PLEASE NOTE THAT THIS IS THE OLD THREAD. THE MOST RECENT THREAD IS HERE:
Haunting at Shanxi...
Haunting at Shanxi...
Haunting At Shanxi (Puella Magi Madoka Magica/Mass Effect)
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PLEASE NOTE THAT THIS IS THE OLD THREAD. THE MOST RECENT THREAD IS HERE:
Haunting at Shanxi Redux (Puella Magi Madoka Magica/Mass Effect)
It is thoroughly edited.
To those of you who hadn't seen the SB thread:
Just so everyone knows, this isn't intended to be a stomp fic, it's a horror story with both turian and human protagonists. I include this disclaimer because it's a story centered around Shanxi.
To those of you who read the original:
Currently this is just a repost with a few revisions, but this version of the thread will eventually include:
An index
An actual ending
And, potentially, a sequel (I already have a few ideas, but I'll need to figure out if they can actually be hammered into a plot)
Also, I should note that I have spent a fair chunk of time revising where I want the plot to go, so pre-rewrite information might no longer be reliable.
I'll be including the next chapters as I finish editing them, and should be providing new content by Saturday, and the index will include a clear separation between the revised chapters and the new ones.
~~~
Civilian Camp D14, Shanxi
Erin sat in "her" room, resting on the bunks, feeling rather bored. There wasn't really all that much to do, honestly.
She wasn't even sure what to think of her… was captors even the right word? Captors seemed more the sort of word that was used when talking about kidnappers, not whatever these aliens were.
She had never really thought about aliens. Oh, when she was younger, before she had contracted, she had thought the idea of the mass relays and the technology taken from a dead civilization was pretty interesting, but well, by this point, she didn't quite have the fascination that her parents seemed to have with the idea.
Aliens existed.
They're all dead now.
Get over it.
And now, well, the aliens were here.
It had started about a week ago, when a research team sent through the relay had failed to report back. Even then, she had focused on her "job" to the point that it barely registered, until the announcement came that they were all to report to the bunkers blared over the loudspeakers.
She had been at school, and so she found herself being herded into the emergency bunkers that had been specifically built under the school. She couldn't help but be a bit annoyed at how nervous everyone else was as they were herded into the bunkers. Some part of her knew that she was being unfair, but she could smell the fear of her classmates.
She wasn't sure if that was normal, or just another of the perks of being a Puella Magi that Kyuubey had forgotten to mention, but she found herself drifting away from the televisions and loudspeakers just to get away from it all.
Still, her ears were sharp enough to pick up the bits and pieces, "invasion", "garrison", and other such things, which were… worrying.. It hadn't taken long for the bunkers to be forced open, and for the aliens to enter. They began to grab people and herd them outside of the bunker, and only bothering to put restraints on the teachers who attempted to resist.
They had eventually been brought outside of the city, where a great collection of prefab buildings had been placed on the fields. They had all been left in the buildings there, with the aliens setting up fences and walls outside of the encampment, and they left the captured humans to their own devices.
They had actually been left in somewhat comfortable conditions, they were given bunks that weren't too hard or too soft, and the food wasn't too terrible, even if they had all been crowded into very large rooms. Erin… wasn't really sure what to think situation. She knew that she was being calmer than just about everyone else there, even the teachers, with her fellow classmates being particularly… annoying in their speculation. She supposed that it didn't really help that the 4th grade class had covered Nazi Germany just last month in their history classes, and now they had found themselves being rounded up and shoved into camps, and so they had made the… obvious, conclusions. Which lead to the unease spreading from the younger children.
Well, those who hadn't just assumed that the aliens were trying to eat them or something.
She avoided the conversations of her fellow classmates, and found herself wishing that she knew where her parents were. She hadn't really been able to relate to her fellow classmates for… years now, she supposed. Ever since she had first contracted.
While she was just as unable to talk to her parents about being a magical girl as she was with her fellow classmates, at least she could talk to them about some things without finding herself getting annoyed at them being… stupid. The way that they talked to her after having learned that she had been held back from graduating (for medical reasons) didn't help. There were apparently other magical girls on the planet, but not only was she the oldest (at just past seventeen!), but, well, she was the only one who lived in this city.
She had never met another magical girl in her life, though Kyuubey had occasionally offered to put her in contact with others, but she had refused.
Really, she could handle the city on her own, and Kyuubey had even warned her that a lot of magical girl friendships tended to dissolve into rivalries over who got the Grief Seeds, so it was probably for the best that she was the only magical girl in town.
Kyuubey was normally right about those sorts of things. I'm sorry that it took me so long to track where you had gone. A childlike voice spoke into her ear.
Erin's eyes shot around the room until she spotted the "speaker". Kyuubey! You little fluffball, I was getting worried about you!
That was hardly necessary. You know that I am invisible to the eyes of most people. Regardless, the catlike creature leapt up to her bunk and sat in her lap, where she began stroking it between the ears. Yes, the bunks were public, but everyone else was too distracted with their own conversations to notice her stroking the air above her lap, and, frankly, if anyone was going look at her in a funny way during her reunion with the one person on the planet that could actually understand her, well, she didn't really give a damn what they thought.
Erin scratched at her head awkwardly. Ah, well, I heard something about a few explosions, so I thought that maybe a few of them had gotten lucky or something. Besides, I wasn't sure about your ability to hide from... aliens.
Kyuubey glanced up at her from her lap as it projected its thoughts again. The Turians are just as unable to perceive me as humans are, unless I want to be seen.
Erin frowned for a moment. Turians?
That is the term that the invaders refer to themselves by, yes.
You, you know what they're called? A hint of anger and suspicion managing to sneak its way into her mental voice as she asked the question.
While we have little reason to speak with them frequently, we are mutually aware of each others existence. It paused for a moment, before seemingly realizing just what she was angry about.
We were looking towards your imminent first formal contact with interest, though this particular scenario failed to fall within expected parameters. The aggressiveness of their fleet was unanticipated.
She frowned at the thing in her lap. So, you hadn't thought they were going to invade? But why didn't you tell us that they existed? Or... done something?
It tilted its head at her. Their motivations for invading this planet are currently unknown, and we are pursuing our own channels in an attempt to understand what cause they have for invading the planet, and hopefully we would be able to mediate any conflict between your species without further bloodshed. Somehow its mental voice became mildly disapproving. I actually had, I had brought up the existence of other species beforehand, when I mentioned that humanity would find itself in a greater galactic community eventually. Had you not been paying attention?
Her face flushed, she quickly projected. Ah, no, that lecture just, slipped my mind. She forced her hands to continue rubbing the doll on her lap, and avoided scratching the back of her neck.
Honestly, she spent a lot of time talking to Kyuubey, especially during any physics classes where, for some sort of magical familiar creature, Kyuubey seemed to have an almost intimate understanding of the concepts being discussed. When she convinced him to talk about the subject with her during class, well, her grades in physics were higher than in any other subject, up to the point where the possibility of scholarships had been raised (She had a bit of trouble in history, since her teacher seemed to think she was trying to be a delinquent or something after she had absentmindedly mentioned Joan de' Arc having been a magical girl).
He mentioned so many things to her, many of which just slipped past her head, and she sometimes just… ignored him. Still, Kyuubey was a good sport about it. So, you plan on talking to these aliens about having invaded the planet?
Yes. She couldn't quite help but get that the Incubator was perfectly aware that she was changing the subject. Or maybe she was just imagining that. Kyuubey was weird, sometimes. With luck, we will be able to avert further conflict before the fleet from Earth arrives.
Erin quickly sat up straighter. Wait, the fleet's coming?
The Incubator tilted its head up at her. Of course. Earth already knows that the research fleet disappeared, and after Shanxi went dark, they knew that they had little choice but to mobilize their forces. Considering the distances involved and the somewhat unorganized nature of the alliance, we currently estimate that the arrival of the fleet will take little over a week.
Erin gave a soft grin. That's good to hear. But… A small flick of her palm that almost appeared to be an act of sleight of hand had her Soul Gem appear in it.
The Incubator leaned in close enough to examine it. Hm. It doesn't appear as if your Soul Gem is clean enough to survive for that long without being cleansed with a Grief Seed. Not only that, but you've failed to establish a stockpile for times such as these, Erin mentally scoffed at that, he always told her to be more careful, but she could hardly be expected to, well, expect aliens, could she?
Kyuubey continued. and as such, it appears that you will have to go on a witch hunt soon.
Erin winced. Do you think these… Turians, do you think they'd let me just… wander off on my own for a while?
That is unlikely. Sometimes, Erin found Kyuubey's tendency answer questions that she had meant to be rhetorical to be cute. This was not one of those times.
However, we do believe that it should be well within your capabilities to escape captivity using your abilities.
But, they have patrols outside, and cameras… It had occurred to her, actually. Just garb up, slice her way through the wall, and make her way free. But, what would she actually do if she got out. Head back to her home, grab her a handheld and hope it had enough charge, and just hang out until the fleet arrived? It was an option, but...
As they are unable to see me, it should be well within my abilities to get you through a window in their patrol routes.
Hah! She grinned, and scooped up the Incubator in her arms. You're the best!
*****
With Kyuubey's help, it was actually pretty easy to sneak away. Find a place to transform just outside of the cameras, and then move whenever he told her to, and she soon found herself on the outskirts of the city.
While it was one of the largest settlements on the planet, looking at old pics of New York, she couldn't really help but feel that the massive number of quickly assembled buildings weren't really deserving of the title of city. Only the industrial structures topped three stories, and most of the rest were just rather samey houses.
Pulling out her soul gem, she grinned. Looks like we found us a witch right off the bat.
On her shoulder, Kyuubey replied. It is hardly surprising. After the stresses of the invasion, witch activity has substantially increased. You might even be able to acquire several Grief Seeds during one night.
Nah, I don't want to get too greedy. One should last me enough Besides, who knows how good a watch they keep on their prisoners? Better to just do this one hunt and get back quickly. She hesitated for a moment, her thoughts darting towards a different subject. While I'm gone, would you, would you mind tracking down my parents? I didn't see them in the camp we were sent to, but I think that there were several camps around the city. Could you... mind checking those to see if they're okay?
The Incubator nodded. It's no trouble. Are you sure that you will not need my assistance?
Ah, don't worry about me. I have more combat experience than the entire planetary garrison put together. I'll be fine.
Kyuubey nodded in acknowledgement, and ran off into the night. Very well. *****
"It's just, look at these buildings. Do any of them look older than a few decades?" The Turian Hierarchy's military was one of the most disciplined fighting forces known to galaxy.
Sarasi glanced back at the turian who'd just spoken. "Yes, Larir, we see that, but it might not mean anything. We know nothing about this species. For all we know, they have a proud cultural tradition of going after anything older than a century old with sledgehammers, just so that they could be in a state of constant urban renewal. I imagine that it gives them a pretty healthy economy, actually."
It should be noted that this discipline was more in a strategic sense, and random patrols, particularly when in the "comfort" of a Turian APC (built with speed and durability in mind, to survive a fight just long enough to get to a safe place to dump its cargo, with rather less thought given to amenities), tended to be almost as prone to random chatter as the various other species. Especially since the few holdouts resisting the Turian forces seemed to be in an entirely different hemisphere. There had been a firefight yesterday, but none of those riding in this particular vehicle had even been within five miles of that engagement.
Larir continued speaking. "Right, you laugh now, but this has to be a new colony. There's no way that this was their homeworld."
"You know what, you're right. You should go report this higher up in the command chain. I hear the admiral has a little box just outside his door, and a little slot to stick paper in just waiting for intrepid soldiers to report their latest findings. It's labeled "The Incredibly Fucking Obvious," and it sounds like just the sort of place where you should stick it."
Larir frowned. "Right, I know it seems obvious, but if this is just a colony, then they probably have a larger fleet getting ready to hit back."
Sarasi sighed. "Then that's something for the fleets to worry about, though I can't expect that they'd need to worry much. These native's shield technology is so primitive they only took one or two shots to break, and they're so fresh into space it wouldn't surprise me if this was their very first colony. I really doubt that they have a whole fleet of ships off by their homeworld or something."
Olihiek spoke up from the back of the vehicle. "Besides, from what my buddies up there told me", he tapped his knuckles on the roof of vehicle, "their fleet didn't stand a chance once our fleet started firing at them. They're barely at the eezo stage of development, and I doubt that whatever ships they have back at the homeworld are much better."
Larir frowned. "Still, I don't like it. Why wasn't this-"
"Be advised, Sergeant Togriss, we have picked up a heat signature in your area. It looks like one of the natives. We picked up no traces of eezo, but not all of the local weaponry was eezo based, so keep your eyes open. We are updating your HUD with its last known location."
Sergent Togriss tapped the side of his helmet. "Confirmed command, will investigate, over and out." He glanced at his men, "Cut the chatter, this little patrol now has an actual objective, we are searching for a possible hostile, but more likely it's just some civilian who escaped the initial sweeps."
Sarasi shrugged. "At least it's something."
All present began checking their weapons and their equipment. They had all checked it before they went on this mission, and it wasn't likely that they would actually need to use any of their kit, but certain things were just done, and it was better than twiddling their talons while the vehicle covered the four kilometers to their objective.
As they approached, Larir, who had been seated at the sensors, announced"Alright, I'm picking up a heat signature, hm, it's moving pretty quickly for a person, but that's what it's reading as."
Sergent Togriss nodded over to Sarasi, "Head them off and we'll get out and see if we can't convince whoever it is to come along peacefully." This would be easier if they had working translators, but at this point, the tech boys were still trying to write up programs for translating from Turian-to-Prothean-to-Unknown. Besides, there were few messages that pointed gestures, handmovements, and occasional application of the shock prods couldn't communicate, although he hoped that that last one could be avoided for now.
Larir glanced at one of the screens that he had available. "Ah, it sees us. It's… damn, whoever it is out there is quick; she just jumped on top of that building. Get us up there and let's see if we can't get her to surrender, but moving like that, it's probably not a civilian."
Sarasi triggered the jump jets on the APC, and the machine leapt up into the air, the eezo in the engine temporarily lightening the vehicle to the point where it could launch itself from the ground to the roof (as well as, incidentally, keeping it light enough during landing so as to not collapse the roof from its jets). As they began to descend Larir shouted
"-heat spike, jink jink!" Sarasi tried to maneuver the APC away, but by choice or by design, the attack came just after the apex of the jump, when maneuverability was lowest. He saw a flash of red and grey strike towards the window, he instinctively held his arm up to block it, and-
*****
Larir groaned as he stood up from the flaming mess that was once their ride, and glanced about him. The front of the vehicle had a massive gash in it, with the edges appearing to have… melted.
Glancing at his helmet, he saw that the rest of his squad still had positive life signs but- "Command, this is Private Larir, my squad was ambushed, we have" he winced as he looked at Sarasi's arm, several feet from his body, "-one casualty, but the rest of us should be ready to continue pursuit soon. Target has fled the area."
That felt, sloppy, but then, he had hit his head during the… landing. "We are sending a gunship to provide overwatch and another APC to pick up the wounded. In the meantime, provide us with a sitrep."
He groaned and grabbed his head. "We pursued the unknown to a rooftop, unknown is not civilian, I repeat, not civilian, they possessed some sort of," at this point, he had the urge to try and make something up, to call whatever it had been some unknown energy weapon or something, but his training had been too thorough for that- always report exactly what you see, leave the speculation to command- "it looked to be a giant flaming sword, command."
A moment's silence on the other end. "Repeat that last part, private." "It looked to be a giant flaming sword. Heat signature was white on the infa-red. Whatever it was, it cut right through our kinetic barriers like they weren't even there. Our APC is… non salvageable."
"… we'll check your suit's telemetry once you get back. Hold your position until your squad is back on their feet." And his reward for his honesty was… skepticism.
"Ah, what's the situation?" And Togriss was conscious now. "They're sending over a gunship to hunt down the insurgent, and an APC to pick us up."
"Hmph." He stood up and surveyed the area. "Keep an eye out in case our unknown decides to come around to finish us off. For all we know, their being so visible on the heat spectrum was just bait for a trap."
They heard a groan from the side, and Sarasi tried to get up. "Urgh, Sergent, I can't seem to get up, could one of you give me a hand?" He was trying to lift himself up with one arm, his stump waving ineffectually. It took a moment for him to glance to his side. "-oh. And I just said- heh." He paused.
"Hey, Sarge, do you know if this suit's medical suite comes with painkillers, because I can't feel anything, and I can't tell if it's shock or drugs." Togriss knelt by him, reaching into the pouch on his side and began to tie a tourniquet to the wound, "It's probably a bit of both, now stop moving and try to stay awake."
Olihiek spoke up, surprising all present with his consciousness. "I see a heat signature over in that factory complex over there. It looks like our target might be resting."
Togriss thought to himself for a moment. "It'll take a few minutes for the gunship to get here, and by then they could have escaped to whatever hidey hole they managed to use to avoid us in the first sweeps. Sarasi can hold his position, the rest of us are going to approach the building and wait for the gunship to arrive. I don't want to let this unknown get away. Move out, Olihiek, you got point. Sarasi, contact us if your helmet picks up anything new."
The three of them moved out, leaving behind their wounded for the medics to pick up. They moved cautiously, but apparently, whoever it was in that building wasn't keeping an eye out for followers, as they detected no signs that they had been spotted, and the target appeared to be content to wait in the building. They reached the roof of structure just three buildings away.
"If there's any movement, our sensors should pick it up." Togriss spoke to his squad. "We're waiting here for the gunship." They… waited. They wanted to keep radio communications to a minimum, which meant helmet communication was out, and they wanted to minimize noise, which meant that simply talking to each other was not an option.
They might have checked their weapons a bit more thoroughly than the situation warranted, even if their vehicle had been destroyed with them in it, but if his squad checking their weapons meant that they weren't focusing on the fact that their assailant could realize their presence at any moment and shoot another… whatever the hell that thing was… at them, Togriss wasn't going to object.
Olihiek glanced into his armband. "Just received a narrow band text transmission, looks like another patrol has already picked up Sarasi, and their medic is saying that he's going to be alright." Some of the tension bled from the squad. "Our gunship's ETA is about, now, looks like." From the clouds emerged a single ship, its searchlights dancing around the building. "Any idea why it's making its presence so obvious?" Laril asked. "I think… the pilot's trying to bait whoever it is into triggering an ambush."
Togriss watched the ship. "It's flying low, but not lot enough that it wouldn't have time to launch flares and dodge." Olihiek pulled out his rifle, using the scope to search the building. "I see movement inside, it's heading towards the side of the building that our air support is on. Flagging and transmitting."
Inside the gunship, the pilot flagged his acknowledgement of the new information that had been sent to him, moving his gunship slightly away from the building and orienting the nose towards the spot where Olihiek had spotted the target. "I still don't have a clear shot at the target, and Command would probably still prefer it if we were to take the unknown assailant and weapon in for analysis, so I can't just shoot through the wall, wait, there's bit of heat moving up the stairs, it looks like the target is heading towards the roof."
"Alright, I have a clear shot at the roof exit, see if you can keep on luring him out until they're in my field of fire."
"Will do." He watched the door from his perch, just waiting for it to creep open and give him a clear shot- The door ripped open, and someone darted through it, a single sweep of her arm launching a curved blade out towards the helicopter. The pilot tried to maneuver out of the way, but the blade curved in midair, igniting itself in brilliant flames, and in the heat of the moment, Olihiek noted that there was steam coming up from where the rain fell to the blade.
"Launching flares and- the missile is ignoring the flares, I repeat, it is ignoring the flares, dodging dodging" the blade kept to its target, and the gunship was sliced in half as the sword ascended to its target.
Olihiek, cursing his brief lack of discipline in tracking the weapon rather than the shooter, turned his scope lower, sighting- He paused, hesitating, as he looked at the shooter's eyes as she, and it was a she, he could see that now, watched the descent of the vehicle in… horror? As it crashed down in flames into some of the buildings, he saw the face of Nalian, his blueskinned little asari niece.
