“What’s the largest task you’ve taken on single handedly, Pitohui?”
“Hmm…”
Pitohui paused in thought, the glint in her eyes the only indication of
all the chaos and destruction she was thinking back on. “Guess it
depends on who you ask. I’ve had people gang up on me and had to
slaughter them, I’ve fought a dragon - mechanical, but, hey, the thing
was gnarly. Guess I’d say the largest fight I’ve ever had was the Brawl,
though. Did pretty well for myself, but you already knew that. Though,
for some reason, I’m guessing you’re not counting battle royales as
going solo, are you?”
“No. This is a case
of one...well, TWO...against many. And against an enemy without pity,
remorse, or reason. That’s why I called it off for a bit. I didn’t want
to stick your neck in a noose.”
Pitohui
offers naught but a half-snort in response. “You were worried about
putting me in danger? Ah-ha-ha, that’s good. You realize I live for this
kind of work, don’t you? But I guess it’s good you’re careful. Wouldn’t
want to let this one,” she pointed to Kanade, who she had asked to
accompany her, with Dawn’s approval, “get hurt. And if I get banged up
too badly, it’ll throw a wrench in everything else.”
“Please, I’m not made of glass. You learned that firsthand, right?”
Pitohui almost seems to leave it off there, but, a moment later, she chimed in with one more thought.
“And
you’re sure she’ll be okay on this, right? I’ve had enough trouble on
my hands, I don’t need to go back to people thinking I murdered her in
some far-away land.”
“I can’t give you perfect assurance, no. Just...semi favorable odds.”
“Right,
well, whatever. She can take care of herself. Besides, it’s not like
she hasn’t already fought a monster that didn’t have a clue what it was
doing - and I’m sure I’m tougher than these things. Just warp her out or
something if things get real bad. I wouldn’t want to get dragged down
having to stop and protect her, y’know?” Was she only teasing Kanade, or
was there a hint of seriousness to Pitohui’s request? It was difficult
to say. “Anyway, I’m game when you are!”
“Hold on. You don’t even know the details of the mission beyond ‘dangerous’. And about that warp out…”
“I mean, that didn’t stop my uncle.” Kanade commented. “And considering what he had to deal with… yeah, I’m ready.”
Pitohui
certainly picked up on that, noting it down for her later reference.
So, Kanade Amou had been holding out on her, huh? She’d have to do a
little more digging into the Amou family tree.
“This
is a taint-type breach. Something unnatural has broken through to
Baltimore. Well, A Baltimore. A wound to elsewhere. I can close the
wound...but not without getting rid of the infection. There’s someone on
the ground already, but...he’s a part of the problem as much as the
solution. To fully close it, an outside source of ‘cleaning’ is needed.
Originally, just Pitohui, but...it’s worse than I thought.
“I sent three scout bodies in there. None came back.”
“Three,
huh? We’re already down three members, then?” Pitohui knew she couldn’t
exactly qualify the bodies Dawn had sent down as teammates, but she did
like the sound of going to finish a job three people had already failed
at. “I like our odds. Sounds like it might actually be a challenge. So,
we go, kill some whatevers to clean the place up, and we’re back,
right?”
“I wasn’t finished. The rot...once
you go in, it throws everything out of whack. I’ll be able to send you
stuff IN, and MONITOR you...but it will be hard to pull you out. Much
higher chance of mistakes. The only way to get it back to safe levels is
obvious. Clear it out. I don’t think you’ll have much in the way of
time to rest, either. Once you start killing, all the spawns of this
wrongness are going to start beelining right for you. You’ll be shining
to them like a beacon. Your only real advantage there is they’re not
allied. They’ll kill each other if a more normal target isn’t presenting
itself.”
“Well, that’s one thing my
Gungnir is good at. Crowd control.” Kanade flipped the pendant with her
fingers a couple times. “Between that and the heavy artillery I know
she’s packing, I think you picked the right people for the job. Still:
you’re sure that more wouldn’t work?”
“We’ll
be fine. If they want to come to us, we let ‘em. Doesn’t matter what
the numbers are. We’ll handle them. Hell, if you want, I can dance
around and fire away, and I’ll let you sit back and jump in the fray
when you want. I’ll be right in the mix, and you can throw in an ambush
on ‘em while I keep ‘em busy.” Pitohui, if the grin on her face is any
indication, is ready to jump into the fire, with gasoline, even.
“Also, yes. The more, NOT the merrier. I would explain, but there’s a lot of math.”
----
-Baltimore-
As a famous TV series once said, “It’s Baltimore, gentlemen. The gods will not save you.”
The speaker, one suspects, had never intended for it to be this literal.
