The Midnight Incident - Interlude: Jailbreak
Lunaryon
Dual Aurora Wave
- Pronouns
- She/Her
The Midnight Incident
Interlude: Jailbreak
Interlude: Jailbreak
Previously/Meanwhile…
The woman who's decided to go by 'Shizuka' for this mission because "quiet summer" sounds good to her watches as a couple of the juniors reach into their storage rings again and again, passing out wands, talismans, and enchanted weapons to the people her team just freed from the rebel yokai's captivity. Two MCAT guards stand there, hypnotized, nodding absently to each captive. Once Team Two was properly in the jail, it was easy enough to take the guards over with a couple of quiet minutes to work.
Beside her, Lord Kurayami carefully sheathes the sword that was handed to him- first of the captives to receive a weapon. Shizuka has met Lord Kurayami before, prior to the events of the past few months, and has to concede that MCAT did the man a favor by cutting off his access to hairstyling gel. She'd never admit it out loud, but Kurayami looks far better and more dignified with an MCAT-provided tie keeping his long hair in a sort of loose ponytail than he did with the absurd battering ram look he used to favor.
Lord Kurayami smiles tightly as his gaze passes over the other Onogoro mages the Truth Makers have liberated. "I should thank you again for releasing me. I half expected you to leave me behind, heheh!"
He seems to be partially joking, but Shizuka shakes her head nonetheless. The Imperial Truth Makers are, by very stern tradition, expected to avoid action within the bounds of normal politics. But that does not mean they are ignorant of those politics- or of the political opportunities to be had by exploiting a timely 'apolitical' action.
"We would do no such thing, my lord. The Council does as the Council does, but the Guardians did not forget where you were. And besides, High Lord Ogura is leading the attack on the east gate himself."
"Heh! I'll have to remember that." Which means little, but Shizuka had better keep the conversation going. MCAT's captured quite a few Onogoro prisoners and left them here, but by far the biggest single block of trained fighters are, of course, Lord Kurayami's own retainers. There's a reason why a full-fledged Truth Maker's specific job is "talk to Lord Kurayami" instead of "cast spells" right now.
"I hope your treatment has been civilized, my lord? I know what I've been told, but…" she trails off artfully.
Lord Kurayami nods. "Yes, actually… I even got to speak with their 'head scientist.' I can't quite get a read on her, but she's a brilliant woman. Pity she's thrown in her lot with the devils. Talking with her about armor is an inspiration… and she let slip a few details about some of the other inmates, eh?"
"Oh? What were those, my lord?"
The Truth Makers have already learned that surprisingly many of the captives have nothing to do with the rebellion against Onogoro. For whatever reason, MCAT is trying to arrogate to itself the full extent of magical enforcement throughout Japan, rather than concentrating its energy on its most obvious mortal enemy. And they're being astoundingly thorough about it. To the point where they're clearly fighting a many-front war. It's left the Truth Maker team with a lot of uncertainties about who they can safely let out and form alliances of convenience with, and they have only a few minutes to decide- the measures taken to ensure that no one suspects the jail has been penetrated won't last forever.
The guards have, of course, been cooperative, but Lord Kurayami's assessment may be valuable. Especially if he has information from one of the most senior humans working with the rebels, one who is almost certainly a magician herself, and not a mundane human like the surviving guards. So Shizuka is genuinely interested to hear Lord Kurayami say:
"She told me about the 'Oblivion' cultists, for example."
"The memory-eaters in Block Three? The guards mentioned them."
Lord Kurayami nods. "MCAT's kept them separate out of concern that they'd use memory-harvesting spells on the other prisoners."
Shizuka nods in return- the guards who adapted to control the best did warn her team, and quickly, about that issue. "The team leader mentioned considering an alliance of convenience, but we'll be taking no action until we have our people sorted out."
Kurayami frowns. "They might help us, but they'd turn on us happily for their sealed demon god's sake if they thought it profitable. But they may be… shaken. They believe that there is some kind of mirror that their god routinely revives them from if they die, but the mirror was broken when they were captured. I don't know what they'll think of that; I wasn't allowed to meet any of them."
"I'd better tell the team leader that, then, before we talk to them."
"Good. And- aside from that, there's some sort of servant-constructs that were captured a while ago. A few dozen of them. Obviously not human, but quite possibly more trustworthy than the Oblivion mages. And those constructs are interesting ones. I wish I had a few like that, even if they seem a bit… hapless."
"You mean the Snackeys and Choiarks?"
"Yes. I think there's some potential there. Have you been pursuing that?"
"I'll check with the team leader- by your leave, my lord?"