Shaking off the mental image, he looked into the scope, and the target was moving (so damned fast) he shifted aim, pulled, and was rewarded with a burst of blood coming from the unknown's shoulder. "Target is wounded, pursue!"
Came the voice of Togriss, snapping him from his surprise. The three leapt from the roof, their suits helping to reduce the impact from the fall, and rushed to the building, hoping speed would get them past the unknown weapon. They burst down the factory door, charging into the building.
"Target was last seen on the roof, go go go!" As they reached the second floor, a blade emerged from the ceiling, stabbing downwards and striking the shoulder of Larir, his shout of agony nearly making his fellows hesitate as they continued to move upwards, with Togriss blasting his shotgun above him in the hopes of preventing another attack.
They saw a door on the third floor, and their HUDs informed them that that area was directly above where they had been ambushed. Togriss leaned his shoulder in and slammed against the door in his armored bulk, breaking the door. Inside they saw- A girl, but Togriss was more concerned with the small black orb that she held in her hands. His instincts screamed grenade as he charged forward, ignoring the hand that was trying to pull him back-
****
One minute ago Erin huddled in the corner, looking at her rapidly darkening Soul Gem, and silently thanked Kyuubey for the fact that her body felt pain only in a dull sense.
You're welcome. From a window, there stared two red eyes.
Kyuubey, can you- she wants to ask him to come up with some way for her to escape, but she's hurt. Hurt from the battle with the Witch (who had managed to escape), hurt from shot to the elbow, and-
- The chopper fell, screaming, the flames engulfed the building-
She shuddered. She hadn't meant to pick a fight, but when that vehicle showed up, she had just, panicked. She threw the sword based on pure instinct, instinct that had been born from years of fighting within labyrinths, not... well, not the on the outside, not where it could have hurt someone.
She had wanted to rest, to run, but they were following her, and she could hear the roaring of the flames below, and the scream of pain from the alien she had impaled below sounded so human, she… She couldn't run. She wasn't well enough to run.
I tracked down your parents. Kyuubey interrupted her thoughts. Ah? How are they?
They would never even know, never even understand-
They were killed yesterday. It tilted its head at her.
Wha- what?
As it turns out, someone else attempted to fight against the invaders using more conventional weapons, and most eezo based weapons have remarkable penetrative abilities. Several buildings were pierced through and the stray shots ended the lives of your parents.
No… When she had fought back, she had never even though about collateral, never even-
The flames were approaching, she could hear the screams, she couldn't do anything, couldn't rip out the IV and move-
Her gaze fell to the window, lingering at the flickering orange light. The door slammed open, and she saw one of the Turians charging in, his taloned arm outstretched, her Soul Gem was somehow in her hand and it shifted to black-
*****
Comments and critique are welcome.
Haunting at Shanxi Redux (Puella Magi Madoka Magica/Mass Effect)
It is thoroughly edited.
To those of you who hadn't seen the SB thread:
Just so everyone knows, this isn't intended to be a stomp fic, it's a horror story with both turian and human protagonists. I include this disclaimer because it's a story centered around Shanxi.
To those of you who read the original:
Currently this is just a repost with a few revisions, but this version of the thread will eventually include:
An index
An actual ending
And, potentially, a sequel (I already have a few ideas, but I'll need to figure out if they can actually be hammered into a plot)
Also, I should note that I have spent a fair chunk of time revising where I want the plot to go, so pre-rewrite information might no longer be reliable.
I'll be including the next chapters as I finish editing them, and should be providing new content by Saturday, and the index will include a clear separation between the revised chapters and the new ones.
~~~
Civilian Camp D14, Shanxi
Erin sat in "her" room, resting on the bunks, feeling rather bored. There wasn't really all that much to do, honestly.
She wasn't even sure what to think of her… was captors even the right word? Captors seemed more the sort of word that was used when talking about kidnappers, not whatever these aliens were.
She had never really thought about aliens. Oh, when she was younger, before she had contracted, she had thought the idea of the mass relays and the technology taken from a dead civilization was pretty interesting, but well, by this point, she didn't quite have the fascination that her parents seemed to have with the idea.
Aliens existed.
They're all dead now.
Get over it.
And now, well, the aliens were here.
It had started about a week ago, when a research team sent through the relay had failed to report back. Even then, she had focused on her "job" to the point that it barely registered, until the announcement came that they were all to report to the bunkers blared over the loudspeakers.
She had been at school, and so she found herself being herded into the emergency bunkers that had been specifically built under the school. She couldn't help but be a bit annoyed at how nervous everyone else was as they were herded into the bunkers. Some part of her knew that she was being unfair, but she could smell the fear of her classmates.
She wasn't sure if that was normal, or just another of the perks of being a Puella Magi that Kyuubey had forgotten to mention, but she found herself drifting away from the televisions and loudspeakers just to get away from it all.
Still, her ears were sharp enough to pick up the bits and pieces, "invasion", "garrison", and other such things, which were… worrying.. It hadn't taken long for the bunkers to be forced open, and for the aliens to enter. They began to grab people and herd them outside of the bunker, and only bothering to put restraints on the teachers who attempted to resist.
They had eventually been brought outside of the city, where a great collection of prefab buildings had been placed on the fields. They had all been left in the buildings there, with the aliens setting up fences and walls outside of the encampment, and they left the captured humans to their own devices.
They had actually been left in somewhat comfortable conditions, they were given bunks that weren't too hard or too soft, and the food wasn't too terrible, even if they had all been crowded into very large rooms. Erin… wasn't really sure what to think situation. She knew that she was being calmer than just about everyone else there, even the teachers, with her fellow classmates being particularly… annoying in their speculation. She supposed that it didn't really help that the 4th grade class had covered Nazi Germany just last month in their history classes, and now they had found themselves being rounded up and shoved into camps, and so they had made the… obvious, conclusions. Which lead to the unease spreading from the younger children.
Well, those who hadn't just assumed that the aliens were trying to eat them or something.
She avoided the conversations of her fellow classmates, and found herself wishing that she knew where her parents were. She hadn't really been able to relate to her fellow classmates for… years now, she supposed. Ever since she had first contracted.
While she was just as unable to talk to her parents about being a magical girl as she was with her fellow classmates, at least she could talk to them about some things without finding herself getting annoyed at them being… stupid. The way that they talked to her after having learned that she had been held back from graduating (for medical reasons) didn't help. There were apparently other magical girls on the planet, but not only was she the oldest (at just past seventeen!), but, well, she was the only one who lived in this city.
She had never met another magical girl in her life, though Kyuubey had occasionally offered to put her in contact with others, but she had refused.
Really, she could handle the city on her own, and Kyuubey had even warned her that a lot of magical girl friendships tended to dissolve into rivalries over who got the Grief Seeds, so it was probably for the best that she was the only magical girl in town.
Kyuubey was normally right about those sorts of things. I'm sorry that it took me so long to track where you had gone. A childlike voice spoke into her ear.
Erin's eyes shot around the room until she spotted the "speaker". Kyuubey! You little fluffball, I was getting worried about you!
That was hardly necessary. You know that I am invisible to the eyes of most people. Regardless, the catlike creature leapt up to her bunk and sat in her lap, where she began stroking it between the ears. Yes, the bunks were public, but everyone else was too distracted with their own conversations to notice her stroking the air above her lap, and, frankly, if anyone was going look at her in a funny way during her reunion with the one person on the planet that could actually understand her, well, she didn't really give a damn what they thought.
Erin scratched at her head awkwardly. Ah, well, I heard something about a few explosions, so I thought that maybe a few of them had gotten lucky or something. Besides, I wasn't sure about your ability to hide from... aliens.
Kyuubey glanced up at her from her lap as it projected its thoughts again. The Turians are just as unable to perceive me as humans are, unless I want to be seen.
Erin frowned for a moment. Turians?
That is the term that the invaders refer to themselves by, yes.
You, you know what they're called? A hint of anger and suspicion managing to sneak its way into her mental voice as she asked the question.
While we have little reason to speak with them frequently, we are mutually aware of each others existence. It paused for a moment, before seemingly realizing just what she was angry about.
We were looking towards your imminent first formal contact with interest, though this particular scenario failed to fall within expected parameters. The aggressiveness of their fleet was unanticipated.
She frowned at the thing in her lap. So, you hadn't thought they were going to invade? But why didn't you tell us that they existed? Or... done something?
It tilted its head at her. Their motivations for invading this planet are currently unknown, and we are pursuing our own channels in an attempt to understand what cause they have for invading the planet, and hopefully we would be able to mediate any conflict between your species without further bloodshed. Somehow its mental voice became mildly disapproving. I actually had, I had brought up the existence of other species beforehand, when I mentioned that humanity would find itself in a greater galactic community eventually. Had you not been paying attention?
Her face flushed, she quickly projected. Ah, no, that lecture just, slipped my mind. She forced her hands to continue rubbing the doll on her lap, and avoided scratching the back of her neck.
Honestly, she spent a lot of time talking to Kyuubey, especially during any physics classes where, for some sort of magical familiar creature, Kyuubey seemed to have an almost intimate understanding of the concepts being discussed. When she convinced him to talk about the subject with her during class, well, her grades in physics were higher than in any other subject, up to the point where the possibility of scholarships had been raised (She had a bit of trouble in history, since her teacher seemed to think she was trying to be a delinquent or something after she had absentmindedly mentioned Joan de' Arc having been a magical girl).
He mentioned so many things to her, many of which just slipped past her head, and she sometimes just… ignored him. Still, Kyuubey was a good sport about it. So, you plan on talking to these aliens about having invaded the planet?
Yes. She couldn't quite help but get that the Incubator was perfectly aware that she was changing the subject. Or maybe she was just imagining that. Kyuubey was weird, sometimes. With luck, we will be able to avert further conflict before the fleet from Earth arrives.
Erin quickly sat up straighter. Wait, the fleet's coming?
The Incubator tilted its head up at her. Of course. Earth already knows that the research fleet disappeared, and after Shanxi went dark, they knew that they had little choice but to mobilize their forces. Considering the distances involved and the somewhat unorganized nature of the alliance, we currently estimate that the arrival of the fleet will take little over a week.
Erin gave a soft grin. That's good to hear. But… A small flick of her palm that almost appeared to be an act of sleight of hand had her Soul Gem appear in it.
The Incubator leaned in close enough to examine it. Hm. It doesn't appear as if your Soul Gem is clean enough to survive for that long without being cleansed with a Grief Seed. Not only that, but you've failed to establish a stockpile for times such as these, Erin mentally scoffed at that, he always told her to be more careful, but she could hardly be expected to, well, expect aliens, could she?
Kyuubey continued. and as such, it appears that you will have to go on a witch hunt soon.
Erin winced. Do you think these… Turians, do you think they'd let me just… wander off on my own for a while?
That is unlikely. Sometimes, Erin found Kyuubey's tendency answer questions that she had meant to be rhetorical to be cute. This was not one of those times.
However, we do believe that it should be well within your capabilities to escape captivity using your abilities.
But, they have patrols outside, and cameras… It had occurred to her, actually. Just garb up, slice her way through the wall, and make her way free. But, what would she actually do if she got out. Head back to her home, grab her a handheld and hope it had enough charge, and just hang out until the fleet arrived? It was an option, but...
As they are unable to see me, it should be well within my abilities to get you through a window in their patrol routes.
Hah! She grinned, and scooped up the Incubator in her arms. You're the best!
*****
With Kyuubey's help, it was actually pretty easy to sneak away. Find a place to transform just outside of the cameras, and then move whenever he told her to, and she soon found herself on the outskirts of the city.
While it was one of the largest settlements on the planet, looking at old pics of New York, she couldn't really help but feel that the massive number of quickly assembled buildings weren't really deserving of the title of city. Only the industrial structures topped three stories, and most of the rest were just rather samey houses.
Pulling out her soul gem, she grinned. Looks like we found us a witch right off the bat.
On her shoulder, Kyuubey replied. It is hardly surprising. After the stresses of the invasion, witch activity has substantially increased. You might even be able to acquire several Grief Seeds during one night.
Nah, I don't want to get too greedy. One should last me enough Besides, who knows how good a watch they keep on their prisoners? Better to just do this one hunt and get back quickly. She hesitated for a moment, her thoughts darting towards a different subject. While I'm gone, would you, would you mind tracking down my parents? I didn't see them in the camp we were sent to, but I think that there were several camps around the city. Could you... mind checking those to see if they're okay?
The Incubator nodded. It's no trouble. Are you sure that you will not need my assistance?
Ah, don't worry about me. I have more combat experience than the entire planetary garrison put together. I'll be fine.
Kyuubey nodded in acknowledgement, and ran off into the night. Very well. *****
"It's just, look at these buildings. Do any of them look older than a few decades?" The Turian Hierarchy's military was one of the most disciplined fighting forces known to galaxy.
Sarasi glanced back at the turian who'd just spoken. "Yes, Larir, we see that, but it might not mean anything. We know nothing about this species. For all we know, they have a proud cultural tradition of going after anything older than a century old with sledgehammers, just so that they could be in a state of constant urban renewal. I imagine that it gives them a pretty healthy economy, actually."
It should be noted that this discipline was more in a strategic sense, and random patrols, particularly when in the "comfort" of a Turian APC (built with speed and durability in mind, to survive a fight just long enough to get to a safe place to dump its cargo, with rather less thought given to amenities), tended to be almost as prone to random chatter as the various other species. Especially since the few holdouts resisting the Turian forces seemed to be in an entirely different hemisphere. There had been a firefight yesterday, but none of those riding in this particular vehicle had even been within five miles of that engagement.
Larir continued speaking. "Right, you laugh now, but this has to be a new colony. There's no way that this was their homeworld."
"You know what, you're right. You should go report this higher up in the command chain. I hear the admiral has a little box just outside his door, and a little slot to stick paper in just waiting for intrepid soldiers to report their latest findings. It's labeled "The Incredibly Fucking Obvious," and it sounds like just the sort of place where you should stick it."
Larir frowned. "Right, I know it seems obvious, but if this is just a colony, then they probably have a larger fleet getting ready to hit back."
Sarasi sighed. "Then that's something for the fleets to worry about, though I can't expect that they'd need to worry much. These native's shield technology is so primitive they only took one or two shots to break, and they're so fresh into space it wouldn't surprise me if this was their very first colony. I really doubt that they have a whole fleet of ships off by their homeworld or something."
Olihiek spoke up from the back of the vehicle. "Besides, from what my buddies up there told me", he tapped his knuckles on the roof of vehicle, "their fleet didn't stand a chance once our fleet started firing at them. They're barely at the eezo stage of development, and I doubt that whatever ships they have back at the homeworld are much better."
Larir frowned. "Still, I don't like it. Why wasn't this-"
"Be advised, Sergeant Togriss, we have picked up a heat signature in your area. It looks like one of the natives. We picked up no traces of eezo, but not all of the local weaponry was eezo based, so keep your eyes open. We are updating your HUD with its last known location."
Sergent Togriss tapped the side of his helmet. "Confirmed command, will investigate, over and out." He glanced at his men, "Cut the chatter, this little patrol now has an actual objective, we are searching for a possible hostile, but more likely it's just some civilian who escaped the initial sweeps."
Sarasi shrugged. "At least it's something."
All present began checking their weapons and their equipment. They had all checked it before they went on this mission, and it wasn't likely that they would actually need to use any of their kit, but certain things were just done, and it was better than twiddling their talons while the vehicle covered the four kilometers to their objective.
As they approached, Larir, who had been seated at the sensors, announced"Alright, I'm picking up a heat signature, hm, it's moving pretty quickly for a person, but that's what it's reading as."
Sergent Togriss nodded over to Sarasi, "Head them off and we'll get out and see if we can't convince whoever it is to come along peacefully." This would be easier if they had working translators, but at this point, the tech boys were still trying to write up programs for translating from Turian-to-Prothean-to-Unknown. Besides, there were few messages that pointed gestures, handmovements, and occasional application of the shock prods couldn't communicate, although he hoped that that last one could be avoided for now.
Larir glanced at one of the screens that he had available. "Ah, it sees us. It's… damn, whoever it is out there is quick; she just jumped on top of that building. Get us up there and let's see if we can't get her to surrender, but moving like that, it's probably not a civilian."
Sarasi triggered the jump jets on the APC, and the machine leapt up into the air, the eezo in the engine temporarily lightening the vehicle to the point where it could launch itself from the ground to the roof (as well as, incidentally, keeping it light enough during landing so as to not collapse the roof from its jets). As they began to descend Larir shouted
"-heat spike, jink jink!" Sarasi tried to maneuver the APC away, but by choice or by design, the attack came just after the apex of the jump, when maneuverability was lowest. He saw a flash of red and grey strike towards the window, he instinctively held his arm up to block it, and-
*****
Larir groaned as he stood up from the flaming mess that was once their ride, and glanced about him. The front of the vehicle had a massive gash in it, with the edges appearing to have… melted.
Glancing at his helmet, he saw that the rest of his squad still had positive life signs but- "Command, this is Private Larir, my squad was ambushed, we have" he winced as he looked at Sarasi's arm, several feet from his body, "-one casualty, but the rest of us should be ready to continue pursuit soon. Target has fled the area."
That felt, sloppy, but then, he had hit his head during the… landing. "We are sending a gunship to provide overwatch and another APC to pick up the wounded. In the meantime, provide us with a sitrep."
He groaned and grabbed his head. "We pursued the unknown to a rooftop, unknown is not civilian, I repeat, not civilian, they possessed some sort of," at this point, he had the urge to try and make something up, to call whatever it had been some unknown energy weapon or something, but his training had been too thorough for that- always report exactly what you see, leave the speculation to command- "it looked to be a giant flaming sword, command."
A moment's silence on the other end. "Repeat that last part, private." "It looked to be a giant flaming sword. Heat signature was white on the infa-red. Whatever it was, it cut right through our kinetic barriers like they weren't even there. Our APC is… non salvageable."
"… we'll check your suit's telemetry once you get back. Hold your position until your squad is back on their feet." And his reward for his honesty was… skepticism.
"Ah, what's the situation?" And Togriss was conscious now. "They're sending over a gunship to hunt down the insurgent, and an APC to pick us up."
"Hmph." He stood up and surveyed the area. "Keep an eye out in case our unknown decides to come around to finish us off. For all we know, their being so visible on the heat spectrum was just bait for a trap."
They heard a groan from the side, and Sarasi tried to get up. "Urgh, Sergent, I can't seem to get up, could one of you give me a hand?" He was trying to lift himself up with one arm, his stump waving ineffectually. It took a moment for him to glance to his side. "-oh. And I just said- heh." He paused.
"Hey, Sarge, do you know if this suit's medical suite comes with painkillers, because I can't feel anything, and I can't tell if it's shock or drugs." Togriss knelt by him, reaching into the pouch on his side and began to tie a tourniquet to the wound, "It's probably a bit of both, now stop moving and try to stay awake."
Olihiek spoke up, surprising all present with his consciousness. "I see a heat signature over in that factory complex over there. It looks like our target might be resting."
Togriss thought to himself for a moment. "It'll take a few minutes for the gunship to get here, and by then they could have escaped to whatever hidey hole they managed to use to avoid us in the first sweeps. Sarasi can hold his position, the rest of us are going to approach the building and wait for the gunship to arrive. I don't want to let this unknown get away. Move out, Olihiek, you got point. Sarasi, contact us if your helmet picks up anything new."
The three of them moved out, leaving behind their wounded for the medics to pick up. They moved cautiously, but apparently, whoever it was in that building wasn't keeping an eye out for followers, as they detected no signs that they had been spotted, and the target appeared to be content to wait in the building. They reached the roof of structure just three buildings away.