“These
creatures will not behave like the likes of the Crites or the
Necromorphs. They are physical beings, but also...something else. They
can emerge from anything: an empty room, a sealed container, even your
own shadow. If you see anything that even remotely strikes you as odd; a
pool of liquid, a still street, a muted call for help...they could
emerge. They’re flesh and blood, but not really bound by some of its
rules. They don’t feel fear, pain is not much of an obstacle, and they
have no pity, remorse, or any desire but to kill. If they can’t find
fresh targets, they’ll turn on each other, as said. You may want to
exploit that.
“I’ll let you know what I’ve
assessed and constantly be doing supply drops in advance for you. Mostly
for Pitohui. You might be able to find some other weapons on the
ground, but I don’t know if I can help you restock on those. I’ll
include what medical aid I can; if you get hurt, you won’t have much
time to bunker down and patch yourself up. So, I’m also including
painkillers. Don’t worry, they’re not addictive.
“I
can’t tell you how or when this end. Just when it is over. It will
hopefully be in you doing your part to be medical aid instead of
requiring very large amounts of it.”
---
SLAYERS
“I
think the first thing man learned after picking up a rock to bash
another man’s head in was getting it to have a keen edge so it could cut
as well as smash. That idea has come all the way down to this being.
The Slayer. Part a representation of decapitation, the scion of the
executioner’s axe and Madame Guillotine. Part the cold blades of those
who try and claim these streets with blood and violence. You’ll see more
of these things than anything else. Their blades are sharper than they
look. However, their semi-beheaded nature is the sign of their weakness.
Cutting into their heads does little. Cutting through the braces
holding their heads is fatal. They also despise bright light. Maybe as a
nod that inside a body, where blades seek to go, all is dark.”
---
Crowds
of them. The slayers shuffled along in groups, almost like packs of
animals roaming around, except clearly lacking in the intelligence
needed to understand the benefits of keeping in herds. There were plenty
of the twisted creatures wandering the streets, and yet, Pitohui stood
on top of a run-down bench on one side of the street, completely
unconcerned by Slayers’ numbers.
One, two.
One, two. A rhythmic blasting of grenades - plasma grenades, to be
precise, brought sound to an eerily quiet city, as the gun maniac
throwing them with the same mirth as a child throwing water balloons
snorted and suppressed her laughter. She really had fallen into a
rhythm, not unlike a dancer as she reached into her pouch full of the
explosive devices with one hand as the other tossed a grenade away. She
had plenty to burn through, having brought a huge collection of
explosives and ammunition for this mission.
Even as many
as she had to waste, anyone watching her little explosives show might
have wondered why she wasn’t actually catching any of her targets with
the blasts. She clearly knew how to throw the grenades exactly where she
wanted them to go, if the way she slowly advanced the blasts across the
width of the street, occasionally tossing a few to the edges of the
road, where this particular street gave way to two others running
perpendicular to it.Yes, if one were only watching Pitohui, they might
be confused…
But if they were also watching
the Slayers, they’d better understand what was happening. The blasts
produced blinding flashes of light, and the creatures ran from the light
without hesitation, without regard for where precisely they were
running. From a bird’s-eye-view, it would have been easy to see what she
was doing, from the pattern of the blasts. She had corralled them, and
she was herding them, herding group after group towards one particular
building, smirking as she watched each group duck into the doorway as
they ran from the oppressive flashes of light.
While
it might have seemed odd that she’d cram this many enemies into a
single particular building, it becomes quickly apparent to any
hypothetical observers just what was going on. Sure, the groups went in,
but they never escaped, the building practically the equivalent of a
roach motel. As a new group entered, there was a crunching noise as a
sharp point quickly pierced into the weak spot of one of the Slayers,
the other three still too dazed and confused from the onslaught of
bright lights and unnatural noises. A second, third, and fourth stabs,
the Slayers normally able to handle this, but sitting ducks in this
specific location.
Kanade wipes off
Gungnir’s spear on the ground, peeking out the door. She doesn’t see any
more groups coming just yet, but with the rate Pitohui is bringing them
- ah, that flash. Yep, there it was. Quickly, Kanade ducked back into
the darkness of the building, making the element of the monsters work to
her advantage as she positions her bright spots in places the monsters
wouldn’t see, leaving a hidden shade waiting by the entrance. She
doesn’t look - that’d give the game away. Instead, she just waited,
listening for the grenades and working to hear when the monsters
arrived. And once they did, they went down again.
Listening
a while longer, Kanade heard nothing, and reached up to an earpiece. “I
take it you’ve finished bringing me houseguests?”
“Yeah,
that’s it for now. There’s probably more of these freaks out there, but
we should have a clear shot to get deeper in. Nice work, mistress. If I
had known you gave this kind of service, I would have asked for the VIP
treatment when I came by your place.”
----
MAINLINERS
“Such
business in the act of injecting unnatural materials into the body.