"Oh, of course!" Kurayami waves. "Time is precious!"
***
After passing the word about possible leverage with the Knights of Oblivion, Shizuka moves to the other prospect that Lord Kurayami mentioned. Moves briskly.
The constructs mill about awkwardly, under the eyes of four deputized Onogoro captives and one of the prison's former wardens- now disarmed and suitably under control. Looking at the constructs… despite their mask-like faceless appearance and at most vaguely humanoid physiques, Shizuka gets a sense of, as Lord Kurayami said, haplessness. Confusion. She points to the smaller of the two clusters of creatures- dumpy walking sandbags with relatively slim, flexible, stalklike limbs. Then she looks at the ex-MCAT guard.
"Tell me about them."
"The police captured these in Kibougahana several weeks ago."
"The mundane police?"
"Exactly so, Lady Truth-Maker. They didn't even resist arrest."
"Very interesting. Do you know who they were working for?"
"Recently we've had reports of some group called the "Desert Apostles," and a day or two ago word came out that the soft dumpy ones are working for them, and are called 'Snackeys.'
"What about the other group?" About two thirds of the constructs aren't walking sandbags, and appear slightly more humanoid than the Snackeys, apart from their near-spherical, bulbous heads. They're wearing relatively sharp uniforms with heavy gloves. And if the uniforms are sharp, their sunglasses are sharper, adhering to the masklike round heads with no visible means of support. Also despite the creatures' lack of any apparent external features, including eyes. Some of the sunglasses have been crudely repaired with tape.
"Those are called Choiarks. I'd be careful around them, Lady Truth-Maker, because they can give you a nasty electric shock, though we've mostly taught them not to try that already. They came in a few weeks ago from Kagoshima- apparently they were wandering the city and spying on people. We still don't know what their plan was, because the same way the Snackeys only say 'ki,' the Choiarks only say 'choi.' We only know about them because they've been seen all over the rest of the world wherever the Phantom Empire attacks."
"What are the creatures' dispositions like?"
"We're sure they're intelligent- not animals. And sometimes they seem to have an internal rank structure, like soldiers. But they're… well, foolish sometimes. Cooperative, though. We've had the Choiarks doing the dishes in the kitchen for a while. Snackeys don't like water, and water doesn't like them, so we keep them away from that. Though they'll still try to help wash dishes sometimes if you let them, even though it's bad for them."
"I see…" Shizuka pauses thoughtfully. The seed of an idea sprouts within her.
Meanwhile, elsewhere, a forgettable man looks at the two cell accessways visible from where he's standing. He's decided, for this operational cycle, to call himself
MCAT's headquarters has a surprising amount of dungeon space, remarkably well equipped to contain foes of superhuman power, underneath a few of its buildings. Toya wonders why that is so, and finds that he has no immediate answer. This could not possibly all have been built in the last few months, nor does it seem plausible that the rebellion has gone on in secret long enough to prepare this on such a scale.
Toya turns back to the very compliant MCAT guard who, now that his cooperation has been properly enforced, has been revealing information about the occupants of the cells. Information that has led to several of the liberated captive mages being hastily assigned, only some under the thin-stretched Truth Makers' direction, to put layer after layer of seals and barriers into place. And no door is being more vigorously multiply-sealed than this one.
But somehow, the whole thing confuses Toya on some level.
"So, let me make sure I understand. That is Sailor Mercury's pet demon, and you have her in your cells?" The internal politics of the rebellion, of 'Dark Kingdom' yokai (foreign or domestic) versus MCAT yokai with the Sailor Senshi somehow in the middle, can be downright baffling. Thieves do inevitably fall out among themselves when given enough spoils to squabble over, Toya supposes, but this is a little much.
"Yes, Lord Truth-Maker. Ever since the raid in Choshi City on Monday night. As I understand it, she's a little… erratic. Cooperative enough, though."
"And she's a chess demon. I'll tell you the truth-" the mind-slaved guard looks at Toya with pathetic gratitude, naturally, but Toya ignores it and goes on- "I've never heard of such a thing. How are your crew keeping her contained? I wouldn't have thought you'd have the tools for something like that, short of having an oni sit on her."
"Hmm. I'm not sure how well that would work, Lord Truth Maker. I think it would depend on the oni. But no, the priests worked something out. And we made some modifications to the cell…"
Suddenly the forgettable man looks at the guard suspiciously. "Why are you smiling?"
"Because 'Katib' is a chess demon in a cell with hexagonal floor tiles."
"HAH! Maybe we should save a few of your boys to work for us after all."
"Thank you, Lord Truth-Maker. I'd like that."