"If there's any movement, our sensors should pick it up." Togriss spoke to his squad. "We're waiting here for the gunship." They… waited. They wanted to keep radio communications to a minimum, which meant helmet communication was out, and they wanted to minimize noise, which meant that simply talking to each other was not an option.
They might have checked their weapons a bit more thoroughly than the situation warranted, even if their vehicle had been destroyed with them in it, but if his squad checking their weapons meant that they weren't focusing on the fact that their assailant could realize their presence at any moment and shoot another… whatever the hell that thing was… at them, Togriss wasn't going to object.
Olihiek glanced into his armband. "Just received a narrow band text transmission, looks like another patrol has already picked up Sarasi, and their medic is saying that he's going to be alright." Some of the tension bled from the squad. "Our gunship's ETA is about, now, looks like." From the clouds emerged a single ship, its searchlights dancing around the building. "Any idea why it's making its presence so obvious?" Laril asked. "I think… the pilot's trying to bait whoever it is into triggering an ambush."
Togriss watched the ship. "It's flying low, but not lot enough that it wouldn't have time to launch flares and dodge." Olihiek pulled out his rifle, using the scope to search the building. "I see movement inside, it's heading towards the side of the building that our air support is on. Flagging and transmitting."
Inside the gunship, the pilot flagged his acknowledgement of the new information that had been sent to him, moving his gunship slightly away from the building and orienting the nose towards the spot where Olihiek had spotted the target. "I still don't have a clear shot at the target, and Command would probably still prefer it if we were to take the unknown assailant and weapon in for analysis, so I can't just shoot through the wall, wait, there's bit of heat moving up the stairs, it looks like the target is heading towards the roof."
"Alright, I have a clear shot at the roof exit, see if you can keep on luring him out until they're in my field of fire."
"Will do." He watched the door from his perch, just waiting for it to creep open and give him a clear shot- The door ripped open, and someone darted through it, a single sweep of her arm launching a curved blade out towards the helicopter. The pilot tried to maneuver out of the way, but the blade curved in midair, igniting itself in brilliant flames, and in the heat of the moment, Olihiek noted that there was steam coming up from where the rain fell to the blade.
"Launching flares and- the missile is ignoring the flares, I repeat, it is ignoring the flares, dodging dodging" the blade kept to its target, and the gunship was sliced in half as the sword ascended to its target.
Olihiek, cursing his brief lack of discipline in tracking the weapon rather than the shooter, turned his scope lower, sighting- He paused, hesitating, as he looked at the shooter's eyes as she, and it was a she, he could see that now, watched the descent of the vehicle in… horror? As it crashed down in flames into some of the buildings, he saw the face of Nalian, his blueskinned little asari niece.
Shaking off the mental image, he looked into the scope, and the target was moving (so damned fast) he shifted aim, pulled, and was rewarded with a burst of blood coming from the unknown's shoulder. "Target is wounded, pursue!"
Came the voice of Togriss, snapping him from his surprise. The three leapt from the roof, their suits helping to reduce the impact from the fall, and rushed to the building, hoping speed would get them past the unknown weapon. They burst down the factory door, charging into the building.
"Target was last seen on the roof, go go go!" As they reached the second floor, a blade emerged from the ceiling, stabbing downwards and striking the shoulder of Larir, his shout of agony nearly making his fellows hesitate as they continued to move upwards, with Togriss blasting his shotgun above him in the hopes of preventing another attack.
They saw a door on the third floor, and their HUDs informed them that that area was directly above where they had been ambushed. Togriss leaned his shoulder in and slammed against the door in his armored bulk, breaking the door. Inside they saw- A girl, but Togriss was more concerned with the small black orb that she held in her hands. His instincts screamed grenade as he charged forward, ignoring the hand that was trying to pull him back-
****
One minute ago Erin huddled in the corner, looking at her rapidly darkening Soul Gem, and silently thanked Kyuubey for the fact that her body felt pain only in a dull sense.
You're welcome. From a window, there stared two red eyes.
Kyuubey, can you- she wants to ask him to come up with some way for her to escape, but she's hurt. Hurt from the battle with the Witch (who had managed to escape), hurt from shot to the elbow, and-
- The chopper fell, screaming, the flames engulfed the building-
She shuddered. She hadn't meant to pick a fight, but when that vehicle showed up, she had just, panicked. She threw the sword based on pure instinct, instinct that had been born from years of fighting within labyrinths, not... well, not the on the outside, not where it could have hurt someone.
She had wanted to rest, to run, but they were following her, and she could hear the roaring of the flames below, and the scream of pain from the alien she had impaled below sounded so human, she… She couldn't run. She wasn't well enough to run.
I tracked down your parents. Kyuubey interrupted her thoughts. Ah? How are they?
They would never even know, never even understand-
They were killed yesterday. It tilted its head at her.
Wha- what?
As it turns out, someone else attempted to fight against the invaders using more conventional weapons, and most eezo based weapons have remarkable penetrative abilities. Several buildings were pierced through and the stray shots ended the lives of your parents.
No… When she had fought back, she had never even though about collateral, never even-
The flames were approaching, she could hear the screams, she couldn't do anything, couldn't rip out the IV and move-
Her gaze fell to the window, lingering at the flickering orange light. The door slammed open, and she saw one of the Turians charging in, his taloned arm outstretched, her Soul Gem was somehow in her hand and it shifted to black-
*****
Comments and critique are welcome.
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Civilian Camp D14: 12:36 PM, Three Days Later
Gahlan idly fidgeted in his armor.
Another day of standing out there in the sun, walking along the fence, watching over the natives for any suspicious activity (though, as a totally alien race, he wasn't sure what exactly constituted suspicious behavior), or breaking up fights. He didn't know why the people on this planet were so willing to fight each other when they were all imprisoned, and so he simply assumed that they did so just to give him something to do.
Or maybe he'd have another shift of showing pictures to the natives of prisoners in other camps, and trying to figure out if their alien facial expressions indicated that the pictured person was a family member or a close friend, so that their families could be properly reunited. Of course, since somehow this camp had a disproportionate number of kids, most of them looked downwards or to the sides instead of at the screens, or seemed to spend the entire time terrified.
He couldn't think of a better way to reunite families, but he was pretty sure that most of the older people that he had "interviewed" had assumed that he was trying to root out the identities of insurgents, and seemed to be trying to guard their facial expressions. Or they just sat there crying no matter how many pictures he put in front of their face.
He'd even tried to pat the shoulder of one of the younger ones, only for the little savage to try biting his arm. He would have been amused if it had gotten the brat sick due to the whole "dextro-levo" thing, but apparently that required actual ingestion, and he wasn't about to let his arm get gnawed off out of spite. Gahlan hoped that they could get a translator up and running soon. Maybe let all these people know that they could get to their houses and do whatever the hell it was that they used to before they were invaded as soon as their army stopped hiding in the cities so that the Turian military could properly finish disarming their military.
They weren't even sure what the species referred to themselves as, as the linguists pointing at themselves, various objects, and the natives themselves, seemed to get inconsistent results. Possible names for their species included Americans, Russians, Humans, Whatareyougoingtodotomes, and Japanese, depending on which "expert's" reports were taken seriously.
He couldn't help but to quietly sigh to himself as checked the time on his HUD. The shifts were getting longer and patrol schedules were getting tighter. Of course, everyone knew why.
They had lost a prisoner.
He wasn't sure when it happened, but one of their counts had failed to pick up the full two thousand and eight hundred and thirty six prisoners. Some thorough searching through video logs indicated only one person that had been in the camp that suddenly wasn't, and on what was apparently a whim, they showed the picture of that person to the only survivor of that fuck up in the industrial district, and it turns out that, yes, the escaped prisoner was apparently the same person as the one who shot down a gunship.
There were a variety of rumors as to just what the hell had happened, and it said something that the most plausible rumor that he'd heard involved the natives seeding their population with underage sleeper agent commandos who could move like an Asari matriarch, despite the species not previously demonstrating any real biotic capability.
He was... not as on edge as many of his compatriots, if he was being honest with himself. Despite the fact that whoever it was still remained at large, he still didn't feel that it was particularly likely for the camp itself to be attacked. It was the most heavily guarded camp for this particular native city, especially now that there had been an escape, and there was a more than fair chance that whoever the insurgent was, they had simply found a quiet corner to go die in.
A scattered conversation reached his ears, interrupting his musings, and he saw a group of the aliens looking around a corner at something, occasionally calling out. He paused, glancing at the crowd. While there was a building between whatever they were looking at and himself, they seemed more, confused than the vague resentment or the resignation that he'd grown used to.
Gahlan approached the crowd, and spoke. "All right, what are we all looking at?" It didn't matter what he said; according to the training. He just needed to maintain a calm and professional tone of voice, and to let them know that he here. The crowd of natives opened up, and he saw that they were all staring at a different set of natives.
He stood there for a moment, watching as the second group just watched the fence, seeming to stare out at the outside with blank expressions on their faces. He approached them, and, after clearing his throat, asked, "Alright, what are we all looking at?" One of the watchers glanced at him, no expression on their face, before gazing back at the fence.
Peaking over the shoulders of one of the children, he saw... absolutely nothing of note. He tapped the side of his helmet. "Sergent Sieiros?"
"Private Gahlan." Gahlen noted the small mark that indicated that it was his squad leader responding appear in his helmet.
"Sir, is anything happening to the West of the camp?"
"Not to my knowledge, why?"
Gahlan hesitated. "Some of the prisoners are acting suspiciously, and they're looking in that direction." The camp was to the West of the city, and it wasn't as if there were all that many other landmarks on this part of the planet.
"I'll ask Command to send a squad over to investigate."
"Requesting that you send a few more people to my location."
"Will do. Over."
Gahlan watched the group -a quick headcount put their numbers at thirty six- as they continued to stare at... not even the outside, judging by the direction of their heads. They were looking at the fence. "It's not going to get any less electrified if you keep on staring at it."
He frowned. Still no reaction. He moved to have his helmet contact the officers in charge of watching the generator, when, as one, the crowd reached out and grasped the fence, their bodies going into spasms nearly instantly.
Galhad charged to the one closest to him, who happened to be a large male, and tried to yank him away from the fence, his insulated armor protecting him from the shock. As he tugged, he realized that the native's hands had locked around the metal wires of the fence, and even with the exoskeleton of his suit, he couldn't force the man away. One of the natives rushed past him, and Galhad was on the verge of trying to force him back when the man grabbed at the convulsing person's hands and began trying to force them open.
The man looked back, and grabbed at Galhad's waist, grabbing a baton and slamming it into the fingers of the convulsing man. A cracking noise heard over the panicked yells of the people behind them indicated that the man's fingers had been broken, and with that they were finally able to wrench his body free from the fence. As they did so, the generator finally seemed to give, and the rest of the group stopped convulsing. They collapsed to their knees, hands still clenched to the wire.
He glanced at the one that they had pulled away, and reached down to rest a talon upon the native's throat.
No breathing, and a quick check the the wrist didn't indicate a pulse, either.
He leaned back, even as the man who had rushed forward tried pumping at the chest of one of the... victims? He continued as such, before giving up and collapsing.
What the hell had happened here?
****
Medical Tent: 9:56 PM, Later that Day
So far, there had been little need to actually use the medical facilities. There had been some wounded, but using what few universal healing procedures were available (try to keep fluids inside the body unless the hole looked like it was meant to leak) meant that most people had survived. Of course, that was during the first few days of the occupation, and now they had a few actual natives staffing the building. This had been done by finding the buildings that seemed to hold most of the medical supplies and equipment, taking pictures of the symbol that seemed to adorn most of them, and then showed that symbol to the natives until one of them responded positively.
There had been a few mild injuries, but even the relatively limited levo medical supplies it wasn't as though it was overly difficult for a turian doctor to set the broken bones even without a fine understanding of just how the natives bodies worked, and anything else the alien doctors seemed capable of handling it.
Dr. Ihlen had already requested that the local hospitals be raided for more levo medical supplies and supplies specifically designed to treat the natives own physiology.
All in all, the occupation had been handled with all of the professionalism that was to be expected from the turian military, such that even the language barriers were a relatively mild obstacle.
Of course, for now, the tent was empty save for turians and thirty six native bodies.
It was almost an intriguing medical mystery, the sort of thing that he might have been expected to resolve as a hypothetical in his xenobiology class, but any purely scientific curiosity was stymied by the dead gazes of the deceased.
He frowned, shaking his head. His use of language always did get more flowery on a poor night's sleep.
At this point, there was nothing to do but to contact the General with his findings.
He hit the transmit button, and began cleaning up the room while waiting for the General to respond.
It only took a few minutes before the voice of General Desano Aterius appeared on the screen. "Doctor. I was hoping for something more conclusive." Ihlen frowned. That was a... remarkably quick response, especially since the General seemed to have read the report. Either he'd been waiting for it, or he'd canceled whatever he'd been doing in order to read it.
"Sir, our findings were inconclusive, though we can provide you with some of the reasons why we weren't willing to make any certain declarations."
As the General nodded his permission, the Doctor continued. "From our findings, the symptoms look like heart failure caused by the electricity, but from what we've observed of previous escape attempts, at least some of those that died likely should have survived what had happened to them."
The general nodded. "Our engineers have taken a look at the generators in question, and it looks like they failed in exactly the right fashion to pump more electricity into the fence than our safeties would typically allow." His tone indicated what he thought of that particular "coincidence" but Ihlen figured that if he had more certain information, he would have stated his suspicions more directly. "Does that change anything?"
The doctor paused, taking that into consideration. "It doesn't. There was a uniformity in the way that they died that makes me believe that they were made more vulnerable to such a death. We've investigated the possibility of this vulnerability being the result of a vitamin deficiency caused by their current diets, but so far, we haven't found anything on that front, nor have our native consultants seemed to raise such an issue with us, though we'll try to find a way to ask them."
Aterius gave a puzzled noise. "And we've found no possible reason for this group to collectively kill themselves, but for the fact that they all shared the same building. Other than a few kids being dropped off with their families, they were all randomly assigned there." At this point, he was clearly talking to himself.
The doctor responded anyway. "We did find something, General, even if it is somewhat unclear." The doctor paused, before moving to one of the bodies. "This boy appeared to have a skin condition, of sorts. The wires that he touched left more of a lasting impression on him than they did the others. Not in terms of burning, but of the pressure that he put on them. His skin marked more clearly than most, and that's how we found this." He hit a switch, and a picture appeared on screen, just as visible to the General as it was to himself.
The camera of the picture was focused on the boy's neck, and there appeared to be an indentation, or some pressure being placed on a specific area. The general stared at it. "What am I looking at?"
"We hadn't noticed it at first, as we were focused on the internals more than the externals at first, but a few others appear to have similar marks, and according to Private Gahlan's helmet feed, even if it's minor, it appeared on the necks of each of the people killed in the exact same area, though they apparently faded on most of them postmortem."
The general frowned as he peered in closed. It was... slight, and almost invisible, but he could see it when it had been pointed out. "Can you tell me what it is?"
Ihlen frowned. "Cross referencing the various pictures, it appears to be a simple symbol, of some sort. We haven't discovered its meaning, and the prisoners don't seem particularly startled when presented with it, but we're working on it." A sketch appeared on the screen.
The general stared at it, before shaking his head. "I'll put out an order for soldiers to be on the watch for anything that looks like it, but unless you have anything further, I need to attend to other things."
"Very well, General." With that, the feed cut off, and the Doctor glanced back at the sketch, and stared at the stylized flame.
Gahlan idly fidgeted in his armor.
Another day of standing out there in the sun, walking along the fence, watching over the natives for any suspicious activity (though, as a totally alien race, he wasn't sure what exactly constituted suspicious behavior), or breaking up fights. He didn't know why the people on this planet were so willing to fight each other when they were all imprisoned, and so he simply assumed that they did so just to give him something to do.
Or maybe he'd have another shift of showing pictures to the natives of prisoners in other camps, and trying to figure out if their alien facial expressions indicated that the pictured person was a family member or a close friend, so that their families could be properly reunited. Of course, since somehow this camp had a disproportionate number of kids, most of them looked downwards or to the sides instead of at the screens, or seemed to spend the entire time terrified.
He couldn't think of a better way to reunite families, but he was pretty sure that most of the older people that he had "interviewed" had assumed that he was trying to root out the identities of insurgents, and seemed to be trying to guard their facial expressions. Or they just sat there crying no matter how many pictures he put in front of their face.
He'd even tried to pat the shoulder of one of the younger ones, only for the little savage to try biting his arm. He would have been amused if it had gotten the brat sick due to the whole "dextro-levo" thing, but apparently that required actual ingestion, and he wasn't about to let his arm get gnawed off out of spite. Gahlan hoped that they could get a translator up and running soon. Maybe let all these people know that they could get to their houses and do whatever the hell it was that they used to before they were invaded as soon as their army stopped hiding in the cities so that the Turian military could properly finish disarming their military.
They weren't even sure what the species referred to themselves as, as the linguists pointing at themselves, various objects, and the natives themselves, seemed to get inconsistent results. Possible names for their species included Americans, Russians, Humans, Whatareyougoingtodotomes, and Japanese, depending on which "expert's" reports were taken seriously.
He couldn't help but to quietly sigh to himself as checked the time on his HUD. The shifts were getting longer and patrol schedules were getting tighter. Of course, everyone knew why.
They had lost a prisoner.
He wasn't sure when it happened, but one of their counts had failed to pick up the full two thousand and eight hundred and thirty six prisoners. Some thorough searching through video logs indicated only one person that had been in the camp that suddenly wasn't, and on what was apparently a whim, they showed the picture of that person to the only survivor of that fuck up in the industrial district, and it turns out that, yes, the escaped prisoner was apparently the same person as the one who shot down a gunship.
There were a variety of rumors as to just what the hell had happened, and it said something that the most plausible rumor that he'd heard involved the natives seeding their population with underage sleeper agent commandos who could move like an Asari matriarch, despite the species not previously demonstrating any real biotic capability.
He was... not as on edge as many of his compatriots, if he was being honest with himself. Despite the fact that whoever it was still remained at large, he still didn't feel that it was particularly likely for the camp itself to be attacked. It was the most heavily guarded camp for this particular native city, especially now that there had been an escape, and there was a more than fair chance that whoever the insurgent was, they had simply found a quiet corner to go die in.
A scattered conversation reached his ears, interrupting his musings, and he saw a group of the aliens looking around a corner at something, occasionally calling out. He paused, glancing at the crowd. While there was a building between whatever they were looking at and himself, they seemed more, confused than the vague resentment or the resignation that he'd grown used to.
Gahlan approached the crowd, and spoke. "All right, what are we all looking at?" It didn't matter what he said; according to the training. He just needed to maintain a calm and professional tone of voice, and to let them know that he here. The crowd of natives opened up, and he saw that they were all staring at a different set of natives.
He stood there for a moment, watching as the second group just watched the fence, seeming to stare out at the outside with blank expressions on their faces. He approached them, and, after clearing his throat, asked, "Alright, what are we all looking at?" One of the watchers glanced at him, no expression on their face, before gazing back at the fence.
Peaking over the shoulders of one of the children, he saw... absolutely nothing of note. He tapped the side of his helmet. "Sergent Sieiros?"
"Private Gahlan." Gahlen noted the small mark that indicated that it was his squad leader responding appear in his helmet.
"Sir, is anything happening to the West of the camp?"
"Not to my knowledge, why?"
Gahlan hesitated. "Some of the prisoners are acting suspiciously, and they're looking in that direction." The camp was to the West of the city, and it wasn't as if there were all that many other landmarks on this part of the planet.
"I'll ask Command to send a squad over to investigate."
"Requesting that you send a few more people to my location."
"Will do. Over."