These creatures are lethal injection and drug overdose, their every move
agony that they want to share with you. They spew forth from puddles,
so I suggest applying copious amounts of fire. I’ve given you an
injection to help purge their poisons if they get you, but it will
probably hurt going out as much as going in. It will hurt more if it
stays, though. They like to backstab, so watch your six.”
---
“We
move on three, make a straight shot, down the road. See a puddle or one
of them creeping around? Shout “Mark!” and stab it. If it’s too far for
you to stab, make it “Switch!”. We’ll rotate, and I’ll shoot it.
Anything gets us, I have the antidotes tucked away in a pouch. Say the
word, and I’ll stab you with one.”
Those
were Pitohui’s instructions to Kanade as the two women made their way
down this particular street, one infested by the creatures Dawn had said
were called Mainliners. Even as much as she enjoyed getting her hands
dirty, she was no fool. There were times when it was better to take a
cautious, measured approach, and avoid charging right into the fight.
They stood back to back as they proceeded, Kanade having to walk
backwards but not allowing it to slow her down as they made their
advances every three seconds, just as Pitohui had said.
Pitohui
scanned the area, constantly searching for signs of movement, for
shapes that didn’t match the terrain, for the pools of whatever
blood-like substance these foul beasts emerged from. Her eyes were
focused a few hundred yards ahead. She had the range, and it was better
to avoid letting anything get close.
Bam.
There was one, felled with a shot to the head with an XDM pistol. But
even as she shot that one down, a few more had managed to get too close
for comfort. She had even had to intercept one that had lunged at her
and throw it at a nearby half-collapsed wall, where it splattered
against the concrete. For the most part, though? The cautious approach
was paying off, allowing her to take out the enemies from a distance,
one at a time, while Kanade covered her back.
If
Pitohui had been alone, this street would have already claimed her,
ripping her to shreds as one or another was able to pull off an ambush
attack. Working with Kanade, though? There’s no giant blind spot that
the Mainliners are able to go for. Sure, it was a lot closer than she
liked. Her version of Gungnir had a few special moves that were good for
the long-range, but against something carrying toxins, Kanade didn’t
want to take the risk of ever letting the toxins get close to her body.
So
instead, she just stabbed those that tried to sneak up behind them.
Preventing them from ever reaching them, she grumbled - her spear will
need a LOT of cleaning after this. It’s clear from how she attacks that
she had years of experience with a spear, more than she could have
gotten with her Symphogear based on how long she had had it. A thought
flickered across Pitohui’s mind - she’d never gotten a straight answer
about Kanade’s weapon experience, had she? When she’d tried, that had
been one of the things Kanade had deflected her on, offering alternative
pieces of information to sidetrack Pitohui and satisfy other questions
in their ongoing game.
As curious and
determined to get the information as she is, Pitohui doesn’t open her
mouth to ask questions. She doesn’t even allow the thought to linger too
long, not for now, at least. Mentally, she puts it down as something to
probe further once they made it out of this particular section of the
city. Considering the progress they had made - they were down nearly
three quarters of this street now, without incident - that wouldn’t be
long now. If she wanted to keep their advance going without incident,
though, she couldn’t let her guard down...
---
MARKSMEN
“Death
by gunfire. This isn’t a form based on your battles, Pitohui. This is a
firing squad, a mass of soldiers called in to repress. Its
flesh-covered face represents its blindness, but the rifles on its back
will find you anyway. I don’t know if it stores ammo in that tumor the
guns emerge from, but it can’t hurt to check. Don’t touch the guns from
its body themselves. They’re toxic, literally. Leave them in ruins along
with their bodies.”
---
This
was probably the most interesting situation they had been in so far.
Pitohui and Kanade huddled against a concrete wall, half torn-down, but
more than effective in shielding them from the onslaught of gunfire
coming from the collection of Marksmen down the road. They had been
forced into the defensive position when they turned down this particular
road, and one of the Marksmen had taken notice of them and started
firing. The sound attracted the others, and, soon, an entire line of the
things had come advancing down the street, firing a frenzied hail of
bullets at the two girls.
Thankfully, the
beasts didn’t have enough firepower to blast through the wall.
Unfortunately, if they kept sitting there, the Marksmen would keep
advancing, and they’d undoubtedly encircle them. Leaning against the
wall, Pitohui stroked her chin with one hand and tapped the ground with
her other.
“Hmm. Yeah, we keep sitting
here, we’re screwed. We go out in that, try a frontal assault, we’re
screwed. Unless we could get under them, take a sewer or something, I
don’t think we’ll be going this way.”
“But,” she offered, as she slammed her fist into her palm, “if we go around them, they’re all lined up for us already!”
“So
listen,” she promptly instructed. “Here’s the plan. You hold down the
fort here. Stay behind the wall. I’ll leave a couple grenades. You can
chuck those out if you want to slow these guys down. Just make sure you
put some heat on your throw. Wouldn’t want you to accidentally blow up
your cover. The road to the north’s clear, and it loops back around to
here. I’ll circle around, knock ‘em all out in a couple of minutes.