"Oh, you're already recruited, provisionally speaking. Now, this other cell-"
"Well, sir, I've only seen a picture, but they tell me-"
A girl from Azabu-Juban Public Junior High sits on a rather spartan bed in a cell she has already truly come to hate. She groans. She sinks her face into her hands and closes her eyes, not that it helps.
She doesn't know how MCAT caught on to her, but she knows they're afraid of her. They're right to be, but she hadn't expected the dumb, clumsy agency to have her this well figured out. She knew to avoid sacred ground, but she didn't know sacred ground could come to her. If she had, she'd never have set foot in the principal's conference room when she saw through the doorway that there was a very serene-looking priest sitting at the table, with his folded hands just out of sight.
And then came the handcuffs that hissed and were wrapped in ofuda talismans and wouldn't let her go. The ones that made her feel like she weighed five hundred kilos instead of forty-five, that made her leaden and numb and closed the shadows to her. She kept trying to flee into those shadows, again and again, trying to somehow shove past what the handcuffs did to her. Nothing ever had done that, nothing should be able to stop her powers, damn it! But trying too many times was a mistake, because somehow the smug man in the suit and tie figured out what she was doing in the back of the van and radioed something ahead.
And now that the girl thinks about it, that's how all this horribleness started. Because when the hulking yokai nudged the girl into this cell, there was her, the mad scientist, still checking something with a little handheld instrument clipped into some wires behind the light switch set into the wall. The scientist looked the girl over with a strange gleam, and the girl didn't think any human being could ever frighten her again. But even then, the scientist almost did, and it only got worse from there.
For a long time, the girl's seen people as little more than bags of flesh and meat and juices. Under the skin, they're all the same. There is nothing particularly new to be learned. People are small inside, no matter how big they seem on the outside. Small, fragile, and worthless except as fodder.
Prey.
The priests, the guards, the admittedly big and strong yokai- the girl has looked at them. She has their measure, she tells herself. She knows, as surely as she knows anything, that without whatever tricks they've been using to suppress her powers, they'd all just be food. Nothing to be truly afraid of. They'd wither and scream and die at the touch, like anyone else.
But the scientist- she wasn't taller than the girl, but when she smiled, she loomed. Even though she clearly knew what the girl can do, she leaned close as no others had dared. Some glitter in the scientist's eyes told the girl that this one, somehow, wasn't prey. Not a fellow predator, but not prey. Something… else.
Even before the scientist started talking, the girl knew she wasn't seeing her as a threat to be beaten down- which would be familiar. And she wasn't seeing her as something to protect other people from, a reaction the girl has seen a few times, though brave food is still food. Nor does the scientist see the girl as a rival, or as prey, things the girl could at least understand.
.
No, the scientist looks at the girl like homework. Interesting homework. A question to be answered. A puzzle to be solved.
And then the scientist started talking, and became actually frightening.
Because she stepped all the way close and reached out to touch her and her voice was a coo as her fingers trailed from her cheek down along her throat and to her shoulder.
"Oh, my, my. How… unusual. I think you… yes, I think there's something familiar about you. I can almost remember the details, but you're something I haven't seen in a long, long, long time!" The scientist's smile grew wide, madly wide. "We're going to have such a good time together; I just know it. I can't wait to crack you open and remember how you tick. Of course, I can already tell that you'll be able to survive nearly anything, but don't worry. I'll try to be… relatively gentle."
What… what the fuck.
Then things got worse.
The scientist chuckled to herself, then hummed a few bars of some tune the girl had never heard before, and then she stepped back. And suddenly everything that made her seem to be different from any other bag of meat disappeared. Was… was that a mask, hiding the truth of the mad scientist the way the girl hides what she is at school? Or was the smiling madness the disguise? Who is this person?
Is this an ordinary fool, trying to intimidate her, and just being good at acting? Or is she some freak who sees her like a specimen to dissect?
The uncertainty is almost the worst of it.
Well actually no, not almost the worst, not by a long shot. The girl groans, forgetting about that encounter from hours and hours ago. Because of the thing that is definitely the worst.
The scientist said, as she replaced the panel covering the light-switch with a screwdriver, "you probably won't want to turn out the lights." And the girl so very much wishes she'd listened, because as soon as everyone left the room, as soon as she smirked and did, planning to dive into the shadows because she could feel her handcuffs fading and the priest's eyes were off her…
That was when the girl found herself plunged into a hell of the mad scientist's making. Because turning the switch off didn't do anything to the recessed fluorescent lights in the room. Oh, no, it turned on the hell-sound and the hell-lights too.