Gahlan watched the group -a quick headcount put their numbers at thirty six- as they continued to stare at... not even the outside, judging by the direction of their heads. They were looking at the fence. "It's not going to get any less electrified if you keep on staring at it."
He frowned. Still no reaction. He moved to have his helmet contact the officers in charge of watching the generator, when, as one, the crowd reached out and grasped the fence, their bodies going into spasms nearly instantly.
Galhad charged to the one closest to him, who happened to be a large male, and tried to yank him away from the fence, his insulated armor protecting him from the shock. As he tugged, he realized that the native's hands had locked around the metal wires of the fence, and even with the exoskeleton of his suit, he couldn't force the man away. One of the natives rushed past him, and Galhad was on the verge of trying to force him back when the man grabbed at the convulsing person's hands and began trying to force them open.
The man looked back, and grabbed at Galhad's waist, grabbing a baton and slamming it into the fingers of the convulsing man. A cracking noise heard over the panicked yells of the people behind them indicated that the man's fingers had been broken, and with that they were finally able to wrench his body free from the fence. As they did so, the generator finally seemed to give, and the rest of the group stopped convulsing. They collapsed to their knees, hands still clenched to the wire.
He glanced at the one that they had pulled away, and reached down to rest a talon upon the native's throat.
No breathing, and a quick check the the wrist didn't indicate a pulse, either.
He leaned back, even as the man who had rushed forward tried pumping at the chest of one of the... victims? He continued as such, before giving up and collapsing.
What the hell had happened here?
****
Medical Tent: 9:56 PM, Later that Day
So far, there had been little need to actually use the medical facilities. There had been some wounded, but using what few universal healing procedures were available (try to keep fluids inside the body unless the hole looked like it was meant to leak) meant that most people had survived. Of course, that was during the first few days of the occupation, and now they had a few actual natives staffing the building. This had been done by finding the buildings that seemed to hold most of the medical supplies and equipment, taking pictures of the symbol that seemed to adorn most of them, and then showed that symbol to the natives until one of them responded positively.
There had been a few mild injuries, but even the relatively limited levo medical supplies it wasn't as though it was overly difficult for a turian doctor to set the broken bones even without a fine understanding of just how the natives bodies worked, and anything else the alien doctors seemed capable of handling it.
Dr. Ihlen had already requested that the local hospitals be raided for more levo medical supplies and supplies specifically designed to treat the natives own physiology.
All in all, the occupation had been handled with all of the professionalism that was to be expected from the turian military, such that even the language barriers were a relatively mild obstacle.
Of course, for now, the tent was empty save for turians and thirty six native bodies.
It was almost an intriguing medical mystery, the sort of thing that he might have been expected to resolve as a hypothetical in his xenobiology class, but any purely scientific curiosity was stymied by the dead gazes of the deceased.
He frowned, shaking his head. His use of language always did get more flowery on a poor night's sleep.
At this point, there was nothing to do but to contact the General with his findings.
He hit the transmit button, and began cleaning up the room while waiting for the General to respond.
It only took a few minutes before the voice of General Desano Aterius appeared on the screen. "Doctor. I was hoping for something more conclusive." Ihlen frowned. That was a... remarkably quick response, especially since the General seemed to have read the report. Either he'd been waiting for it, or he'd canceled whatever he'd been doing in order to read it.
"Sir, our findings were inconclusive, though we can provide you with some of the reasons why we weren't willing to make any certain declarations."
As the General nodded his permission, the Doctor continued. "From our findings, the symptoms look like heart failure caused by the electricity, but from what we've observed of previous escape attempts, at least some of those that died likely should have survived what had happened to them."
The general nodded. "Our engineers have taken a look at the generators in question, and it looks like they failed in exactly the right fashion to pump more electricity into the fence than our safeties would typically allow." His tone indicated what he thought of that particular "coincidence" but Ihlen figured that if he had more certain information, he would have stated his suspicions more directly. "Does that change anything?"
The doctor paused, taking that into consideration. "It doesn't. There was a uniformity in the way that they died that makes me believe that they were made more vulnerable to such a death. We've investigated the possibility of this vulnerability being the result of a vitamin deficiency caused by their current diets, but so far, we haven't found anything on that front, nor have our native consultants seemed to raise such an issue with us, though we'll try to find a way to ask them."
Aterius gave a puzzled noise. "And we've found no possible reason for this group to collectively kill themselves, but for the fact that they all shared the same building. Other than a few kids being dropped off with their families, they were all randomly assigned there." At this point, he was clearly talking to himself.
The doctor responded anyway. "We did find something, General, even if it is somewhat unclear." The doctor paused, before moving to one of the bodies. "This boy appeared to have a skin condition, of sorts. The wires that he touched left more of a lasting impression on him than they did the others. Not in terms of burning, but of the pressure that he put on them. His skin marked more clearly than most, and that's how we found this." He hit a switch, and a picture appeared on screen, just as visible to the General as it was to himself.
The camera of the picture was focused on the boy's neck, and there appeared to be an indentation, or some pressure being placed on a specific area. The general stared at it. "What am I looking at?"
"We hadn't noticed it at first, as we were focused on the internals more than the externals at first, but a few others appear to have similar marks, and according to Private Gahlan's helmet feed, even if it's minor, it appeared on the necks of each of the people killed in the exact same area, though they apparently faded on most of them postmortem."
The general frowned as he peered in closed. It was... slight, and almost invisible, but he could see it when it had been pointed out. "Can you tell me what it is?"
Ihlen frowned. "Cross referencing the various pictures, it appears to be a simple symbol, of some sort. We haven't discovered its meaning, and the prisoners don't seem particularly startled when presented with it, but we're working on it." A sketch appeared on the screen.
The general stared at it, before shaking his head. "I'll put out an order for soldiers to be on the watch for anything that looks like it, but unless you have anything further, I need to attend to other things."
"Very well, General." With that, the feed cut off, and the Doctor glanced back at the sketch, and stared at the stylized flame.
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Well, it all has to do with the way that Karmic weight is measured. (This is all pulled from my ass, but I feel that it does justify a number of the Incubator's actions in canon, feel free to spot any errors in my judgement).
This is the sort of thing that I'd probably include in a Codex entry anyway, so:
Let's say you want to pick up a rock.
In scenario 1, you pick up the rock on your own. All responsibility for the picking up of said rock lies with you.
In scenario 2, you engineer a robot that will walk up to the rock, and lift it up. It is not capable of conceiving any option but the lifting of the rock. There is but one choice before it, and that involves the lifting of the rock. The robot wouldn't be considered responsible for its action, and thus all karmic weight for the lifting of the rock lies with the person who designed the robot.
In scenario 3, you pay a guy to pick up the rock. He had a choice as to whether or not to pick up the rock, and he had his own reasons. However, you put a clear and present pressure on him to lift the rock. Therefore, as there is a finite amount of responsibility that one can have for the lifting of the rock, that responsibility is split between you and the person that you payed. (yes, that isn't how ethics really works, but for the purposes of this analogy, I ask that you accept that premise.)
In scenario 4, someone else, entirely of their own volition and in consideration of everything in their life that lead up to this one moment, lifts the rock of their own free will.
Scenario 1 is the least efficient from an energy harvesting standpoint, scenario four the most.
Now, the Asari might be somewhere between 3 and 4 when it comes to how much responsibility they had for their actions, in terms of karmic weight. The Protheans engineered them for a specific purpose, and they thus had a strong inclination towards achieving that purpose. Much of the way that they exist was designed by the Protheans. Their biology was engineered by the Protheans, they had instincts thought out by the Protheans, and generally, they might be considered the children of the Protheans, from a karmic point of view. Part of their actions will always be based on what the Protheans did.
Now, that faded, somewhat, after the Protheans died out, but the Asari will always have that shadow that will reduce their karmic weight, as some of the moral responsibility still goes to the Protheans for whatever they do. On an individual level they have free will, but as a species they will always be ever so slightly removed from responsibility, and that dramatically reduces the efficiency of the magical girl process.
The humans (as a species) are somewhere between 3 and 4 when it comes to moral responsibility, leaning towards 4.
The Incubators intervention in humanity's development tended to come at the request of humanity, and thus in a certain sense, all of the little girls are responsible for their own actions, and, as they're humans, humanity is responsible for its own fate (yes, age of majority, how responsible are they for their own actions at that age, but that doesn't matter too much to karmic weight, and the strength of their emotions can compensate for that).
They couldn't just stab a few apes with syringes and turn them into a sapient species, as that would make humanity like the Asari. So, they allowed humanity to develop on its own, nudging it with the consent of humanity, and so humans are by and large nearly entirely responsible for their own actions, while still being pushed into being the sort of people who are willing to lift that rock, and so far, all of the math seems to indicate that humans are an optimal balance of factors when it comes to being responsible for their own actions and still doing what the Incubators want them to do.
It's not quite as efficient per magical girl as scenario four, but it's about as close as you can get while still getting the number of magical girls that they produced.
Will respond to other things later; but I think I might cross post this into the PMMM idea thread and see what people have to say.
I meant to have this out earlier, but last week and the week before were... very difficult. I mean, sure, I've been procrastinating for longer than that, but, well, anyway, here it is.
Next part is in progress.
Jerry stared into the mirror, gazing at his scraggly red beard.
He had always been clean shaven.
He shaved once during the morning and once at night.
Ever since those first few follicles of hair had appeared on his chin, he had demanded a razor and set to work.
It was to the point of a running joke in the family.
And now he had a beard.
They didn't have razor blades in the camp. He wasn't sure if the aliens were just being overly cautious, or if it had honestly never occurred to them that humans might need to trim their hair. Had they ever even seen a species with hair, or was that a uniquely Earth trait?
The point was, well, it itched. He couldn't sleep, his beard itched, he had nothing to do, and he was pretty sure that he'd seen a kid flinch just after looking at his unkempt appearance.
He didn't know if the aliens were ever going to let them out of the camp, or if they were going to start forcing them to do manual labor or just line them up against the wall once they were done with whatever they were doing.
He, however, had a plan.
He knew that what he was thinking was stupid, a plan born of long nights with an utter lack of sleep.
He knew that it might end up with him dying, but at this point... a lot of things might end with him dying.
He took off his shirt, carefully wrapping it around his hand.
He was aware that there were other people present in what he thought of as the "Grooming Station". They saw his hard face, his calloused hands, and his scarred chest, and they were nervous.
They could tell that he was planning something.
He wasn't sure if they were scared of him, of what he was planning to do, or what his actions might cause in the way of repercussions, but he wasn't in the mood to waste time trying to figure out what they were thinking.
His arm wrapped in his shirt, he pulled it back, looked at the glass of the mirror, and let his fist fly.
The glass shattered, and he took a moment to thank the fact that his shirt had been thick in its weave, as his fist had only been scraped during the breaking of the glass.
He ignored a few panicked shouts as he glanced at the shards of glass, before he selected one that seemed appropriate to his needs. He could already hear the footsteps of the armored aliens pounding on the ground behind him as he turned to look at them. He was actually impressed by their response time. Were they already on alert for some reason? He knew nothing about what was going on in the other camps.
There were four of them present, and as he was clearly the most suspicious person there, with his bloodied hand in his shirt, they all faced him, though he took a moment to note that their guns were still pointed towards the ground, their fingers resting on the trigger guards.
He watched them, and they watched him. The one in the lead asked a question in a voice that seemed oddly unbothered by the glass and the blood, making a vague gesture towards Jerry's hand, gently holding that shard of glass.
Jerry slowly brought the shard of glass to his throat, and the guns leapt up, the alien in the lead extending an arm out to him and saying something that he had probably intended to sound soothing, but that metallic effect when the aliens spoke still grated on his ears.
His hand began to move and-
Cut.
The lead alien watched as the hair gently fell to the ground.
Jerry began to move the glass shard around his face, idly wishing that he had an extra mirror, so that he could watch what he was doing.
The alien in the lead stared for a moment, and then he chuckled, saying something that ended with his soldiers lowering their guns.
Two days later, shaving kits that had probably been gathered from the various homes were placed in the restrooms.
Turian Field Camp: Briefing Room
While Ari Cascaus was far too professional to lean back and sigh, the urge was certainly present.
General Desolas stood at the front of the room, gesturing to the projections on the wall.
"Three days ago, one of our patrols pursued what was believed to be a straggler who had managed to evade our previous patrols. The squad was attacked by the lone figure, and the known only survivor was one who was too wounded to pursue their attacker."
The projected image flickered, and there was a vehicle. "From what we've been able to determine from the wreck, it does appear that there was both a kinetic and thermal component to the attack. The exact mechanics of the device are unknown, as its apparent ability to ignore flares with little to no time to lock on to a target. We have recovered no traces of exotic matters, as the target appeared to have no element zero based technology, which we believe was deliberate on her part, so as to attempt to minimize the chances of detection."
"As it stands, we have no knowledge of what happened to the soldiers who pursued her, as we have found no bodies or even signs of struggle at the last point of contact."
Ari knew that the general himself wouldn't be giving this report if all he had to talk about was the fact that they knew jack and shit about what the hell was going on, and that this was just the prelude to the next subject. It was probably just an attempt to quell all the rumors that had been going on, (and her being a squad leader, she was privy to the rumors being spread by both the officers and the grunts, and there wasn't much substance to any of it).
"Moving on," at this Ari sat up a bit straighter, though she'd likely have words with anyone who suggested that she had been slouching, "going over the maps of the area that we've uncovered, some of the analysts are of the opinion that we missed some evacuation centers during our initial sweep of this city."
The projection shifted, and a map of several of the alien cities appeared on the screen. "Overlaying a grid pattern on the map, they've noticed that, consistently, that they had constructed their cities in a fashion that has a single shelter at roughly the center point of each grid. This pattern exists in every city." The image shifted, and red spots emerged at about the center point of each grid, excepting that of a few areas that she vaguely remembered had been tentatively labeled administrative zones.
Those grids without the red dots were then turned yellow.
"While our initial patrols failed to notice shelters at these locations, I had initially ordered patrols to search for the signs that we had come to recognize from the outlying areas. As such, our patrols were not looking for the traces of evacuation as thoroughly they could have been."
Looking at the map, Ari glanced at one of the yellowed grids, noticing that it was rather close to- "As you can see, this particular section is close to where the squad led by Togriss was last heard from. As the unknown insurgent," at some point the term Unknown Insurgent started to be pronounced in capitals, to Ari's mind, "is believed to still be in the area somewhere, though we have found no traces of her in our patrols. There is the possibility that she has gone to ground in one of these suspected bunkers. Furthermore, we suspect that the bunkers that were not clearly marked might in fact be designated for military personnel, so extreme caution is to be used when we are evacuating them."
"We suspect that sending caravans to evacuate them might just prompt the guerilla forces to take action. Multiple gunships will be prepped and ready to deploy to the area, with two more constantly patrolling along these routes." Two black lines appeared on the screen, the lines were between were either between the grids or neighboring them, just far enough that they would be out of casual visual range.
All present knew what he was implicitly suggesting, of course.
The patrols were to be bait in addition to actually searching for the shelter.
Ari didn't feel that there was that much of a risk, the Unknown Insurgent only really succeeded due to the surprise factor, and they weren't going to fall for the trap of a lack of element zero again. Reports indicated that she was fast, but the turian Hierarchy trained its people to deal with fast. They'd occasionally had to fight mercenary asari, after all.
Still, she supposed that, even if there wasn't as much risk as being bait might have implied, being sent out to serve as bait probably did warrant the General showing up to see them out personally.
"Once you get your squads to your vehicles, your patrol routes will be transmitted directly to your HUDS. Dismissed, all."
Civilian Camp 9
Considering that her world had been invaded, and considering that all the people in her shelter had been dragged out, escorted into vehicles, and brought to camps outside the city, she knew that having such thoughts was inappropriate, but, well…
Shiori was bored.
There was nothing to do.
They hadn't been allowed electronics, so she couldn't read her books, she only knew one person in the camp that was her age, and even the aliens looked as if this they were tired of watching over them.
She brought the razor to her hair and watched as her black tresses fell to the ground. She was sure that her parents would disapprove of her cutting her hair for no reason but boredom.
She heard a bell ring, but she ignored it, focusing on how her hair looked.
It wasn't quite as even as she had been hoping for but…
She kinda liked it.
She wouldn't have been able to do this if it hadn't been for the crazy man with the mirror. At a guess, she figured that weird bird aliens probably hadn't even realized that humans needed to cut their hair. The best equivalent they would have would probably be a can of paint for those weird facial markings. Or maybe they were like tattoos and they didn't need to reapply them?
As details go, it was rather irrelevant, but…
She was curious now.
There was a knock on the wall.
"Shiori? Are you okay?" The voice of Amy's mom called out.
"Yes, I'll be out to eat soon." She sighed. Her first ever sleep over had gotten her assigned to a camp away from her parents. She knew it was stupid of her to take it out on Amy's parents, but, well…
They were annoying, boring, prying people, and they kept on trying to keep an eye on her and Amy and it was just so…
They were trying to protect her, to care for her. She knew that that, but their hovering was just... annoying, and she was getting annoyed at random things, because of.. everything.
She shook her head and began to make her way to the tables where the aliens had shown up.
There was a buffet where they could get their food, and long tables where various groups were huddled up. There was scattered conversation, but, mostly people were keeping to themselves.
She wondered if that was because they didn't know anybody, or if it was just the situation in general that made them act that way.
The meal was… quiet.
Amy's mom had already brought up their schooling, and her parents had talked to each other about their jobs, but there weren't really any new developments. Any attempt on Shiori's part to talk about the aliens lead to long awkward pauses in the conversation, despite the fact that they were really the only thing worth talking about recently.
Also, it was kind of an important subject.
The food was bland, but filling. What looked to be vaguely like beans, some plants, somewhat chicken like meat, it was… boring.
She excused herself after finishing her meal, as there wasn't any talking going on anyway, and went back to her bunk.
She lay back on bunk, almost wishing that something exciting would happen.
Under the circumstances, something exciting probably be a Bad Thing, but, well, she wasn't sure how much longer she could take this.
Hello there. She blinked, glancing around the room, and stared into two small red eyes. I felt the strength of your wish, and I wanted to offer you a chance to make that wish a reality.
Shiori stared into the eyes of the catlike creature, and after several seconds, pinched herself. Once she had confirmed that she was not, in fact, dreaming, she blinked again, opened her mouth-
There is no need to panic. The voice entered her head once more.
I… who are you? She found herself thinking the words, not speaking them.
My name is Kyuubey! The thing responded, as if she had been talking aloud all along.
Showed what she got for wanting something interesting to happen. And, um, what did you want? She still wasn't entirely convinced that this was real, but...
Your desire shined out strongly enough for me to see, and I am here to offer you the chance to become a magical girl.
Her thoughts were succinct. What.
It looked at her with a tilted head. While the circumstances are hardly ideal, the situation has prompted me to offer you this chance.
Um, circumstances? Did you mean the whole, aliens thing? While she wasn't sure what aliens had to do with magical girls…
It- Kyubey nodded. That is partially it. I wouldn't ask you to become a magical girl for free though, as I am willing to grant a single wish of yours!
Shiori blinked. A… wish?
Of course. While your wish has some minor limits, there are a great many things that you could use it for.
The obvious question came to mind. Could I wish all of these aliens off of this planet?
Kyubey shook his head, the almost childlike voice sounding... amused? That wish is unfortunately beyond the limits of your karmic weight.
Then what could I wish for?
Wishes are most efficient when used for more personal things, either to guarantee things that would otherwise happen by chance-
Does that mean I could wish that I win the lottery? It was the first thing to come to mind, and she immediately felt silly for asking such a thing. Money really wasn't going to do her any good right now. Even if there were any lotteries currently being run...