It’ll be easy, if you can sit and wait.”
Looking
a little concerned, Kanade decided to take the risk. She braced herself
behind the wall, and prepared for them to start coming in
…
and they did, barraging away at the wall. It quickly began to go to
pieces, chunks blasting out and flying around Kanade as the redhead
stood up and aimed her spear. A small blast of energy erupted from it,
launching at the monsters. Not so much a killing strike as one to shake
them out of place, leaving them milling around, but now her spear needed
to recharge.
Going for the grenades next,
Kanade hurled them at two quick spots, making sure they bounced quite a
bit before they went off. They exploded violently, forcing the group
back and even taking out a couple of them. However, the remaining ones
kept going, even stepping over the corpses of their fellows to get
closer, shooting away, There was only a small bit of cover left to
protect Kanade...
Thankfully, after a few
minutes, Pitohui made good on her promise, emerging on the other side of
the street, letting loose a hail of bullets from an M60E3 machine gun.
With more than enough ammo to feed the hungry weapon, she mowed down the
Marksmen, most of them still focused on shooting at the cover the girls
had been hiding behind. From left to right, they fell in sequence,
looking not too unlike dominoes falling as she swept over them with the
powerful gun, only ending her fun when she saw the last of the Marksmen
fall.
Acting on Dawn’s advice, she did
indeed go looting the corpses of her foes to replenish the ammo wasted
on slaughtering them, not even caring that Kanade was getting to watch
her pull out ammunition with the same delight as a young child pulling
candy out of Christmas stockings.
---
NOOSEMEN
“Hanging
is linked far more to crime punishment than the bad side of
life...except perhaps trying to escape it. These creatures are fragile,
but deadly. They’ll hide up in the shadows and drop down on you, moving
to break your windpipe and neck. They can sometimes be spotted by what
appear to be blood pools, much like the Mainliners, but if anything is
above you, they may be there. They crumple easily, but that won’t help
you much if they catch you off guard.”
---
It
would have been helpful to have been able to get underground when they
were facing the Marksmen, but that had not been an option. Further into
their quest, though, Pitohui and Kanade had been forced underground.
Their path took them into a subway tunnel, one that, like just about
everything else here, had been abandoned and allowed to fall into ruin.
Keeping in mind what Dawn had said about the Noosemen as they entered
this enclosed space, Pitohui made sure she had taken point.
As
her eyes adjusted to the relative darkness, she could see them,
scattered throughout the length of the subway, the very blood pools Dawn
had warned of. Yes, there were definitely Noosemen here, and if these
things could one-shot… they'd need a strategy for getting through here.
Brute forcing it wouldn't cut it. There'd be too many risks trying to
forge ahead.
Before they were able to get
much further than a few steps out from the edge of the stairs leading
into the subway, she stuck an arm out in front of Kanade, blocking her
companion's path. She looked over her shoulder to see Kanade's face,
greeting the red-haired idol with a smirk and a mischievous glint in her
eyes.
"Alright. This is where you show me
how much you trust me. You see the puddles up ahead? You heard what Dawn
said. There's monsters lurking on the ceiling above ‘em, ready to drop
on us as soon as we walk by. We go under one of them, we have about
three seconds before they snap our necks. That gives us two seconds to
fight back.
So, plan's simple. You're going
to inch along, and I'm going to spot you from right here. As soon as
you walk under one of these things, it'll drop. All you have to do is
trust me. You don't doubt that I can hit them dead in the heart in those
two second do you?"
"...You're going to use me as bait based on two-second reaction time?"
"Well,
duh. You have fancy tricks with that spear, sure, but, face it, you
can't use it from a distance without hitting me, too. Only natural that
you're the bait here.”
"You're asking me to
take a huge risk. I know your gun skills are amazing, but I don't think
you can do this as many times as it takes without a single mistake. And
then where are we?"
Pitohui snorted at the
comment, only stifling her actual laughter as she watched Kanade's face
and realized that the other idol wasn't exactly joking. She studied
Kanade for a minute, expecting her to relent and play along, but she saw
no change in her expression or body language. Kanade was standing firm.
She smiled, even as she let out a playful groan of feigned
exasperation.
That Kanade stuck to her
guns, that's what made her fun. "Fine, fine, fine. You really don't
trust me, do you? Guess I can't blame you, the way our first meeting
went. Look, I was never going to be so stupid about it. I'd be jealous
if it was you to be the one to get to have all the fun dying out here
anyways. You do it one time, okay? You do it one time, I shoot the
thing, and then we use its corpse. We toss it out as the bait for the
next one. It drops, either I shoot it or you run in and stab it. These
guys are fragile. We take that one's corpse, throw it at the next one,
just keep chaining them until we're through. How about that? Can you do
that one, or do you need me to bullet point every second of it, too?"