She felt a sudden prickling sensation in her fingertip, as though something was being jerked violently out of her, and felt her lingering hunger rise. And then the quality of the light changed and everything seemed blurry, as if seen through glowing fog, and the girl blinked and almost screamed right then and there, because the light didn't go away when she closed her eyes. Not really, not entirely.
And then she heard the low, horrible, piercing high-pitched whine.
It's taken her a while to figure out what's going on. She's not a stupid girl, though, as she'd be among the first to say. She's very smart, nearly top of her class, and she's had hours and hours with nothing to do but think.
The whining noise is some kind of weird one-note thing, rising and falling, on a recording loop, like a sick parody of a song. And it does one thing, exactly one thing. It makes a soft glimmer of light in every space in the room. In the air. Under the bed. In the crack between the mattress and the frame. In the water in the sink. Inside her own eyeballs.
This must be the work of the mad scientist. Somehow, somehow, she's created a thing that the girl would have thought to be impossible: a room without shadows. None at all. Not even the ones she's never been able to figure out a way to dive into, the tiny slivers, the faint variations, the darkness under her eyelids. They… they blocked it all. Because they overestimated her, and it's driving her crazy, DAMN IT!
The girl doesn't know how tired you have to be to fall asleep when the light doesn't completely go away after you close your eyes. She's getting around to where she's sure it'll have to happen sooner or later. She hopes. Because it'd be nice to not have to remember that she's also hungry; that light switch took something from her and she's afraid to touch it a second time.
In a way this is worse than the silver terror that blasted her at that one hospital a while ago. That was some kind of natural disaster, something like an earthquake or a typhoon, a force. It wasn't people doing this to her, or at least it didn't feel like something a person had done. It felt like being hit by a falling boulder! But a falling boulder isn't personal.
A slap in the face- that's very personal. And this… this is a slap in the face. A person did this, specifically. Which isn't right. It's cheating. The police never seemed to have any idea what she was doing, damn it! The school didn't have a clue! The humans, the grown-ups, aren't supposed to be able to figure things like this out! They aren't supposed to be able to stop her powers!
Well, she'll get out of this, she thinks, her mind swirling around in circles of mad wild anger. She can hear explosions and what she thinks are probably guns going off outside. And not long after, there are voices right outside. She hopes MCAT dies, hopes they all die screaming because maybe then when they're all dead someone will let her out so she can get some damn sleep!
***
And then the door clicks open.
The girl suddenly stares at the door through the fog of light conjured into being by the scientist's one-note song.
"They tell me you've only been here for a day, girl."
That voice- that voice came from nowhere!
More than a little crazed from lack of sleep and creeping pangs of uncanny hunger, the girl calls out to the empty air, "Where- who said that?"
She is rewarded with a soft chuckle and a cryptic response. "No one of consequence, but no one to be taken lightly."
Any Onogoro girl her age would know the meaning of those words. This girl does not. "Are- are you invisible?"
A pause. "...Yes. Yes, I am."
"Ohhh! I get it! You have powers of your own! But you can open the door, and you're not working for them... are there… are there more people like us? Are you here for me?" Excited, she surges fully to her feet, looking around herself as though trying to see the invisible man will somehow make him apparent. She can… can almost feel something like the edible energy of a person's body, but it's diffuse, scattered, nothing like she's ever experienced before. She's probably imagining it, because there's no other sign of anyone being there.
***
Meanwhile, Toya frowns to himself, though of course the girl does not see that. "You have powers? Tell me more."
"I can't turn invisible like you, but I can teleport through my shadows. It's why they have me in this damned place! I don't know how they're doing this with the light, but… They're afraid of people like us. I can tell. And I can… I can heal, heal fast like you wouldn't believe, and sense things, sometimes."
"...Those are some very useful abilities. Good to know about."
By this point, Ahma Anteratu has been awake for nearly seventeen hours, and under a great deal of strain for nearly all of it. She is very much not at her best, or her most wary, and manic optimism comes easily to her. "Yes! Yes! It's finally time! I can help you! We can work together and feed better, and they won't be able to stop us!"
Her invisible interlocutor sounds noncommittal, but Ahma is in no shape to notice. "Mm. Feeding, eh?"
"Yes, on as many of the humans as we like! I knew I couldn't be the only one!"
"Of course not, my friend. We'll be glad to bring such an obviously gifted huntress into our ranks. Come along, and I'll introduce you to my companions."
Ahma walks, a little shakily, towards the door of her cell, to the sound of the voice being projected from out in the vestibule that connects it to the corridor.
[X] Ruthlessness and Prejudice