The cat thing looked at her with what she almost felt was a disappointed look on its face. While that is possible, such a wish would be extraordinarily… weak. While you are free to wish for whatever you want, and it is somewhat frowned upon for me to make suggestions, such a wish is unlikely to bring you true happiness, from what experience I have. More materialistic wishes tend to be less satisfying than healing the sick, making friends, and other more emotionally based desires. Of course, the desire that initially summoned me with, to grant you an interesting life, is well within my capab-
"No!" She blurted out loud, and sheepishly glanced around the room. There were a few people who had filtered in during her conversation, and all of them were giving her a funny look. They weren't, she noticed, giving the creature sitting next to her any notice.
Switching back to mental speech, she looked at him. Yeah, that's not going to be my wish. I read that story with the Monkey's Paw. My grandma was always threatening to curse people to live in interesting times, so I really don't want to make a wish for a curse.
Kyubey tilted its head. Actually, I would point out that when wishing for things like that, the wish system grants you what you want, and we do attempt to ensure that the wish grants you as much happiness as possible within the confines of the wish. We have no reason to twist a wish to act against your best interests. However, I should note that the life of a Puella Magi is an inherently interesting one, and so it would be best if you to carefully consider what you truly want, rather asking for something that would be granted by default.
An interesting life? That... made a new set of questions arise in her mind. What exactly would I be doing as a magical girl? She asked warily.
Fighting witches!
Witches?
While the magical girl is a symbol of hope, the witch is an embodiment of despair. They prey upon humans, and if not kept in check by magical girls, they could wipe out entire planets clean of life. Becoming a magical girl would grant you magical abilities and the ability to track witches, to protect the world from their spread.
Magical pow- she paused. They can wipe out planets?
Only in large numbers, and even then, it's more exterminating all life on the planet rather than simply destroying the planet itself. For the vast majority of witches, the powers granted by becoming a Puella Magi are sufficient to guarantee the ability to kill the average witch, even if it won't be an easy battle. For those few witches that are more dangerous than that, there are other magical girls on planet that can assist you.
So, I get a wish, and can hunt monsters that are murdering people?
That is correct.
She took a moment to consider. It sounded… cool. She had a chance to do something, she could fight, and she could make a wish. From what Kyuubey had told her, it seemed like she would probably be able hold her own against whatever witches were around. With the invasion, the ability of magical girls to hunt would be… limited, which probably meant that that wouldn't be too much of a concern for awhile.
But, what would she wish for?
Her mind drifted to what Kyuubey had suggested about wishes.
Making friends…
She didn't know that many people. She was bored, but striking up a conversation with some of the other groups in the camp was just too… Intimidating. She couldn't do it.
Even before, she hadn't been good at striking up conversations.
Her being friends with Amy had practically been a playdate set up by the teacher, with that group project stuff.
And even Sarah-
She knew what she wanted.
She nodded to Kyubey. I want to do it. I want to become a magical girl.
Simply let your wish fill your heart, and I will handle the rest.
She thought hard, and in this instant, all of her fears, her hopes, her dreams came to the forefront of her mind.
I want-
I want to be able to talk to people.
She'd been afraid that it would sound stupid, but somehow, here, in her own mind, it felt… right.
Kyuubey's ears extended out towards her, and her world was filled with lights, sounds, smells… the lights shifted with the sound and the smell seemed blue and yellow and red, every nerve in her body tingled, and-
She collapsed against her bunk.
Contract complete. Your wish has contributed to combating entropy.
She breathed heavily.
Now that the… whatever that was… was complete, she felt, normal.
You shouldn't notice anything different until you fully transform. Under ordinary circumstances, you would be dressed as a magical girl as soon as the ritual was complete, but it seemed most prudent to allow you to remain in your current clothing under the circumstances.
She glanced at the number of people scattered around her at their bunks. Heh, yeah, that was a good idea.
Hm. There was a speculative tone to that hum.
What? She asked the bunnycat.
Analyzing your transformation, it appears that the nature of the wish that you had made has granted you vastly improved telepathy. You should be able to communicate with any magically gifted person within the gravity well.
Wait, the entire planet? She paused. How many magical girls are currently on planet?
Eight. You could issue either call each of them individually, or use or your own telepathy as a hub to allow all of them to communicate with each other as well as yourself.
Eight people at once? She hesitantly asked.
Eight includes yourself. Kyuubey clarified.
Shiori blushed. Oh, right, that was… obvious. But, eight people at once…
Well, she had made a wish to talk to people, and this was as good a chance as any.
She could feel the method that Kyuubey had suggested, feel the way that she needed to host the conversation.
For a moment she hesitated.
What would she say to introduce herself?
An idea flashed through her mind, and she had to suppress a giggle.
She didn't know if it was because her wish granted her the confidence, or if it was the anonymity, or simply because it all still felt so unreal, but, well, after watching a few movies with her parents, this seemed... appropriate.
Rolecall, ladies. Puella Magi represent!
Eh!
Ah!
What the he-
Is that the cavalry?
Uh, what was that?
Stop shouting you bunch of-
Enosa leaned back in her chair, one blue hand rubbing the crests on her head. "It's just, well this is a lot of money that you're offering here."
Minicios smiled and spread his arms out. "I realize that the sum does seem a bit large at first, but that is simply because this is a long term contract. Not only that, but I've already shown you the non-disclosure clause on the contract. Letting us read through every email you send while on site is the sort of thing that we tend to have to offer large sums of money in order to get people to accept."
"Still, it is the sort of sum that makes me a bit cautious about such a... broad non-disclosure agreement." She pushed the datapad displaying the contract back to turian before her.
Minicios shook his head. "Are you concerned about the legitimacy of the contract? This is a job issued by the Hierarchy itself, and I would imagine that you've already checked the credentials that I gave you."
All of that was true, Enosa had to admit.
"Listen, if you don't want the job, that's fine. There are other candidates that we could contact. But few of them have your qualifications, and fewer still are currently available."
And that was the rub.
While Enosa wouldn't exactly call herself a patriot, well, there were rather few legitimate jobs that one could get as an independent specialist on Prothean linguistics. According to what she'd heard from her friend with the Shadow Broker, she actually was the best in the business that wasn't currently working for some big government or academy. Considering her friend, she doubted that was flattery.
But if the Turians were employing her services, then it was a fair bet they had found something that they felt was valuable enough to go under the table with, even considering the laws in place concerning potential Prothean artifacts.
On the other hand… it wasn't as if it was anything more dramatic than a minor power play in the grand games of the Council, and it was a lot more money than had ever previously filled her bank account, even if it was for potentially more than a year's work…
"I'll take the job." She pressed her thumb down on the datapad, and after the slightest of delays her name appeared on the contract.
Minicios smiled and took the datapad. "Thank you, and remember that there's an option to renew, although we hope that the work would be completed before the six months are out."
"Alright, so where will I be going?"
Minicios frowned. "I'd prefer to get into that once we actually board the ship. Security concerns, you understand."
"I'll be ready to leave tomorrow." Enosa smiled, shook Minicios's hand, and walked away. She did have clothes to pack, after all.
Ari sat back in her seat, watching the feed from both the on vehicle sensors and the orbitals. While they were programmed to automatically trigger an alarm if anything interesting happened, but it was always good to have an extra pair of eyes on things. It was also allowed her to identify false positives like the small animals that had roamed into the city after the evacuation.
Her squad was one of three that had been selected to do the initial patrols around the suspected location of the evacuation shelter, and more importantly, it was the one closest to the last known location of Sergeant Till.
Sentian looked over at her from his spot. "So, we were told to look for anything suspicious. Any idea as to what looks suspicious for the natives here?"
Ari shook her head. "Just keep an eye out for red and yellow signs or anywhere that's getting pointed to by a bunch of arrows."
Sentian blinked. "That's… not very helpful."
"We can go building-to-building looking for clues later, but for now, we're just here to let our vehicle take a few scans."
Sentian shrugged and went back to watching out the viewports.
Ari looked back to her instruments.
Truthfully, she wasn't expecting the sensors to uncover anything. Maybe once they unpacked the seismographs from the ships they might be able to pick up an underground shelter, but if these were designed to stay hidden, well, even a scout vehicle like her own didn't have sensors quite sophisticated enough to avoid getting far too many false positives in an urban environment.
"So", Darsus glanced back from the driver's seat. "Any idea as to why they built so many shelters?"
"I asked one of the social scientists about it yesterday. She said that that's actually pretty standard for a specie's first few colonies. After discovering a Prothean ruin, most races tended to build their first few colonies with security in mind just in case the galaxy is filled with nasty gribblies and such." Sentian answered.
Darsus grinned. "Oh, did you actually learn something while trying to pick up a girl?"
"All I wanted was to do was to broaden my horizons." Sentian gave an arrogant flourish of his head.
"So you got shot down-"
Ari glanced to her side. "Did those hidey holes that we looked through look like shelters or bunkers to you?"
Sentian blinked. "Sorry, what did you say?"
"Were there any murder holes, automated defense systems, or mounts for heavy weapons?"
"Well, no, but-"
"Then those were probably evacuation shelters, not military buildings."
"Ah," Sentian floundered. "Sorry. Where are we going with this, Sergeant?"
"Command thinks that we might be breaching into a military bunker this time. I want all of you to keep stay cautious."
From the gunner's seat, Garran muttered. "Stay cautious, we might be hitting a entrenched position, but no acting like we normally do when breaching an fortified building, since leading with grenades in a place filled with civilians will get you court martialed."
Ari leaned forward and slapped his helmet. "Just check your HUD for eezo and you'll be able to tell if they have weapons or not."
Darsus piped up. "Wasn't the Insurgent not using Element Zero equipment just to fuck with us anyway?"
Ari shook her head. "It was an ambush in the middle of nowhere, that sort of thing would be much less effective when we're the ones with the initiative. Besides, I don't think they'll be deploying heavy weapons in an enclosed-"
"This is Patrol three, we've found our target. It looks like one of the standard shelters, but there are fewer signs in the area. Can't tell if that's coincidence or not. The entrance was hidden by debris, though that at least doesn't look deliberate. We could probably move it out of the way by hand."
The voice of General Desolas came on line. "Patrol three, await your fellows. The convoy is driving out presently, but I want that shelter secure before they get there. Patrols One and Two, move to their position now."
The general himself was overseeing this operation? While there wasn't that much for him to do currently, for him to have taken personal command of this operation indicated that this was more important to the general than she thought.
Or maybe he had just gotten really bored of paperwork.
She shook her head as Darsus began to change directions, and continued to watch the instruments on her vehicle.
It took a few minutes to get to the location, and by then Patrol One had also arrived. The area that they were in appeared to be a park, and the area was littered with uprooted trees, foliage, chunks of dirt. They hadn't inflicted too many casualties, and distantly Ari considered the idea that they might have fled back into the urban environment to lead the Hierarchy forces away from the shelter.
She could see why the shelter had been missed; it had been designed to look like a natural part of the park from most angles. It was only after the debris had been dropped from orbit that it moved from an aesthetic choice to serving as actual camouflage. There was a small pile of debris surrounding the door, and the other squads made a small pile of cleared debris off to the side.
A blinking in her HUD informed her that, as the most experienced officer of those present, she'd be the one in charge as they began the initial breech. A few corrosive charges were already being placed on the edges of the door. While they did create mildly toxic fumes, they were generally less deadly to anyone directly on the other side of the door than simply planting conventional charges.
Generally.
Shaking her head, she glanced at the officer in charge of Patrol One, allowing her HUD to determine his name. "Sergent Cervidan, get back in your vehicle and hold the area outside. If any of the insurgents arrive, I don't want to be caught trapped inside between two hostile forces." Both squads seamlessly melded together in a breaching formation. Even though she was increasingly convinced that this was just a civilian outpost that they had missed… better to be cautious.
He acknowledged her command, and the rest arranged themselves around the door. With a tap of her omnitool, the corrosives triggered, slowly beginning to melt through the heavy metal. "Helmets up, I don't want any of you breathing air that you didn't bring with you."
She watched as the acids melted their way through the door. Estimates at the previous bunkers had stated that it took roughly twenty seven seconds for the acid to melt its way through the edges enough that the door could be removed.
Her fingers found themselves tapping on the gun.
This was actually the largest operation that she had ever lead.
She was glad that the General had considered her good enough to trust with such a potentially delicate operation. But… she shook her head.
The middle of a mission was no time to be second guessing command.
At the twenty seven second mark, the corrosive packs stopped pumping their acid into the door, and were carefully removed by the soldiers closest to the door. Once the packs were removed, they grabbed the door, and began to pull.
It was something of a risky procedure, assuming that whoever was on the other side of the door had prepared a position in the corridor just past the shelter door, but it was believed that the door itself as well as the kinetic barriers on the soldiers holding the doors would allow them to survive just long enough to get it out of the way.
The maneuver had actually been devised after the first sets of bunkers had been opened, and she tried to ignore the fact that her squads would be testing this method, especially since it had been devised more for the survival of those within the bunker rather than those breaching it.
She was prepared for a hail of bullets as they moved wrenched the door out of its frame.
She was not expecting black smoke. She took a moment to stare in surprise, but quickly her training took over.
"Move in!" She shouted, walking into the entryway even as she spoke. Whatever had happened, it might only be in the upper levels, but that hope was slowly dashed as she walked over the bodies of the, yes, civilians, judging by the lack of armor, gathered around the exit.
As they moved their way through the shelter, she glanced around looking for-
"Sentian. Over there. It looks like a ventilation system."
"On it." As Sentian walked over and removed the grille, Ari ordered everyone else into defensive postures.
"It's… spirits." Sentian whispered. "It looks like someone managed to weld the some of these filtration systems shut, the air wasn't being circulated."
Ari shook her head. "Clear it. Squad two, continue scouting the vault. I don't think we can expect survivors, but be ready to give them your mask." Glancing at her omnitool, she tried to run a few quick calculations concerning the air content. Even if the smoke had rushed upwards… the numbers weren't promising.
She shook her head as she glanced around the floor. There weren't many children present, but they might have been located lower in the shelter. Each shelter was designed for… two hundred, three hundred people? Even (hoping) that the shelter hadn't been filled to capacity, she couldn't have climbed over more than fifty bodies so far. There had to have been more deeper within.
She tried to consider why they might have done this. Were they really that desperate to avoid capture? But… no, from what she had heard the other mass suicide had occurred a few days after capture.
Her radio chimed in. "Ma'am, we have signs of a firefight here. Looks like there were armed soldiers in addition to civilians fighting on both sides. The ones deeper into the complex all have the same tattoo. It doesn't look like same the symbol that we'd been briefed on, Ma'am."
"Describe it."
"It looks like a stylized flame, colored red."
"Continue moving deeper into the complex." Were they looking at two separate suicide cults, she wondered? Or did they mark themselves differently based on their modus operandi? At least the other lot had only targeted themselves.
At that moment, Sentian pulled his upper half out of the vent. "It should start to clear out soon, but they must have sealed most of the vents in this place. Not sure how, since I'd think the soldiers in this place would have stopped them."
Ari shook her head. "They were being invaded, they might not have believed that they had to worry about internal security."
Did the planet have a history of death cults?
How long ago had this happened?
Was it even possible to have saved them?
Trying to clear her head, she gazed at her HUD and-
A squawk on the radio, "Ma'am they just!-" before four chimes triggered, informing her that the soldiers they had been sent were gone. It wasn't the chirp of a KIA, of their suits failing to detect life, just them quite spontaneously losing radio contact, which in its own way was almost as worrying.
"All troops, head to their last known location now!"
They might have triggered a bulkhead, that could have cut off the signal.
Except that they don't have those as a standard feature in these structures, do they?
As they ran, she saw more bodies, leaping across some of them in her haste.
She reached the room that had been their last marked location- no bulkheads- as they charged into it, she saw a pyre. It looked to be mostly made of clothes-too small for all the smoke she had seen upstairs, were there other fires as well?- no bodies.
She made a gesture with her hand. "Start searching for trapdoors, hidden panels, whatever, they can't have just disappeared-
There was a flash of purple, a wall of intricately intertwining lights, there was a plunging sensation, and-
And she found herself in a vast, flaming landscape.
Next part is in progress.
Jerry stared into the mirror, gazing at his scraggly red beard.
He had always been clean shaven.
He shaved once during the morning and once at night.
Ever since those first few follicles of hair had appeared on his chin, he had demanded a razor and set to work.
It was to the point of a running joke in the family.
And now he had a beard.
They didn't have razor blades in the camp. He wasn't sure if the aliens were just being overly cautious, or if it had honestly never occurred to them that humans might need to trim their hair. Had they ever even seen a species with hair, or was that a uniquely Earth trait?
The point was, well, it itched. He couldn't sleep, his beard itched, he had nothing to do, and he was pretty sure that he'd seen a kid flinch just after looking at his unkempt appearance.
He didn't know if the aliens were ever going to let them out of the camp, or if they were going to start forcing them to do manual labor or just line them up against the wall once they were done with whatever they were doing.
He, however, had a plan.
He knew that what he was thinking was stupid, a plan born of long nights with an utter lack of sleep.
He knew that it might end up with him dying, but at this point... a lot of things might end with him dying.
He took off his shirt, carefully wrapping it around his hand.
He was aware that there were other people present in what he thought of as the "Grooming Station". They saw his hard face, his calloused hands, and his scarred chest, and they were nervous.
They could tell that he was planning something.
He wasn't sure if they were scared of him, of what he was planning to do, or what his actions might cause in the way of repercussions, but he wasn't in the mood to waste time trying to figure out what they were thinking.
His arm wrapped in his shirt, he pulled it back, looked at the glass of the mirror, and let his fist fly.
The glass shattered, and he took a moment to thank the fact that his shirt had been thick in its weave, as his fist had only been scraped during the breaking of the glass.
He ignored a few panicked shouts as he glanced at the shards of glass, before he selected one that seemed appropriate to his needs. He could already hear the footsteps of the armored aliens pounding on the ground behind him as he turned to look at them. He was actually impressed by their response time. Were they already on alert for some reason? He knew nothing about what was going on in the other camps.
There were four of them present, and as he was clearly the most suspicious person there, with his bloodied hand in his shirt, they all faced him, though he took a moment to note that their guns were still pointed towards the ground, their fingers resting on the trigger guards.
He watched them, and they watched him. The one in the lead asked a question in a voice that seemed oddly unbothered by the glass and the blood, making a vague gesture towards Jerry's hand, gently holding that shard of glass.
Jerry slowly brought the shard of glass to his throat, and the guns leapt up, the alien in the lead extending an arm out to him and saying something that he had probably intended to sound soothing, but that metallic effect when the aliens spoke still grated on his ears.
His hand began to move and-
Cut.
The lead alien watched as the hair gently fell to the ground.
Jerry began to move the glass shard around his face, idly wishing that he had an extra mirror, so that he could watch what he was doing.
The alien in the lead stared for a moment, and then he chuckled, saying something that ended with his soldiers lowering their guns.
Two days later, shaving kits that had probably been gathered from the various homes were placed in the restrooms.
Turian Field Camp: Briefing Room
While Ari Cascaus was far too professional to lean back and sigh, the urge was certainly present.
General Desolas stood at the front of the room, gesturing to the projections on the wall.
"Three days ago, one of our patrols pursued what was believed to be a straggler who had managed to evade our previous patrols. The squad was attacked by the lone figure, and the known only survivor was one who was too wounded to pursue their attacker."
The projected image flickered, and there was a vehicle. "From what we've been able to determine from the wreck, it does appear that there was both a kinetic and thermal component to the attack. The exact mechanics of the device are unknown, as its apparent ability to ignore flares with little to no time to lock on to a target. We have recovered no traces of exotic matters, as the target appeared to have no element zero based technology, which we believe was deliberate on her part, so as to attempt to minimize the chances of detection."
"As it stands, we have no knowledge of what happened to the soldiers who pursued her, as we have found no bodies or even signs of struggle at the last point of contact."