"...So
you were planning to do it sensibly from the beginning." Kanade sighed.
"If you had just told me that to start with, I would have gone along
with it without complaining. Is it really that difficult to tell me how
you actually plan to handle a situation?"
“Oh,
I could,” she added with a wink, “but it’s less fun that way. Why waste
words explaining it all when I already know what I’m doing? Spoils my
good time getting to see your reactions in real-time.”
With
those words, Pitohui lowered her arm, letting Kanade cautiously step
ahead of her while she readied her gun. It wouldn’t have been easy for
Kanade to tell, especially with her focus on avoiding any wrong moves,
but, the way Pitohui lifted her gun carefully, so deliberately, it
betrayed the simple fact, she was nervous. Usually, letting a teammate
die wasn’t much of a concern for her. It was the cost of winning, of
getting ahead and having a good time. Even with these stakes, she might
not have been too worried… but this was Kanade. She had to get this
right, with no room for error, or it would be Kanade that ended up hurt
for it. She wouldn’t mess it up, but, still…
When
it comes time for the action, though, none of that mattered. Kanade
took a step forward, and that was it. In an instant, a creature cut in half and bound in
sacklike skin dropped from above, a gunshot rang out, and that very
same beast landed beside Kanade with a thump, its hands still locked
into an outstretched position, ready to crush Kanade’s neck had it been
alive for just a second or so longer.
With
the first beast eliminated, Pitohui walked over to Kanade and placed a
hand on her shoulder, trying to have some sympathy for her and make sure
she wasn’t pushing her partner too hard.
“Not bad, was it? You doing alright? Let me know when you’re ready to move forward, and we’ll chuck this one ahead.”
As
soon as Kanade was ready to press ahead, the duo took the corpse of the
dead Nooseman in hand. From there, the trip through the subway tunnel
proceeded much like Pitohui had laid it out. They would toss the corpse
of a vanquished foe, the next Nooseman in their path would drop on the
corpse, and they’d kill it and procure a fresh corpse to use as their
next decoy. With that strategy, the rest of the trip through was
uneventful, really, the powerful-but-fragile Noosemen crumpling like
paper as the duo attacked.
---
GORGERS
“This
monster’s a bit of a mystery to me. There’s some vague story about an
urban legend that tries to eat whatever it finds, but that’s it. This
city has a black history: maybe it’s more akin to a wendigo. A spirit of
the worst kind of hunger. It will try and eat anything, but it seeks
out living, breathing meat first. If you see one coming, break out a big
gun. You don’t want to get close with this thing. Its bite is
definitely worse.”
---
"God,
these things are disgusting," Pitohui observed, glee in her voice, as
she peered through a pair of binoculars at a swarm of the Gorgers on the
street below, watching as they tore into the corpse of one of their
brethren. It had apparently died in some kind of accident, but there was
no way to tell what had happened. The way they ate, there wouldn't have
even been any sign one of the creatures had died had the two girls been
looking at the scene just minutes later.
Pulling
her head back in from the second story window - they had ducked into a
building to take a rest and survey the road they were traversing next -
Pitohui turned to Kanade and babbled excitedly. "Some serious beer guts
on these guys, but you'll never find this kind of brutality fighting
against other people. There's fighters who could learn a thing or two
from beasts like these!" She offered the binoculars to Kanade, gesturing
to the window and speaking as if she were offering to let a friend try
out a videogame. "You wanna see for yourself?"
Taking
the binoculars, Kanade peered through them as well. She grimaced as she
watched the monsters devour each other - no respect for each other, no
camaraderie, just simple hunger and abandonment. “You weren’t kidding.
Let me guess, we’re going to have to kill them all the hard way? I don’t
even want to think about them eating Symphogear’s spear.”
Pitohui shook her head as she stuck the binoculars back into a pouch on her outfit. “No, there’s no way that’s going to work.”
With
that settled, Pitohui sat down on the floor, her legs crossed, and
leaned her back against the wall. "These guys are big and ugly, and
there's well over sixty, maybe seventy plus. If we go out there and our
initial attacks don't take them down in one go, they'll overwhelm us.
I'd love to get down there in the middle of them anyways, but I can live
with this. Perfect time to try out something I managed to get my hands
on recently. I told Dawn to send it when we found these freaks. We'll
kick back here until she sends it in."
"Unless…
Unless you have a hot date I don't know about. Say the word, and we'll
start the bloodbath. I'm sure we'll figure it out." Her comment was
half-joking, half-venting. Having to sit around and wait didn't exactly
sound fun, even if it was the soundest plan.
“Hmmm…
nah.” Kanade smiled a bit, deciding to poke at Pitohui. “You think I’d
cheat on you like that? Soon as you told me that you wanted to do this
with me, I cleared my whole schedule. Not a single commitment other than
you today.”
