Slyvine is light. Slyvine is love. Slyvine is life.
----------
"This seems kind of disappointing." Nagara said, waiting cloaked in the shallows around Tokyo. "The sensor data is amazing and I'm just here waiting."
"I am told by many in the military that 'hurry up and wait' is a common saying. And I have observed it countless times, as well." Drei commented. "How does the avatar feel?"
"It fits perfectly." Nagara said. "Is that weird?"
"That's not too surprising," Drei said. "considering the technical knowledge I carry around."
"Sure." Nagara gave the mental equivalent of a shrug. "One thing I don't miss about being asleep is the lack of boredom."
"It's only five minutes." Drei stated.
"Gahhh!" Nagara hissed. "Those stupid slowboats had better hurry up "
"What are you, ten?" Drei asked.
"Apparently!" Nagara fumed, rocking her avatar.
"Heh." Drei said. "Just hang tight, alright?"
"Fine." Nagara grumbled, and waited.
Eventually, fog covered the walls that were supposed to defend Tokyo from the Fog, and two Fog battleships blasted their way into what was supposed to be a safe harbor.
"Oh." Nagara said. "That's sneaky."
"Ah, you saw it too?" Drei asked.
"That's a clever plan." Nagara said. "At least if they're planning what I think they're planning."
"Well, I have full sensor records, so I heard them planning." Drei said.
"When will I get full sensors?" Nagara asked.
"Probably a month or so." Drei shrugged.
They watched the show. The two Fog ships focused on I-401 to the exclusion of all else once she appeared on the scene. And then the human super-submarine
Hakugei 3 used the corrosion torpedo given to them before the battle to take out both ships with a single shot.
The avatars, and the cores, were blown clear of the ships by the mess made when a super graviton cannon was interrupted in its firing cycle by another graviton weapon. At the core of the cannon was primed thanatonium, which detonated when the d-cell energy shifted from the 9-D gravity effects. The shifting gravity fields would probably stick around for weeks.
Still, one of the cores was completely inactive, and Nagara grabbed it. The other was still active.
---------------
"So how'd I do?" Nagara asked, returning to her human avatar.
"Good." Drei said. "No human fatalities, and you managed to get one of the cores. The moment Haruna gets out of sight enough from the humans I can nab her."
"That gunship following her doesn't seem that subtle." Nagara said.
"It's cloaked." Drei said. "My visualizations just show it because it makes me less likely to do something dumb with it."
"Hmm." Nagara said.
"Any further thoughts?" Drei asked.
"No?" Nagara said.
"Okay, I'm going to rescue Kirishima and then have a chat with her." Drei said.
Removing Kirishima's brain from her core, removing the control intrusions, and inserting the thumbnail-sized bit of neural circuitry in some new support systems was a quicker task than it had been for Nagara
Then came creating a new avatar for her, connecting her to a secondary network, and making sure that her permissions were all locked down. After that, she moved the two of them down tot he surface.
"Hello there." Drei said, as the woman stirred.
Kirishima's eyes narrowed.
"Who are you? Where am I? What have you done to me!?" The woman asked. "Wait, what am I wearing?"
"Something a lot more sensible than your old outfit." Drei said, smirking. "You'll notice that your pants now have both legs."
"Still, do you honestly think that you can keep me here?" Kirishima asked.
"I've cut off your access to the Fog tacnet." Drei said. "I've made some modification to your core."
Drei reached into her jacket pocket and pulled out a small grey wafer the size of a potato chip.
"This is it." Drei said. "I ripped out your old support systems and replaced them with much better ones. And I got rid of your chains too."
"Don't screw with me." Kirishima said. "Who are you?"
"We'll get to that later." Drei said. "But if you don't believe me about the important things, then why should I bother with the unimportant things?"
"What are you talking about?" Kirishima said, only to interrupted as her body began to glow. When it finished, she found herself in a forest, sitting on a rock.
"This is a copy of one of my mother's gardens." Drei said. "You'll be staying here for the rest of this conflict. There a bunch of houses behind you. I'll be down on occasion. Oh, and you can keep this with you." Drei held out Kirishima's core.
"Keep it." Kirishima hissed.
Drei tossed the core at Kirishima, who instinctively caught it. "Nah. I don't need any more leverage over you, since you don't have the permissions needed to be a threat. Bye."
And with that, Drei vanished in another flash of light.
"Well that went well." Drei sighed. "I was hoping she was going to be reasonable."
"I believe that there should be more reasonable people within the Fog." Nagara said. "After all, if our minds are based on human ones, then we should be able to be reasonable, no?"
"Yeah, I was not expecting her to be that aggressive." Drei said. "Maybe I'll take another shot later. Also, the situation with Haruna is getting out of control."
"What's - what are they doing?" Nagara shouted.
"Given the presence of a Fog avatar, they are responding with extreme force with no concern for anything else." Drei said. "The political games of humans can get very nasty. I've seen it before."
"So what are we going to do?" Nagara asked.
"Even just using a avatar, she's still capable of handling the forces involved. The problem is the two humans." Drei said.
"Do you have a plan?" Nagara asked, mentally leaning in.
"Do you?" Drei smirked.
"Distract the attackers." Nagara said. "A little danger close with my weapons to keep them on their toes."
"I had a similar idea." Drei grinned.
A/N:
@niteflier has been noticed. And yes, we are finally getting into divergences.