Ari knew that the general himself wouldn't be giving this report if all he had to talk about was the fact that they knew jack and shit about what the hell was going on, and that this was just the prelude to the next subject. It was probably just an attempt to quell all the rumors that had been going on, (and her being a squad leader, she was privy to the rumors being spread by both the officers and the grunts, and there wasn't much substance to any of it).
"Moving on," at this Ari sat up a bit straighter, though she'd likely have words with anyone who suggested that she had been slouching, "going over the maps of the area that we've uncovered, some of the analysts are of the opinion that we missed some evacuation centers during our initial sweep of this city."
The projection shifted, and a map of several of the alien cities appeared on the screen. "Overlaying a grid pattern on the map, they've noticed that, consistently, that they had constructed their cities in a fashion that has a single shelter at roughly the center point of each grid. This pattern exists in every city." The image shifted, and red spots emerged at about the center point of each grid, excepting that of a few areas that she vaguely remembered had been tentatively labeled administrative zones.
Those grids without the red dots were then turned yellow.
"While our initial patrols failed to notice shelters at these locations, I had initially ordered patrols to search for the signs that we had come to recognize from the outlying areas. As such, our patrols were not looking for the traces of evacuation as thoroughly they could have been."
Looking at the map, Ari glanced at one of the yellowed grids, noticing that it was rather close to- "As you can see, this particular section is close to where the squad led by Togriss was last heard from. As the unknown insurgent," at some point the term Unknown Insurgent started to be pronounced in capitals, to Ari's mind, "is believed to still be in the area somewhere, though we have found no traces of her in our patrols. There is the possibility that she has gone to ground in one of these suspected bunkers. Furthermore, we suspect that the bunkers that were not clearly marked might in fact be designated for military personnel, so extreme caution is to be used when we are evacuating them."
"We suspect that sending caravans to evacuate them might just prompt the guerilla forces to take action. Multiple gunships will be prepped and ready to deploy to the area, with two more constantly patrolling along these routes." Two black lines appeared on the screen, the lines were between were either between the grids or neighboring them, just far enough that they would be out of casual visual range.
All present knew what he was implicitly suggesting, of course.
The patrols were to be bait in addition to actually searching for the shelter.
Ari didn't feel that there was that much of a risk, the Unknown Insurgent only really succeeded due to the surprise factor, and they weren't going to fall for the trap of a lack of element zero again. Reports indicated that she was fast, but the turian Hierarchy trained its people to deal with fast. They'd occasionally had to fight mercenary asari, after all.
Still, she supposed that, even if there wasn't as much risk as being bait might have implied, being sent out to serve as bait probably did warrant the General showing up to see them out personally.
"Once you get your squads to your vehicles, your patrol routes will be transmitted directly to your HUDS. Dismissed, all."
Civilian Camp 9
Considering that her world had been invaded, and considering that all the people in her shelter had been dragged out, escorted into vehicles, and brought to camps outside the city, she knew that having such thoughts was inappropriate, but, well…
Shiori was bored.
There was nothing to do.
They hadn't been allowed electronics, so she couldn't read her books, she only knew one person in the camp that was her age, and even the aliens looked as if this they were tired of watching over them.
She brought the razor to her hair and watched as her black tresses fell to the ground. She was sure that her parents would disapprove of her cutting her hair for no reason but boredom.
She heard a bell ring, but she ignored it, focusing on how her hair looked.
It wasn't quite as even as she had been hoping for but…
She kinda liked it.
She wouldn't have been able to do this if it hadn't been for the crazy man with the mirror. At a guess, she figured that weird bird aliens probably hadn't even realized that humans needed to cut their hair. The best equivalent they would have would probably be a can of paint for those weird facial markings. Or maybe they were like tattoos and they didn't need to reapply them?
As details go, it was rather irrelevant, but…
She was curious now.
There was a knock on the wall.
"Shiori? Are you okay?" The voice of Amy's mom called out.
"Yes, I'll be out to eat soon." She sighed. Her first ever sleep over had gotten her assigned to a camp away from her parents. She knew it was stupid of her to take it out on Amy's parents, but, well…
They were annoying, boring, prying people, and they kept on trying to keep an eye on her and Amy and it was just so…
They were trying to protect her, to care for her. She knew that that, but their hovering was just... annoying, and she was getting annoyed at random things, because of.. everything.
She shook her head and began to make her way to the tables where the aliens had shown up.
There was a buffet where they could get their food, and long tables where various groups were huddled up. There was scattered conversation, but, mostly people were keeping to themselves.
She wondered if that was because they didn't know anybody, or if it was just the situation in general that made them act that way.
The meal was… quiet.
Amy's mom had already brought up their schooling, and her parents had talked to each other about their jobs, but there weren't really any new developments. Any attempt on Shiori's part to talk about the aliens lead to long awkward pauses in the conversation, despite the fact that they were really the only thing worth talking about recently.
Also, it was kind of an important subject.
The food was bland, but filling. What looked to be vaguely like beans, some plants, somewhat chicken like meat, it was… boring.
She excused herself after finishing her meal, as there wasn't any talking going on anyway, and went back to her bunk.
She lay back on bunk, almost wishing that something exciting would happen.
Under the circumstances, something exciting probably be a Bad Thing, but, well, she wasn't sure how much longer she could take this.
Hello there. She blinked, glancing around the room, and stared into two small red eyes. I felt the strength of your wish, and I wanted to offer you a chance to make that wish a reality.
Shiori stared into the eyes of the catlike creature, and after several seconds, pinched herself. Once she had confirmed that she was not, in fact, dreaming, she blinked again, opened her mouth-
There is no need to panic. The voice entered her head once more.
I… who are you? She found herself thinking the words, not speaking them.
My name is Kyuubey! The thing responded, as if she had been talking aloud all along.
Showed what she got for wanting something interesting to happen. And, um, what did you want? She still wasn't entirely convinced that this was real, but...
Your desire shined out strongly enough for me to see, and I am here to offer you the chance to become a magical girl.
Her thoughts were succinct. What.
It looked at her with a tilted head. While the circumstances are hardly ideal, the situation has prompted me to offer you this chance.
Um, circumstances? Did you mean the whole, aliens thing? While she wasn't sure what aliens had to do with magical girls…
It- Kyubey nodded. That is partially it. I wouldn't ask you to become a magical girl for free though, as I am willing to grant a single wish of yours!
Shiori blinked. A… wish?
Of course. While your wish has some minor limits, there are a great many things that you could use it for.
The obvious question came to mind. Could I wish all of these aliens off of this planet?
Kyubey shook his head, the almost childlike voice sounding... amused? That wish is unfortunately beyond the limits of your karmic weight.
Then what could I wish for?
Wishes are most efficient when used for more personal things, either to guarantee things that would otherwise happen by chance-
Does that mean I could wish that I win the lottery? It was the first thing to come to mind, and she immediately felt silly for asking such a thing. Money really wasn't going to do her any good right now. Even if there were any lotteries currently being run...
The cat thing looked at her with what she almost felt was a disappointed look on its face. While that is possible, such a wish would be extraordinarily… weak. While you are free to wish for whatever you want, and it is somewhat frowned upon for me to make suggestions, such a wish is unlikely to bring you true happiness, from what experience I have. More materialistic wishes tend to be less satisfying than healing the sick, making friends, and other more emotionally based desires. Of course, the desire that initially summoned me with, to grant you an interesting life, is well within my capab-
"No!" She blurted out loud, and sheepishly glanced around the room. There were a few people who had filtered in during her conversation, and all of them were giving her a funny look. They weren't, she noticed, giving the creature sitting next to her any notice.
Switching back to mental speech, she looked at him. Yeah, that's not going to be my wish. I read that story with the Monkey's Paw. My grandma was always threatening to curse people to live in interesting times, so I really don't want to make a wish for a curse.
Kyubey tilted its head. Actually, I would point out that when wishing for things like that, the wish system grants you what you want, and we do attempt to ensure that the wish grants you as much happiness as possible within the confines of the wish. We have no reason to twist a wish to act against your best interests. However, I should note that the life of a Puella Magi is an inherently interesting one, and so it would be best if you to carefully consider what you truly want, rather asking for something that would be granted by default.
An interesting life? That... made a new set of questions arise in her mind. What exactly would I be doing as a magical girl? She asked warily.
Fighting witches!
Witches?
While the magical girl is a symbol of hope, the witch is an embodiment of despair. They prey upon humans, and if not kept in check by magical girls, they could wipe out entire planets clean of life. Becoming a magical girl would grant you magical abilities and the ability to track witches, to protect the world from their spread.
Magical pow- she paused. They can wipe out planets?
Only in large numbers, and even then, it's more exterminating all life on the planet rather than simply destroying the planet itself. For the vast majority of witches, the powers granted by becoming a Puella Magi are sufficient to guarantee the ability to kill the average witch, even if it won't be an easy battle. For those few witches that are more dangerous than that, there are other magical girls on planet that can assist you.
So, I get a wish, and can hunt monsters that are murdering people?
That is correct.
She took a moment to consider. It sounded… cool. She had a chance to do something, she could fight, and she could make a wish. From what Kyuubey had told her, it seemed like she would probably be able hold her own against whatever witches were around. With the invasion, the ability of magical girls to hunt would be… limited, which probably meant that that wouldn't be too much of a concern for awhile.
But, what would she wish for?
Her mind drifted to what Kyuubey had suggested about wishes.
Making friends…
She didn't know that many people. She was bored, but striking up a conversation with some of the other groups in the camp was just too… Intimidating. She couldn't do it.
Even before, she hadn't been good at striking up conversations.
Her being friends with Amy had practically been a playdate set up by the teacher, with that group project stuff.
And even Sarah-
She knew what she wanted.
She nodded to Kyubey. I want to do it. I want to become a magical girl.
Simply let your wish fill your heart, and I will handle the rest.
She thought hard, and in this instant, all of her fears, her hopes, her dreams came to the forefront of her mind.
I want-
I want to be able to talk to people.
She'd been afraid that it would sound stupid, but somehow, here, in her own mind, it felt… right.
Kyuubey's ears extended out towards her, and her world was filled with lights, sounds, smells… the lights shifted with the sound and the smell seemed blue and yellow and red, every nerve in her body tingled, and-
She collapsed against her bunk.
Contract complete. Your wish has contributed to combating entropy.
She breathed heavily.
Now that the… whatever that was… was complete, she felt, normal.
You shouldn't notice anything different until you fully transform. Under ordinary circumstances, you would be dressed as a magical girl as soon as the ritual was complete, but it seemed most prudent to allow you to remain in your current clothing under the circumstances.
She glanced at the number of people scattered around her at their bunks. Heh, yeah, that was a good idea.
Hm. There was a speculative tone to that hum.
What? She asked the bunnycat.
Analyzing your transformation, it appears that the nature of the wish that you had made has granted you vastly improved telepathy. You should be able to communicate with any magically gifted person within the gravity well.
Wait, the entire planet? She paused. How many magical girls are currently on planet?
Eight. You could issue either call each of them individually, or use or your own telepathy as a hub to allow all of them to communicate with each other as well as yourself.
Eight people at once? She hesitantly asked.
Eight includes yourself. Kyuubey clarified.
Shiori blushed. Oh, right, that was… obvious. But, eight people at once…
Well, she had made a wish to talk to people, and this was as good a chance as any.
She could feel the method that Kyuubey had suggested, feel the way that she needed to host the conversation.
For a moment she hesitated.
What would she say to introduce herself?
An idea flashed through her mind, and she had to suppress a giggle.
She didn't know if it was because her wish granted her the confidence, or if it was the anonymity, or simply because it all still felt so unreal, but, well, after watching a few movies with her parents, this seemed... appropriate.
Rolecall, ladies. Puella Magi represent!
Eh!
Ah!
What the he-
Is that the cavalry?
Uh, what was that?
Stop shouting you bunch of-
Enosa leaned back in her chair, one blue hand rubbing the crests on her head. "It's just, well this is a lot of money that you're offering here."
Minicios smiled and spread his arms out. "I realize that the sum does seem a bit large at first, but that is simply because this is a long term contract. Not only that, but I've already shown you the non-disclosure clause on the contract. Letting us read through every email you send while on site is the sort of thing that we tend to have to offer large sums of money in order to get people to accept."
"Still, it is the sort of sum that makes me a bit cautious about such a... broad non-disclosure agreement." She pushed the datapad displaying the contract back to turian before her.
Minicios shook his head. "Are you concerned about the legitimacy of the contract? This is a job issued by the Hierarchy itself, and I would imagine that you've already checked the credentials that I gave you."
All of that was true, Enosa had to admit.
"Listen, if you don't want the job, that's fine. There are other candidates that we could contact. But few of them have your qualifications, and fewer still are currently available."
And that was the rub.
While Enosa wouldn't exactly call herself a patriot, well, there were rather few legitimate jobs that one could get as an independent specialist on Prothean linguistics. According to what she'd heard from her friend with the Shadow Broker, she actually was the best in the business that wasn't currently working for some big government or academy. Considering her friend, she doubted that was flattery.
But if the Turians were employing her services, then it was a fair bet they had found something that they felt was valuable enough to go under the table with, even considering the laws in place concerning potential Prothean artifacts.
On the other hand… it wasn't as if it was anything more dramatic than a minor power play in the grand games of the Council, and it was a lot more money than had ever previously filled her bank account, even if it was for potentially more than a year's work…
"I'll take the job." She pressed her thumb down on the datapad, and after the slightest of delays her name appeared on the contract.
Minicios smiled and took the datapad. "Thank you, and remember that there's an option to renew, although we hope that the work would be completed before the six months are out."
"Alright, so where will I be going?"
Minicios frowned. "I'd prefer to get into that once we actually board the ship. Security concerns, you understand."
"I'll be ready to leave tomorrow." Enosa smiled, shook Minicios's hand, and walked away. She did have clothes to pack, after all.
Ari sat back in her seat, watching the feed from both the on vehicle sensors and the orbitals. While they were programmed to automatically trigger an alarm if anything interesting happened, but it was always good to have an extra pair of eyes on things. It was also allowed her to identify false positives like the small animals that had roamed into the city after the evacuation.
Her squad was one of three that had been selected to do the initial patrols around the suspected location of the evacuation shelter, and more importantly, it was the one closest to the last known location of Sergeant Till.
Sentian looked over at her from his spot. "So, we were told to look for anything suspicious. Any idea as to what looks suspicious for the natives here?"
Ari shook her head. "Just keep an eye out for red and yellow signs or anywhere that's getting pointed to by a bunch of arrows."
Sentian blinked. "That's… not very helpful."
"We can go building-to-building looking for clues later, but for now, we're just here to let our vehicle take a few scans."
Sentian shrugged and went back to watching out the viewports.
Ari looked back to her instruments.
Truthfully, she wasn't expecting the sensors to uncover anything. Maybe once they unpacked the seismographs from the ships they might be able to pick up an underground shelter, but if these were designed to stay hidden, well, even a scout vehicle like her own didn't have sensors quite sophisticated enough to avoid getting far too many false positives in an urban environment.
"So", Darsus glanced back from the driver's seat. "Any idea as to why they built so many shelters?"
"I asked one of the social scientists about it yesterday. She said that that's actually pretty standard for a specie's first few colonies. After discovering a Prothean ruin, most races tended to build their first few colonies with security in mind just in case the galaxy is filled with nasty gribblies and such." Sentian answered.
Darsus grinned. "Oh, did you actually learn something while trying to pick up a girl?"
"All I wanted was to do was to broaden my horizons." Sentian gave an arrogant flourish of his head.
"So you got shot down-"
Ari glanced to her side. "Did those hidey holes that we looked through look like shelters or bunkers to you?"
Sentian blinked. "Sorry, what did you say?"
"Were there any murder holes, automated defense systems, or mounts for heavy weapons?"
"Well, no, but-"
"Then those were probably evacuation shelters, not military buildings."
"Ah," Sentian floundered. "Sorry. Where are we going with this, Sergeant?"
"Command thinks that we might be breaching into a military bunker this time. I want all of you to keep stay cautious."
From the gunner's seat, Garran muttered. "Stay cautious, we might be hitting a entrenched position, but no acting like we normally do when breaching an fortified building, since leading with grenades in a place filled with civilians will get you court martialed."
Ari leaned forward and slapped his helmet. "Just check your HUD for eezo and you'll be able to tell if they have weapons or not."
Darsus piped up. "Wasn't the Insurgent not using Element Zero equipment just to fuck with us anyway?"
Ari shook her head. "It was an ambush in the middle of nowhere, that sort of thing would be much less effective when we're the ones with the initiative. Besides, I don't think they'll be deploying heavy weapons in an enclosed-"
"This is Patrol three, we've found our target. It looks like one of the standard shelters, but there are fewer signs in the area. Can't tell if that's coincidence or not. The entrance was hidden by debris, though that at least doesn't look deliberate. We could probably move it out of the way by hand."
The voice of General Desolas came on line. "Patrol three, await your fellows. The convoy is driving out presently, but I want that shelter secure before they get there. Patrols One and Two, move to their position now."
The general himself was overseeing this operation? While there wasn't that much for him to do currently, for him to have taken personal command of this operation indicated that this was more important to the general than she thought.
Or maybe he had just gotten really bored of paperwork.
She shook her head as Darsus began to change directions, and continued to watch the instruments on her vehicle.
It took a few minutes to get to the location, and by then Patrol One had also arrived. The area that they were in appeared to be a park, and the area was littered with uprooted trees, foliage, chunks of dirt. They hadn't inflicted too many casualties, and distantly Ari considered the idea that they might have fled back into the urban environment to lead the Hierarchy forces away from the shelter.
She could see why the shelter had been missed; it had been designed to look like a natural part of the park from most angles. It was only after the debris had been dropped from orbit that it moved from an aesthetic choice to serving as actual camouflage. There was a small pile of debris surrounding the door, and the other squads made a small pile of cleared debris off to the side.
A blinking in her HUD informed her that, as the most experienced officer of those present, she'd be the one in charge as they began the initial breech. A few corrosive charges were already being placed on the edges of the door. While they did create mildly toxic fumes, they were generally less deadly to anyone directly on the other side of the door than simply planting conventional charges.
Generally.
Shaking her head, she glanced at the officer in charge of Patrol One, allowing her HUD to determine his name. "Sergent Cervidan, get back in your vehicle and hold the area outside. If any of the insurgents arrive, I don't want to be caught trapped inside between two hostile forces." Both squads seamlessly melded together in a breaching formation. Even though she was increasingly convinced that this was just a civilian outpost that they had missed… better to be cautious.
He acknowledged her command, and the rest arranged themselves around the door. With a tap of her omnitool, the corrosives triggered, slowly beginning to melt through the heavy metal. "Helmets up, I don't want any of you breathing air that you didn't bring with you."
She watched as the acids melted their way through the door. Estimates at the previous bunkers had stated that it took roughly twenty seven seconds for the acid to melt its way through the edges enough that the door could be removed.
Her fingers found themselves tapping on the gun.
This was actually the largest operation that she had ever lead.
She was glad that the General had considered her good enough to trust with such a potentially delicate operation. But… she shook her head.
The middle of a mission was no time to be second guessing command.
At the twenty seven second mark, the corrosive packs stopped pumping their acid into the door, and were carefully removed by the soldiers closest to the door. Once the packs were removed, they grabbed the door, and began to pull.
It was something of a risky procedure, assuming that whoever was on the other side of the door had prepared a position in the corridor just past the shelter door, but it was believed that the door itself as well as the kinetic barriers on the soldiers holding the doors would allow them to survive just long enough to get it out of the way.
The maneuver had actually been devised after the first sets of bunkers had been opened, and she tried to ignore the fact that her squads would be testing this method, especially since it had been devised more for the survival of those within the bunker rather than those breaching it.
She was prepared for a hail of bullets as they moved wrenched the door out of its frame.