“That right?” Pitohui
responded, figuring that playing along and rolling with the poking was
the best way to counter here. “It warms my heart, really. Didn’t know I
was that special to you.” She was clearly making a mockery of Kanade’s
comment as she spoke. “Don’t worry. I’ll be sure to remember that. I’ll
use it against you next time I have something I need you to do.”
After
a few moments in silence that followed, Pitohu's face broke into a
grin. She wasn’t even trying to disguise the mischievous edge in her
voice. "So, hey, Kanade. You're pretty skilled with that spear. Strange
to see someone with so little blood on their weapon of choice with
ability like that. Where'd you say you picked up spearplay again?"
"The
spear?" Kanade casts her mind back, trying to remember what she'd
claimed to Pitohui beforehand. It's been months, and the cover story she
created on the spot was fuzzy in her head, so she decides to just take a
chance on a new invention. "Well, that's a funny story, really. I was
in a school play, and I was cast in the role of a leading spearfighter.
It was surprisingly fun, so I stuck with it afterwards, and took it up
as a real weapon rather than just a prop."
"School
play, huh?" Pitohui asked, playing off her skepticism as mere
curiosity. "Guess performing on stage has always been in your blood. Do
much practice with it?" Practice with the spear, of practice for the
play, she left it ambiguous as to which she's asking about. This story
didn't match at all with the story Kanade had offered her the first time
she had asked. Kanade was lying, but, if she wanted to tell lies, it'd
be fun to see just how long she could keep it up. "So, what was the name
of this play? I'm guessing you were the shining star, in the spotlight.
Just who were you playing as, anyway?"
"Ah,
it was one of those school original plays, you know? Haven't thought
about it in years, after all." Kanade says, trying to buy a bit of time
to think. "It was The Queen of the Fishers, and I was playing her lead
fighter. The spearwoman who did all the fighting for the queen, and all
that."
"Huh." Pitohui stroked her chin,
acting as though she was thinking deeply about it for a moment. Then she
grinned, grinned as if she had caught prey in a trap. "You just must
have never had time, between going out to those archaeology sites, and
practicing for plays, and practicing with your spear to keep in shape.
You did say that's why you had picked it up, right? Or was that all its
own kind of act? Tell me, am I hearing about a performance, or am I
watching one right now?"
"...Ah." Kanade
froze a bit. Well, damn. Pitohui had a better memory for the little
details than she had thought. "...Well, what do you think?" Kanade
winks. "I'd like to hear your theory, in that case." She's given up on
pretending she wasn't lying, but now it's in Pitohui's court. "Don't
worry, I'll tell you once you get it right~"
"Hmm."
Now Pitohui wasn't feigning thought. She really had to think about this
one. Surely Kanade had provided some kind of information somewhere
along the way. She had mentioned something that hinted at where she
picked it up, right?
Pitohui had ideas, but
tossing them out and missing would only give Kanade a clear idea of
what she was thinking, and that would mean Kanade would be more alert,
less careless about letting related information slip. Better to give it
up... for now.
She shrugs her shoulders and
shakes her head, exaggerating her expression of surrender. "Couldn't
tell you. I haven't given it much thought. Didn't expect you to be the
type to lie. I'll have to do a little more digging. But don't worry.
Don't think for a second that I won't figure it out. I never miss my
shots."
As the conversation wrapped up,
there was a VROP. In the middle of the room, a huge gun - an RPG-7 -
dropped out of midair. Pitohui sprang to her feet and dove like a
baseball fielder trying to make an impossible catch as she curled her
arms around the gun and shielded the machine from the impact of hitting
the ground. She scrambled to get back on her feet, concerned with
absolutely nothing else but inspecting the gun and making sure it hadn't
been damaged.
"What the hell? That better
not have hurt you! If you're damaged, I'll dismantle Dawn myself and use
her to patch you up, I swear. Come on, show me how bad it is."
Yes,
perhaps to her amusement, Kanade had a front row seat to a very rare
spectacle - that is, a front row seat to watch Pitohui express genuine
panic and worry for something other than herself. For the brief moment
she was inspecting her gun, she didn’t even pay the slightest attention
to Kanade.
"Phew," she breathed as she
finished her inspections, content that her quick action had spared the
gun from damage. "It's good. I don't have to kill Dawn. Yet." Back to
her usual self, Pitohui made for the window, beckoning Kanade to come
along.
"Gonna need your shoulder for this one."
A
few minutes later, the two girls strolled down the very street they had
been looking down on, pieces of the Gorgers and potholes left behind
where Pitohui's shots had thrown the asphalt and concrete into the air
now the only obstacles in their way.
