened next was only explicable one way, as far as Darcia could tell.
āJenkins, Theodore. Sanguikinesis, regeneration. Seven of ten. Powers highly unstable, sociopathic tendencies render subject extremely dangerous. Date of termination: September eighteenth, year three thousand.ā The ability to manipulate blood had belonged to one of the original subjects, one of those who had been out in the general population for some time before his termination. Given the mathematics, it was not infeasible that Uno Summus was descended from this individual, which mandated a change of strategyā
Darciaās progress forward, in hopes of backing up her partner, was halted. The reason was not something external, nothing that either Stella or Uno had done, or even a factor of the recent environmental damage. Rather, something strange was happening on the inside of her systems. If she was to use the common terminology for itā¦ she was being hacked, by someone moving faster than her current schematics allowed her to counter. She froze in place, once again beholden to the whim of an outside force, and something in this felt malicious, as though she were being dissected by some outside intellect, scrutinized the way the human child would examine a still-living insect staked to the ground with needles. And indeed, she was just as immobile.
A small sound of distress was her only indication that something was wrong, followed by the sound of her energy blade fizzling out of existence for the moment. She was locked in place as the hacker overwrote her command protocols, remaking her very existence. She felt the things she was tear apart and reconfigure, and it was more than vertigo. It was beyond pain. It felt as though something inside her was being unmade.
Unable to do anything else, her eyes sought the person she trusted most. Wisteria searched, sought frantically, the comforting warmth of crystalline blue.