She was not expecting black smoke. She took a moment to stare in surprise, but quickly her training took over.
"Move in!" She shouted, walking into the entryway even as she spoke. Whatever had happened, it might only be in the upper levels, but that hope was slowly dashed as she walked over the bodies of the, yes, civilians, judging by the lack of armor, gathered around the exit.
As they moved their way through the shelter, she glanced around looking for-
"Sentian. Over there. It looks like a ventilation system."
"On it." As Sentian walked over and removed the grille, Ari ordered everyone else into defensive postures.
"It's… spirits." Sentian whispered. "It looks like someone managed to weld the some of these filtration systems shut, the air wasn't being circulated."
Ari shook her head. "Clear it. Squad two, continue scouting the vault. I don't think we can expect survivors, but be ready to give them your mask." Glancing at her omnitool, she tried to run a few quick calculations concerning the air content. Even if the smoke had rushed upwards… the numbers weren't promising.
She shook her head as she glanced around the floor. There weren't many children present, but they might have been located lower in the shelter. Each shelter was designed for… two hundred, three hundred people? Even (hoping) that the shelter hadn't been filled to capacity, she couldn't have climbed over more than fifty bodies so far. There had to have been more deeper within.
She tried to consider why they might have done this. Were they really that desperate to avoid capture? But… no, from what she had heard the other mass suicide had occurred a few days after capture.
Her radio chimed in. "Ma'am, we have signs of a firefight here. Looks like there were armed soldiers in addition to civilians fighting on both sides. The ones deeper into the complex all have the same tattoo. It doesn't look like same the symbol that we'd been briefed on, Ma'am."
"Describe it."
"It looks like a stylized flame, colored red."
"Continue moving deeper into the complex." Were they looking at two separate suicide cults, she wondered? Or did they mark themselves differently based on their modus operandi? At least the other lot had only targeted themselves.
At that moment, Sentian pulled his upper half out of the vent. "It should start to clear out soon, but they must have sealed most of the vents in this place. Not sure how, since I'd think the soldiers in this place would have stopped them."
Ari shook her head. "They were being invaded, they might not have believed that they had to worry about internal security."
Did the planet have a history of death cults?
How long ago had this happened?
Was it even possible to have saved them?
Trying to clear her head, she gazed at her HUD and-
A squawk on the radio, "Ma'am they just!-" before four chimes triggered, informing her that the soldiers they had been sent were gone. It wasn't the chirp of a KIA, of their suits failing to detect life, just them quite spontaneously losing radio contact, which in its own way was almost as worrying.
"All troops, head to their last known location now!"
They might have triggered a bulkhead, that could have cut off the signal.
Except that they don't have those as a standard feature in these structures, do they?
As they ran, she saw more bodies, leaping across some of them in her haste.
She reached the room that had been their last marked location- no bulkheads- as they charged into it, she saw a pyre. It looked to be mostly made of clothes-too small for all the smoke she had seen upstairs, were there other fires as well?- no bodies.
She made a gesture with her hand. "Start searching for trapdoors, hidden panels, whatever, they can't have just disappeared-
There was a flash of purple, a wall of intricately intertwining lights, there was a plunging sensation, and-
And she found herself in a vast, flaming landscape.
Shiori winced at the mix of voices in her head- that came out wrong. Can everyone… please be quiet for a second?
There was silence, before one of them spoke up. So, what, the rest of you managed to bail yourselves out already? Damn, I thought I was being impatient when I was planning on busting out on my own.
I'm still locked up.
Us too.
Yeah, I'm still in my cozy little cot.
Shiori shook her head. This was… confusing. I'll explain, but, uh, could all of you introduce yourselves, first? My name is Shiori.
First girl spoke first. Right, name's Jessica, though most don't bother with the last couple syllables. Nice to meet you, even if it is just mentally.
My name is Elizabeth, said a new voice, one with a sense of… refinement to its tone. I can't believe you haven't gotten yourself killed already, Jess. Even if the tone didn't match the words.
Yeah, yeah, I can last a week or two without going out and picking fights, you're so very impressed. I'm more surprised that you haven't managed to have yourself a nervous breakdown without your makeup, Elz.
Judging by the relief in her voice, though, they apparently knew each other.
A third voice spoke up. I'm just going to interrupt before those two get going, or we'll never get everyone introduced. My name is Sharon.
Fourth voice. Er, my name is Sofia, and my sister, who is trying to get some sleep, is Anna. So, uh, what's… going on?
Shiori paused. I… my abilities allow us to communicate from anywhere on the planet, apparently. I, uh, just got them, actually.
Jess was the first to respond. Huh, normally that wouldn't be all that useful, but, well, under the circumstances…
That's… lucky. Sharon projected. Apparently, emotions could come across telepathy, if the vague wave of cynicism Shiori felt was any indication.
Sofia was the next to speak. I think the others are in a different timezone, and if Anna is any indication, apparently telepathy only contacts those who are already awake, we never really had a chance to test that before this, honestly. Maybe it only matters for your, mental relay thing, though.
Jess gave a suddenly upbeat interjection, So! Now that we can all talk and hang out and stuff, what the hell do we do now? Over at Iron Town, we're doing pretty well on Grief Seeds, and have a stockpile of three between us.
Sofia gave a mental cough. We've only got one, but, well, things are pretty quiet around here. We can probably last a few weeks, if nothing dramatic happens. We had three, but in the aftermath of the invasion… we're pretty clean at the moment, though.
Elizabeth sent a question directly to Shiori. Do you have any Grief Seeds on you?
I… don't even know what a Grief Seed is.
Sharon interrupted then. Were you told anything at all about what being a magical girl meant- hold on a second; Kyubey! I know you're listening in on this. What the hell are you thinking, recruiting someone during a time like this?
And then Kyubey's voice responded. With the current situation, there was no one else capable of hunting Witches in the capital city.
Jess sent a sudden shout. Wait, no one else is in the capital? What happened to Erin?
Erin fell during battle with the invaders while attempting to hunt down more witches.
Jess gave an impression that she'd sucked in a lungful of breath. Damn. I'd only met her once, but… damn it. So, that left the capitol undefended, then?
That is correct. There are currently four witches free in the capitol city, and at least five familiars are on the verge of becoming Witches. Recruiting Shiori was something of a last resort. With emotions as they due to the invasion, the Witches are capable of breeding very quickly, possibly uncontrollably so.
Sharon sent a fierce telepathic message, But even a full team of magical girls would have trouble with those odds! You want to send a new girl by herself after numbers like that! What is wrong with you!
CALM DOWN. Elizabeth's voice pierced the sudden din. Kyubey likely felt that he had no choice. If Shiori can just kill one of the weaker witches, and maybe kill those familiars before they hatch, she could do a lot to limit their spread without taking any more risk than the rest of us have. She will be fine.
Jess spoke, almost hesitantly. I… don't know. The odds don't look good. I mean, if, no offense, recruiting her really was a last resort… She paused. Things… don't look good, but… I have a plan. The Iron Town Ladies, we're all still around the same city, right?
Elizabeth and Sharon both confirmed that.
So, my camp is on a hill. I've seen that they have a pretty large ship in the port. So, us three, let's steal it.
There was a moment of mental silence from all in the conversation.
Elizabeth projected a cough. I really don't think that they just… leave the keys in the ignition for those things.
Of course they don't. But, well, we have Sharon.
Sharon gave a vague blur of emotions. Me, you mean… you want me to enchant an entire ship?
Elizabeth responded. That is… there's no way she could handle an actual warship with her ability.
Why not? We've never tried anything like this before, but we have three Grief Seeds just waiting to be used. One enchanted frigate and we could kick these aliens right off the planet, and then we could just go and help Shiori personally. I doubt most Witches could stand up to a frigate's firepower, if it's been enchanted first.
No, there's no way that that would work. Elizabeth said.
Sharon seemed hesitant, I… kind of like the plan, actually. It… feels like it could work, now that I'm thinking about it.
Elizabeth sent a wave of anger to the both of them, Listen, I don't want the two of you doing something stupid just because you're feeling cooped up. How do you expect us to take over an entire ship and take out however many troops are there?
Sharon interjected. Because we've got magic, and considering what Kyubey's saying about the capitol, I really don't think we have a choice. How would we even get there? How would we fight an army if they have the orbitals? I don't want to fight Witches and aliens at the same time.
Elizabeth paused, for a second, the weight of her decision transmitting itself across to the listeners. It looks like I'm outvoted. So, how are we to do this?
Bah. wanted to post something. It'll probably be rolled up into another snippet, but telepathic conversations are annoying to write, so I wanted to post this now.
Maybe I'll switch to <telepathy> to indicate psychic conversations at some point.
There was silence, before one of them spoke up. So, what, the rest of you managed to bail yourselves out already? Damn, I thought I was being impatient when I was planning on busting out on my own.
I'm still locked up.
Us too.
Yeah, I'm still in my cozy little cot.
Shiori shook her head. This was… confusing. I'll explain, but, uh, could all of you introduce yourselves, first? My name is Shiori.
First girl spoke first. Right, name's Jessica, though most don't bother with the last couple syllables. Nice to meet you, even if it is just mentally.
My name is Elizabeth, said a new voice, one with a sense of… refinement to its tone. I can't believe you haven't gotten yourself killed already, Jess. Even if the tone didn't match the words.
Yeah, yeah, I can last a week or two without going out and picking fights, you're so very impressed. I'm more surprised that you haven't managed to have yourself a nervous breakdown without your makeup, Elz.
Judging by the relief in her voice, though, they apparently knew each other.
A third voice spoke up. I'm just going to interrupt before those two get going, or we'll never get everyone introduced. My name is Sharon.
Fourth voice. Er, my name is Sofia, and my sister, who is trying to get some sleep, is Anna. So, uh, what's… going on?
Shiori paused. I… my abilities allow us to communicate from anywhere on the planet, apparently. I, uh, just got them, actually.
Jess was the first to respond. Huh, normally that wouldn't be all that useful, but, well, under the circumstances…
That's… lucky. Sharon projected. Apparently, emotions could come across telepathy, if the vague wave of cynicism Shiori felt was any indication.
Sofia was the next to speak. I think the others are in a different timezone, and if Anna is any indication, apparently telepathy only contacts those who are already awake, we never really had a chance to test that before this, honestly. Maybe it only matters for your, mental relay thing, though.
Jess gave a suddenly upbeat interjection, So! Now that we can all talk and hang out and stuff, what the hell do we do now? Over at Iron Town, we're doing pretty well on Grief Seeds, and have a stockpile of three between us.
Sofia gave a mental cough. We've only got one, but, well, things are pretty quiet around here. We can probably last a few weeks, if nothing dramatic happens. We had three, but in the aftermath of the invasion… we're pretty clean at the moment, though.
Elizabeth sent a question directly to Shiori. Do you have any Grief Seeds on you?
I… don't even know what a Grief Seed is.
Sharon interrupted then. Were you told anything at all about what being a magical girl meant- hold on a second; Kyubey! I know you're listening in on this. What the hell are you thinking, recruiting someone during a time like this?
And then Kyubey's voice responded. With the current situation, there was no one else capable of hunting Witches in the capital city.
Jess sent a sudden shout. Wait, no one else is in the capital? What happened to Erin?
Erin fell during battle with the invaders while attempting to hunt down more witches.
Jess gave an impression that she'd sucked in a lungful of breath. Damn. I'd only met her once, but… damn it. So, that left the capitol undefended, then?
That is correct. There are currently four witches free in the capitol city, and at least five familiars are on the verge of becoming Witches. Recruiting Shiori was something of a last resort. With emotions as they due to the invasion, the Witches are capable of breeding very quickly, possibly uncontrollably so.
Sharon sent a fierce telepathic message, But even a full team of magical girls would have trouble with those odds! You want to send a new girl by herself after numbers like that! What is wrong with you!
CALM DOWN. Elizabeth's voice pierced the sudden din. Kyubey likely felt that he had no choice. If Shiori can just kill one of the weaker witches, and maybe kill those familiars before they hatch, she could do a lot to limit their spread without taking any more risk than the rest of us have. She will be fine.
Jess spoke, almost hesitantly. I… don't know. The odds don't look good. I mean, if, no offense, recruiting her really was a last resort… She paused. Things… don't look good, but… I have a plan. The Iron Town Ladies, we're all still around the same city, right?
Elizabeth and Sharon both confirmed that.
So, my camp is on a hill. I've seen that they have a pretty large ship in the port. So, us three, let's steal it.
There was a moment of mental silence from all in the conversation.
Elizabeth projected a cough. I really don't think that they just… leave the keys in the ignition for those things.
Of course they don't. But, well, we have Sharon.
Sharon gave a vague blur of emotions. Me, you mean… you want me to enchant an entire ship?
Elizabeth responded. That is… there's no way she could handle an actual warship with her ability.
Why not? We've never tried anything like this before, but we have three Grief Seeds just waiting to be used. One enchanted frigate and we could kick these aliens right off the planet, and then we could just go and help Shiori personally. I doubt most Witches could stand up to a frigate's firepower, if it's been enchanted first.
No, there's no way that that would work. Elizabeth said.
Sharon seemed hesitant, I… kind of like the plan, actually. It… feels like it could work, now that I'm thinking about it.
Elizabeth sent a wave of anger to the both of them, Listen, I don't want the two of you doing something stupid just because you're feeling cooped up. How do you expect us to take over an entire ship and take out however many troops are there?
Sharon interjected. Because we've got magic, and considering what Kyubey's saying about the capitol, I really don't think we have a choice. How would we even get there? How would we fight an army if they have the orbitals? I don't want to fight Witches and aliens at the same time.
Elizabeth paused, for a second, the weight of her decision transmitting itself across to the listeners. It looks like I'm outvoted. So, how are we to do this?
Bah. wanted to post something. It'll probably be rolled up into another snippet, but telepathic conversations are annoying to write, so I wanted to post this now.
Maybe I'll switch to <telepathy> to indicate psychic conversations at some point.
It had taken some time, but they all figured out where they were in relation to each other around the city, mostly by observing the Sun. Sharon was to the East, Jess was to the South, and Elizabeth was to the Northeast.
Sharon and Jess would meet up within the city, and Elizabeth would flank the aliens once the other two attacked the spaceport. Sharon gave a nervous chuckle at the thought. Right. One person would be flanking an entire spaceport filled with aliens. Because that had seemed a lot saner before she'd busted out of the fenced enclosure.
Kyubey would be following them from a distance, and would meet them inside the ship.
She shook her head.
She was, most of the time, the most… efficient, of the three, to the point where they'd occasionally hang back and let her do the fighting against witches, only intervening if something happened, but she needed something to start with. All she had now was a black bodysuit.
I got a patrol, here it is! Hurry up, the alarm's probably already been raised.
Jess burst into the room, two bodies with her.
"Two?" Sharon asked.
"I broke the first one's armor, and then I broke the second one's helmet. You wanted a full set, right?" Jess slung her claymore back onto her shoulder.
Sharon nodded, and glanced back at the… corpses.
She pressed a hand against the first one, the one with the intact armor, attempting to ignore the leaking faceplate. It took a moment for it to begin melting into a silvery liquid, and slowly began to flow up her arm.
It began assembling itself on her, and when it was done, the rather mundane blue armor fitted for an alien was now perfectly fitted on herself, ivory colored with silver engravings spread all around it. It looked… different from when she borrowed her dad's militia armor, but it felt solid and comfortable on her.
She brought herself to the second body, the one with the intact helmet, and brought her hands to it. The same silver flow moved from her hands, and she felt a helmet fitting itself around her head.
She opened her eyes, and stumbled back at the accusatory eyes of the dead alien.
She shuddered, staring into the eyes for several seconds.
"Hey, we're in a hurry here, if you're done, we need to move now."
She looked at Jess. How was Jess so… calm, so… unaffected-
She took a closer look, her helmet's HUD zooming in as she did. Jess's gaze never went to the bodies, and she kept on rubbing one of her hands on her skirt, trying to clean it.
Right. Just one more thing on the list of things that none of them would ever be getting therapy for.
She stood up, and made ready to leave.
"Hey," Jess said. "Aren't you forgetting something?" She was holding an assault rifle of some kind. Sharon reached up and grabbed it.
"Come on."
The two of them began running towards the starport.
Now or never.
Ari looked around her, and saw a city of flames under a black dome that had odd, papercraft displays dancing along it, she watched one in particular. There was a great green scaled beast with thunderous wings, being approached by a small warrior in silver armor with a sword and a shield. The figure charged, and with a single twist of the neck the scaled beast seized the figure in its jaws, shaking it about, spraying blood along the scene.
"Ma'am?"
The beast tossed the figure onto the ground, where it was immolated by breath of flames, leaving a twisted and charred corpse behind. The scene faded, and there was a new warrior, challenging a giant this time, only for the giant to seize the warrior and twist its head off. It was all almost… cartoonish.
"Orders, ma'am?"
All across the ceiling, there seemed to be an endless collage of would be champions being smote down by stronger beings, all of them utterly helpless before a superior foe.
"ARI!" She jerked.
Garran was beside her, his shouting was so odd for his character that it forced her to acknowledge reality. "Do you have any idea what is going on?"
Ari looked around her, and shook her head. The place was a ruined city, with what looked to be real, ruined papercraft buildings intermixed with more of the paper cut outs. Some of them even looked torn, rather than smashed like the actual buildings were. Scattered almost randomly, without concern for what was flammable and what was not, was a papercraft flame that seemed to bend and twist as a real flame might. Was the paper bending, or were there new slips of paper being replaced every second, like some sort of flipbook animation?
On a whim she switched her visor to infra-red, and the flames did seem exactly as hot as a real flame would be.
She shook her head, feeling an ache in her eyes upon looking on those things.
"Where is the other squad? They should have been here before us."
Sentian shook his head. "I don't know. All I've been getting is static on the com channels. We've tried launching a few flares, but… we've seen nothing."
"They were just-" She glanced backwards, and saw the dome behind her. She wasn't close to the edge, there had to have been at least a hundred feet between them. There was no…
"We haven't found any sort of entrance or door, and we seemed to have just… appeared here."
She wanted to rail at the impossibility. This species was nowhere near as advanced as the Hierarchy. Nothing she had seen indicated any ability to build some sort of… pocket dimension. And that was the most logical explanation that she had for what was in front of her eyes.
"Have you tried to get out already?"
Garran shook his head. "We've tried, and the dome isn't solid, but anything we put through the dome doesn't come back. It might be the way out, it might not be. We didn't want to test it with ourselves without orders." A slight hint of humor entered his voice.
"You've checked for landmarks?"
Sentian spoke up. "I climbed one of the more solid looking piles of rubble. There's what we think is one of the native hospitals, judging from what we found in the ones that, well, the ones that we looked through in the real world."
Real world. She shook her head. This almost did seem like a dream.
"Pack up, that's where we're heading next." They needed an objective. Any objective. If all else failed… they could try the edge.
Darsus chuckled. "Going straight for the hospital? Have you watched many horror movies, ma'am?"
Ari frowned at him. "Do you have another idea, private? Pointing out horror movie clichés isn't exactly productive."
"Honestly, ma'am? I have no idea as to what in all the galaxy's name is going on here. For all I know, a life watching horror movies has prepared me more than any of the military training I've received." His face was almost… blank. He was handling this a lot less well than he was trying to look, and she subtly shook her head as Garran crept up behind Darsus. She'd handle this.
She glared into Darsus' helmet. "Horror movies haven't trained you in how to aim your gun. If there's something hostile in the area, I expect you to use that training."
He stared at her for a moment. "Right, ma'am."
She turned to her squad. "Let's get moving. Garran, you're on point."
General Desolas was reading over reports when an alarm sounded. He threw the report to the side, and swiftly jogged to the bridge.
As he got there, an aide approached him. "Sir, we have another sighting of one of those commandos."