---
BURROWERS
“Ashes
to ashes, dust to dust, and any city is built by, and on the backs, in
many ways, of those who would not be fortunate enough to live and
benefit from it. So this monster roots through the earth like a worm
from hell, ripping up from beneath to slash, crush, and tear apart with
its chains. They move incredibly fast and can sneak up on you, deadly
quiet save for the faint noise of disturbed ground. Watch your feet, and
if you see the road uprooting, aim for it and try and put it down for
good. The high ground might also be useful here...though I don’t know if
they can burrow up through buildings…”
----
"Hyaaaaaaa!"
Pitohui channeled her rage into a shout as she stabbed her Photon Sword
- or, one of them, at least - into the ground in front of her. Her eyes
lit up as she heard the creature emerging from the ground unleash an
unholy scream and writhe in response to the pain. Killing these things
had proven cathartic, after they had proven more troublesome than any
other beast in the city.
She had thought
they'd be easy to take out. They didn't sound too different from the
giant sandworms she had once hunted down. There did, however, turn out
to be two big differences. These creatures were much smaller, which made
them harder to hit before they returned to the ground. She could still
hit them, but it took a few rounds of hitting them while they were out
of the ground to put them down. The other difference? They emerged from
asphalt, steel, and concrete. She had guns that could pierce the
substances, but, at the close range the Burrowers emerged, she would
have ended up hurting herself far more than her foes trying to do that.
Stuck with a basic assortment of guns that couldn't hurt the creatures
until they emerged and knives too small to be effective, Pitohui had
been smacked around more than a few times by the beasts before switching
to her Photon Sword. She had wanted to conserve the batteries in her
primary melee weapons longer, but she wasn't likely to go through more
than one here, and it felt so satisfying to plunge the plasma blade down
through the ground and into the head of the creatures making the ground
beneath her rumble.
Yes, melee weapons
were just more effective here, she had to admit to herself as she
glanced over at her Gungnir-using partner. Kanade had been having a much
easier go of it against these beasts, able to stab them right through
the middle as soon as they popped up and kill them in one swift
movement. On one hand, it was frustrating as hell, watching Kanade's
kill count for the mission climb, getting closer and closer to her own.
On the other hand, Kanade looked extremely hot, leaving a trail of
corpses behind her like a force of nature rushing down the street.
Wither
her target dead - as she could tell from it suddenly going limp and
silent - Pitohui found her eyes drawn to Kanade. The other idol was
stabbing a Burrower that had leapt at her, and it was difficult to avoid
being transfixed by her tall, powerful figure, the fire in her eyes, or
the raw strength translated into the motion of her spear and body
during her thrust.
Watching the Burrower
fall in two pieces in front of Kanade and seeing no other threats - as
many as they had killed, there could only have been a few left, anyways -
Pitohui called out, deciding that it was probably safe to play around a
little.
"Hey now! You might have the
mane of a cock, but don't go getting cocky because you've been lucky
here! This is still the opening sprint, and I know you won't be able to
keep up with me in the marathon!"
"Unless, that is, you're ready to show off some bloodlust you've been hiding from me~."
“Really?
This is the opening sprint? Not, say, all the slaughter we’ve done
already? I’d say we’ve turned half this city into a pile of monster guts
by now. I’m pretty sure we moved into the marathon mode about an hour
ago, wouldn’t you?”
Kanade shrugs, and then
turns back quickly as something catches her eyesight. A single final
Burrower had popped up, only to be simultaneously impaled by a spear and
a sword.
“I’m gonna be nice and call that one yours.”
“Nah. Count it for yourself. You’ll need the boost when the totals are counted up.”
-----
MAULERS
“A
lot of these creatures are generic in a sense, related to multiple
horrors. This is more specific. This is a creature of desperation and
terror, of those that hunted their fellows and treated them worse than
animals. It is possible they serve a master, but I suspect that master
is occupied elsewhere. End the pain these beasts represent. And on the
off chance you encounter their source, terminate it with extreme
prejudice.”
---
"Aww,
aren’t you just adorable? You're such a sweet little murderous baby!
Who's good at gouging arteries out? It's you! It's you!"
Though
Pitohui spoke with the same tone one usually reserved for coddling
puppies, the furless, bloodied dog-like monster in her hands that she
was holding up at arm's length by the rear looked nothing like a cute
pup. It was clear as it tried to snap at her with its bared fangs -
which looked quite unusual in the human skull it had for a head - and
tried to headbutt her to plunge the knife attached to its head into her
leg, that even she, as strong as she was, was having trouble holding the
flailing creature. Not letting the aching in her arms bother her, she
turned to Kanade.
"What'd you think? Can
we keep him? We'd be the most terrifying duo in Olympia if we had an
army of hellhounds ride into battle with us!"
“Ehhh. Take a look at him. He’s definitely not housebroken, and do you want to try to teach him?”
"Hmm. I guess not. Alright. Time to go to sleep for you."