"One of those?" He asked.
"What we managed to get from the helmet feed is limited, but it looks to be a different person from the one that attacked that patrol. This time the commando was definitely the aggressor."
He scowled, approaching the tactical map. "Where did this happen?"
"Right outside the starport at the mining town, sir."
He frowned. "The alert has been raised, correct?" The General knew that there wasn't too much point to watching these events live. He'd leave the commanding of the defense to those on the ground, he wouldn't micromanage in an active combat situation.
"Yes, sir."
"Good." He was just here to get an impression of what might be attacking every other installation. And there to authorize the dropping of orbital debris, if it proved necessary.
"Sir, some of our camera have spotted movement. It looks like they're attacking the port itself."
His eyes widened slightly at that. Daring. And by attacking an entrenched position they would likely attempt to hold all the turians present as effectively hostages against orbital bombardment.
The camera shifted, to a single figure in silver armor standing on a rooftop, utterly without cover, sighting down her gun.
Sharon aimed down her gun, trying to hold the gun around the odd wings that had popped up after her enchantment of it. According to Kyubey, all adjustments were apparently practical, but she had no idea what the wings were for. Heat sinks, maybe?
Regardless, she aimed, found a turian, and pulled the trigger. A three round burst shattered his shields and dropped him.
Even without her strength enhancements as a magical girl, she could have handled the miniscule recoil from the gun.
She shifted her aim to a second, pulled the trigger, and he collapsed as well.
By now, the others had noticed.
The spaceport was big, a hive of activity, and there were at least dozens of aliens around the base of it. She didn't know how many were in the area or how many were inside the ship itself, but there were… a lot of them.
She shifted her aim, and fired again. This time the turian managed to move, only taking one hit, but he still winced. Apparently her current rounds phased through the kinetic barriers.
A hail of gunfire struck at her position, shattering the roof beneath her, and she leaped to a different rooftop.
Well, that was going as planned. She began shooting full auto, strafing the ground, killing two more aliens as she did so. A few of the quicker soldiers managed to follow her path, and her armor was hit.
Shield Status: 92%
She shook her head. That was better than her father's armor could manage, even enchanted.
A larger round hit the rooftop, and it exploded, sending her flying across. Her eyes managed to spot a vehicle, almost… it didn't look like a tank, but it did have a turret. The vehicle apparently had a heavier gun.
Shield Status: 84%
She placed her legs on one of the larger pieces of debris in midair and jumped off it, entering the building she had just been standing on through the wall. She swiftly ran through the corridors, ignoring the furniture and lived in look of the building, even as a hail of gunfire and several heavier rounds burst through the walls of the second story and came out the side, descending towards a group of aliens aiming their guns at her.
Instinct took over as she fell and she grabbed one of them, the force of her grab, when coupled with a sudden increase in mass from her armor to increase the force behind her movement, moved his head quickly enough to snap it from the whiplash, her armor instantly returning to its lighter weight.
A quick one handed aim towards the side, her HUD showing her exactly where the gun was aiming, killed two more, and only then did the remaining soldiers manage to regain their faculties enough to fire at her. She reoriented, and then shot the two of them as well.
The vehicle reoriented its gun towards her, and its cannon fired again, knocking her away.
Shield Status: 82%
Apparently it had had enough time to start regenerating.
She was calm though. She had been the diversion of this attack, after all.
Jess had used sudden focus of the camp to leap from one of the buildings to that vehicle, jamming her blue blade into the side and utterly ignoring the kinetic barriers. She then pushed the blade through the vehicle out the side, and it came out wet.
Jess held her blade for a moment, allowing the nearby soldiers to see her dripping sword, growing even as she stood there.
That moment was sufficient for a sniper to hit her in the side. Despite the round going straight through, she ignored it, dashing straight towards the nearest alien even as her blood flowed from her stomach.
Sharon aimed her gun in the direction of where the round had come from, hoping her suits sensors could detect the round even as she ignored the scattering of gunfire aimed at her. She saw the building the round had come from, and her visor automatically shifted vision modes, and she saw a figure. But she also saw a razor thin tendril curl down from the story above the figure, and then in a whip like motion, struck at the sniper. The sniper's shields held for the first strike, but for the second, they collapsed and his head fell from his neck.
Hope I'm not too late.
Elizabeth was here.
The plan might actually work.
"I can't track them- they're too fa-"
"Concentrate your fire on the one with the sword!"
General Desolas listened to the calls on the radio. It was… panic. The turian military, one of the most disciplined forces in all the galaxy, was… panicking.
"She's on us, trying to shake it off- spirits it pierced the hul-"
"All troops, do not use guided munitions, repeat, do not use guided munitions. The ECM on that armor is capable of redirecting missiles to friendly targets, I repeat-"
"It's missing half its head, how is it still fighting?!"
He didn't begrudge them that. It was… chaos. He took a deep breath as he saw another collection of signals go dead.
"We're going down, we're going down, evacuate the warehouse we cannot redirect our descent, we cannot red-!"
His eyes glanced at the button that would authorize an orbital drop. At the rate things were going, danger close orbital bombardment might get more of his soldiers out alive than any other option.
Infantry weren't supposed to be able to take more hits than a damned gunship.
Being a commander meant making sacrifices, if necessary, but he wasn't sure if it was necessary yet.
There was one option that might work.
He pressed a button on the intercom. "Deploy the Cabal."
His brother had wanted to see action here, and this looked to be his chance.
CODEX:
*REDACTED DOCUMENTS, UNKNOWN SOURCE*
Iron Town Ladies:
Magical Capabilities:
Sharon:
Her wish allowed her the ability to enchant objects both more efficiently and more powerfully than most magical girls are capable of. While she normally has no equipment natural to herself, her father is a member of the militia, and despite their different sizes her powers have allowed the armor and gun to adapt to her frame.
It should be noted that while the equipment is given substantial refinement in a technological sense, to the point that one could theoretically reverse engineer some of the features to include in other weapons, there are a number of features that don't strictly follow physical laws. The magic makes it more advanced, but several features can only work if the laws of physics are temporarily ignored on a minute scale, from circuit to circuit in the case of the electronics on the improved devices.
Combat ability is remarkable, but she receives top priority for the potential technological advances that could be gained by examining her devices. Her survival is a high priority.
Elizabeth:
Can create a whip that she can manipulate and see out of with her mind, and can extend to a range of several blocks. Typically uses this to snipe targets of opportunity. While she is a compassionate person, she does have a ruthless streak to her, and frequently targets enemies from around corners and from beyond where they can reasonably strike back.
Potentially useful as an agent, prevent her death if possible.
Jessica:
She has extremely potent regeneration, and the ability to ignore wounds. Furthermore, her soul gem has substantially greater control of her body than most, allowing her to use it in place of neural tissue in the event that her brain is damaged. Her blade, colored blue, slowly grows in size during combat, though it is always just as maneuverable as it was when the fight began. Highly skilled at combat, and knows how to use her limited abilities to her fullest advantage, as the most experienced of the Iron Town Ladies.
Potentially useful for research.
Expendable.
And with that, I believe I will be ready to repost this story on Spacebattles!
And also include an index here.
Sharon and Jess would meet up within the city, and Elizabeth would flank the aliens once the other two attacked the spaceport. Sharon gave a nervous chuckle at the thought. Right. One person would be flanking an entire spaceport filled with aliens. Because that had seemed a lot saner before she'd busted out of the fenced enclosure.
Kyubey would be following them from a distance, and would meet them inside the ship.
She shook her head.
She was, most of the time, the most… efficient, of the three, to the point where they'd occasionally hang back and let her do the fighting against witches, only intervening if something happened, but she needed something to start with. All she had now was a black bodysuit.
I got a patrol, here it is! Hurry up, the alarm's probably already been raised.
Jess burst into the room, two bodies with her.
"Two?" Sharon asked.
"I broke the first one's armor, and then I broke the second one's helmet. You wanted a full set, right?" Jess slung her claymore back onto her shoulder.
Sharon nodded, and glanced back at the… corpses.
She pressed a hand against the first one, the one with the intact armor, attempting to ignore the leaking faceplate. It took a moment for it to begin melting into a silvery liquid, and slowly began to flow up her arm.
It began assembling itself on her, and when it was done, the rather mundane blue armor fitted for an alien was now perfectly fitted on herself, ivory colored with silver engravings spread all around it. It looked… different from when she borrowed her dad's militia armor, but it felt solid and comfortable on her.
She brought herself to the second body, the one with the intact helmet, and brought her hands to it. The same silver flow moved from her hands, and she felt a helmet fitting itself around her head.
She opened her eyes, and stumbled back at the accusatory eyes of the dead alien.
She shuddered, staring into the eyes for several seconds.
"Hey, we're in a hurry here, if you're done, we need to move now."
She looked at Jess. How was Jess so… calm, so… unaffected-
She took a closer look, her helmet's HUD zooming in as she did. Jess's gaze never went to the bodies, and she kept on rubbing one of her hands on her skirt, trying to clean it.
Right. Just one more thing on the list of things that none of them would ever be getting therapy for.
She stood up, and made ready to leave.
"Hey," Jess said. "Aren't you forgetting something?" She was holding an assault rifle of some kind. Sharon reached up and grabbed it.
"Come on."
The two of them began running towards the starport.
Now or never.
Ari looked around her, and saw a city of flames under a black dome that had odd, papercraft displays dancing along it, she watched one in particular. There was a great green scaled beast with thunderous wings, being approached by a small warrior in silver armor with a sword and a shield. The figure charged, and with a single twist of the neck the scaled beast seized the figure in its jaws, shaking it about, spraying blood along the scene.
"Ma'am?"
The beast tossed the figure onto the ground, where it was immolated by breath of flames, leaving a twisted and charred corpse behind. The scene faded, and there was a new warrior, challenging a giant this time, only for the giant to seize the warrior and twist its head off. It was all almost… cartoonish.
"Orders, ma'am?"
All across the ceiling, there seemed to be an endless collage of would be champions being smote down by stronger beings, all of them utterly helpless before a superior foe.
"ARI!" She jerked.
Garran was beside her, his shouting was so odd for his character that it forced her to acknowledge reality. "Do you have any idea what is going on?"
Ari looked around her, and shook her head. The place was a ruined city, with what looked to be real, ruined papercraft buildings intermixed with more of the paper cut outs. Some of them even looked torn, rather than smashed like the actual buildings were. Scattered almost randomly, without concern for what was flammable and what was not, was a papercraft flame that seemed to bend and twist as a real flame might. Was the paper bending, or were there new slips of paper being replaced every second, like some sort of flipbook animation?
On a whim she switched her visor to infra-red, and the flames did seem exactly as hot as a real flame would be.
She shook her head, feeling an ache in her eyes upon looking on those things.
"Where is the other squad? They should have been here before us."
Sentian shook his head. "I don't know. All I've been getting is static on the com channels. We've tried launching a few flares, but… we've seen nothing."
"They were just-" She glanced backwards, and saw the dome behind her. She wasn't close to the edge, there had to have been at least a hundred feet between them. There was no…
"We haven't found any sort of entrance or door, and we seemed to have just… appeared here."
She wanted to rail at the impossibility. This species was nowhere near as advanced as the Hierarchy. Nothing she had seen indicated any ability to build some sort of… pocket dimension. And that was the most logical explanation that she had for what was in front of her eyes.
"Have you tried to get out already?"
Garran shook his head. "We've tried, and the dome isn't solid, but anything we put through the dome doesn't come back. It might be the way out, it might not be. We didn't want to test it with ourselves without orders." A slight hint of humor entered his voice.
"You've checked for landmarks?"
Sentian spoke up. "I climbed one of the more solid looking piles of rubble. There's what we think is one of the native hospitals, judging from what we found in the ones that, well, the ones that we looked through in the real world."
Real world. She shook her head. This almost did seem like a dream.
"Pack up, that's where we're heading next." They needed an objective. Any objective. If all else failed… they could try the edge.
Darsus chuckled. "Going straight for the hospital? Have you watched many horror movies, ma'am?"
Ari frowned at him. "Do you have another idea, private? Pointing out horror movie clichés isn't exactly productive."
"Honestly, ma'am? I have no idea as to what in all the galaxy's name is going on here. For all I know, a life watching horror movies has prepared me more than any of the military training I've received." His face was almost… blank. He was handling this a lot less well than he was trying to look, and she subtly shook her head as Garran crept up behind Darsus. She'd handle this.
She glared into Darsus' helmet. "Horror movies haven't trained you in how to aim your gun. If there's something hostile in the area, I expect you to use that training."
He stared at her for a moment. "Right, ma'am."
She turned to her squad. "Let's get moving. Garran, you're on point."
General Desolas was reading over reports when an alarm sounded. He threw the report to the side, and swiftly jogged to the bridge.
As he got there, an aide approached him. "Sir, we have another sighting of one of those commandos."
"One of those?" He asked.
"What we managed to get from the helmet feed is limited, but it looks to be a different person from the one that attacked that patrol. This time the commando was definitely the aggressor."
He scowled, approaching the tactical map. "Where did this happen?"
"Right outside the starport at the mining town, sir."
He frowned. "The alert has been raised, correct?" The General knew that there wasn't too much point to watching these events live. He'd leave the commanding of the defense to those on the ground, he wouldn't micromanage in an active combat situation.
"Yes, sir."
"Good." He was just here to get an impression of what might be attacking every other installation. And there to authorize the dropping of orbital debris, if it proved necessary.
"Sir, some of our camera have spotted movement. It looks like they're attacking the port itself."
His eyes widened slightly at that. Daring. And by attacking an entrenched position they would likely attempt to hold all the turians present as effectively hostages against orbital bombardment.
The camera shifted, to a single figure in silver armor standing on a rooftop, utterly without cover, sighting down her gun.
Sharon aimed down her gun, trying to hold the gun around the odd wings that had popped up after her enchantment of it. According to Kyubey, all adjustments were apparently practical, but she had no idea what the wings were for. Heat sinks, maybe?
Regardless, she aimed, found a turian, and pulled the trigger. A three round burst shattered his shields and dropped him.
Even without her strength enhancements as a magical girl, she could have handled the miniscule recoil from the gun.
She shifted her aim to a second, pulled the trigger, and he collapsed as well.
By now, the others had noticed.
The spaceport was big, a hive of activity, and there were at least dozens of aliens around the base of it. She didn't know how many were in the area or how many were inside the ship itself, but there were… a lot of them.
She shifted her aim, and fired again. This time the turian managed to move, only taking one hit, but he still winced. Apparently her current rounds phased through the kinetic barriers.
A hail of gunfire struck at her position, shattering the roof beneath her, and she leaped to a different rooftop.
Well, that was going as planned. She began shooting full auto, strafing the ground, killing two more aliens as she did so. A few of the quicker soldiers managed to follow her path, and her armor was hit.
Shield Status: 92%
She shook her head. That was better than her father's armor could manage, even enchanted.
A larger round hit the rooftop, and it exploded, sending her flying across. Her eyes managed to spot a vehicle, almost… it didn't look like a tank, but it did have a turret. The vehicle apparently had a heavier gun.
Shield Status: 84%
She placed her legs on one of the larger pieces of debris in midair and jumped off it, entering the building she had just been standing on through the wall. She swiftly ran through the corridors, ignoring the furniture and lived in look of the building, even as a hail of gunfire and several heavier rounds burst through the walls of the second story and came out the side, descending towards a group of aliens aiming their guns at her.
Instinct took over as she fell and she grabbed one of them, the force of her grab, when coupled with a sudden increase in mass from her armor to increase the force behind her movement, moved his head quickly enough to snap it from the whiplash, her armor instantly returning to its lighter weight.
A quick one handed aim towards the side, her HUD showing her exactly where the gun was aiming, killed two more, and only then did the remaining soldiers manage to regain their faculties enough to fire at her. She reoriented, and then shot the two of them as well.
The vehicle reoriented its gun towards her, and its cannon fired again, knocking her away.
Shield Status: 82%
Apparently it had had enough time to start regenerating.
She was calm though. She had been the diversion of this attack, after all.
Jess had used sudden focus of the camp to leap from one of the buildings to that vehicle, jamming her blue blade into the side and utterly ignoring the kinetic barriers. She then pushed the blade through the vehicle out the side, and it came out wet.
Jess held her blade for a moment, allowing the nearby soldiers to see her dripping sword, growing even as she stood there.
That moment was sufficient for a sniper to hit her in the side. Despite the round going straight through, she ignored it, dashing straight towards the nearest alien even as her blood flowed from her stomach.
Sharon aimed her gun in the direction of where the round had come from, hoping her suits sensors could detect the round even as she ignored the scattering of gunfire aimed at her. She saw the building the round had come from, and her visor automatically shifted vision modes, and she saw a figure. But she also saw a razor thin tendril curl down from the story above the figure, and then in a whip like motion, struck at the sniper. The sniper's shields held for the first strike, but for the second, they collapsed and his head fell from his neck.
Hope I'm not too late.
Elizabeth was here.
The plan might actually work.
"I can't track them- they're too fa-"
"Concentrate your fire on the one with the sword!"
General Desolas listened to the calls on the radio. It was… panic. The turian military, one of the most disciplined forces in all the galaxy, was… panicking.
"She's on us, trying to shake it off- spirits it pierced the hul-"
"All troops, do not use guided munitions, repeat, do not use guided munitions. The ECM on that armor is capable of redirecting missiles to friendly targets, I repeat-"
"It's missing half its head, how is it still fighting?!"
He didn't begrudge them that. It was… chaos. He took a deep breath as he saw another collection of signals go dead.
"We're going down, we're going down, evacuate the warehouse we cannot redirect our descent, we cannot red-!"
His eyes glanced at the button that would authorize an orbital drop. At the rate things were going, danger close orbital bombardment might get more of his soldiers out alive than any other option.
Infantry weren't supposed to be able to take more hits than a damned gunship.
Being a commander meant making sacrifices, if necessary, but he wasn't sure if it was necessary yet.
There was one option that might work.
He pressed a button on the intercom. "Deploy the Cabal."
His brother had wanted to see action here, and this looked to be his chance.
CODEX:
*REDACTED DOCUMENTS, UNKNOWN SOURCE*
Iron Town Ladies:
Magical Capabilities:
Sharon:
Her wish allowed her the ability to enchant objects both more efficiently and more powerfully than most magical girls are capable of. While she normally has no equipment natural to herself, her father is a member of the militia, and despite their different sizes her powers have allowed the armor and gun to adapt to her frame.
It should be noted that while the equipment is given substantial refinement in a technological sense, to the point that one could theoretically reverse engineer some of the features to include in other weapons, there are a number of features that don't strictly follow physical laws. The magic makes it more advanced, but several features can only work if the laws of physics are temporarily ignored on a minute scale, from circuit to circuit in the case of the electronics on the improved devices.
Combat ability is remarkable, but she receives top priority for the potential technological advances that could be gained by examining her devices. Her survival is a high priority.
Elizabeth:
Can create a whip that she can manipulate and see out of with her mind, and can extend to a range of several blocks. Typically uses this to snipe targets of opportunity. While she is a compassionate person, she does have a ruthless streak to her, and frequently targets enemies from around corners and from beyond where they can reasonably strike back.
Potentially useful as an agent, prevent her death if possible.
Jessica:
She has extremely potent regeneration, and the ability to ignore wounds. Furthermore, her soul gem has substantially greater control of her body than most, allowing her to use it in place of neural tissue in the event that her brain is damaged. Her blade, colored blue, slowly grows in size during combat, though it is always just as maneuverable as it was when the fight began. Highly skilled at combat, and knows how to use her limited abilities to her fullest advantage, as the most experienced of the Iron Town Ladies.
Potentially useful for research.
Expendable.
And with that, I believe I will be ready to repost this story on Spacebattles!
And also include an index here.
Last edited:
- Status