With
those words, Pitohui tossed caution to the wind and shifted her grip,
dropping the Mauler and immediately reaching out to grab it by one of
its rear legs as it fell. She had less control over the beast, having
only one hand around it, but it freed her up to pull out a pistol.
A
few seconds later, the beast's skull rolled across the ground, having
been severed from the rest of its body when a bullet ripped through its
neck. Pitohui dropped the rest of the body with an unceremonious thud,
and rubbed her hands on her catsuit to clear some of the blood off.
"Was always more of a cat person, anyways."
Kicking
the dog-beast's corpse out of her way, she stretched and surveyed the
area ahead. Fittingly enough, it was a park. The particular Mauler
Pitohui had just killed had been wandering around the outskirts of the
park, and had rushed at them as soon as they had shown up. It clearly
hadn't anticipated her scooping it up in her arms. That was possible to
do with one, but there'd be many, many more in the depths of the
overgrown, run-down space where real dogs had once roamed.
These
things weren't very threatening. They were easy to put down. They'd
only be a concern if they were to swarm them. Dogs hunted in packs, but
these weren't really dogs, and hadn't Dawn said that these beasts
didn't exactly work together? It'd come down to luck, whether or not
they happened to run into any huge numbers of the things at once. It
would have been great if they could have had something to their backs,
but there wasn't anything they could follow that would prove a
significant enough obstacle.to protect them from one side. Still, they'd
be able to get through just fine as long as they took care and moved as
a unit.
Already with her plan in mind,
Pitohui decided to have some fun. This was the perfect time to play a
little game, to test just how far Kanade had come. If the other idol
could come up with a great plan, that'd be awesome to see. If not, well,
it didn't much matter. But it wouldn't be nearly as fun if Kanade knew
it didn't matter.
Pitohui crossed her arms
and made a big show of trying to think, raising her head into the air,
closing her eyes, letting out "hmms", the full works. After a minute,
she knocked a hand on her helmet, feigning frustration as she turned to
Kanade.
"Gah! I'm so stupid! An idiot! I
don't know why the hell I can't think of anything. Stay in the fight
long enough and my head gets fried." She kicked the Mauler corpse with
much greater force this time, sending it hurtling through the air as
part of her performance.
"I don't know what
we're doing here. If I have to come up with the plan here, I'm just
charging in and blasting everything that moves full of lead."
"You
don't have any better ideas, do you?" She kept her act up even as she
turned to Kanade, almost snapping at her all for the sake of making her
act more convincing and keeping Kanade from suspecting what she was up
to.
“Hmmmm. Well, let’s see. They just want
to come in as quickly as possible, right? Soon as they see us, they’re
going to attack. They’ll charge after us, regardless of how many others
are there.
How big an explosion can you set off, do you think?”
“Hmm.
Didn’t bring anything too explosive. We set a pile of grenades
somewhere, stand back, blast ‘em with the RPG, and we’d have a boom that
could rattle a building, though.”
“Well,
there we go. I think I’ve done enough baiting, so!” Kanade thumps Pito
on the back. “You go out there, and lure them all, and I’ll blast them
with a single shot. Or don’t you trust me to get the job done?”
“Oh, I trust you alright. I just don't trust you to be as fast as I am~. I like this plan. Let’s do it!”
Soon
after the conversation had concluded, an explosion rocked the abandoned
park. The air filled with a vile snarling sound in the moments
following, but, just seconds later, there was silence once more, the
Maulers that had all been lured to one point falling victim to an attack
by the mighty Gungnir.
-----
INFERNA
“This
monster is out of place. Its source is not this city, but another place
where these horrors emerged, tied to a legend of paranoia and avarice.
They say it takes a while to grow a soul...and sometimes I think that’s
true. Now it echoes down to these streets, the false accusers and the
fate they inflicted, doomed not to feel it but to perpetuate it. I warn
you, they are exceptionally dangerous: fast moving, and capable of
rapidly turning an area into a maelstrom of fire. And their fire is not
natural. It burns beyond the flesh. If they come for you, I suggest
unleashing absolute hell before they can get close. Better to be worse
equipped for lesser dangers than let these get close.”
TRIGGERMEN
“If
the other beasts with guns represent impassive, trained killing, this
creature is the spawn of its opposite. The knee jerk draw, the spray of
death, the drive by, the idea that a little tool can fix every problem.
Despite their shattered craniums, they can aim better than the Riflemen,
and they’re a lot more mobile. Like spiders in a web of death. They
climb, they leap, and they pounce. They can’t shoot in mid air though.
But they can bring those guns to bear so rapidly that it won’t matter
much. You’ll need to be better than rage with them. More rage will
simply play into their hands with their guns.”
----
She
didn't use it often, but Pitohui did have a shield. A handheld one,
large enough and strong enough to shield most of her body but small and
light enough to be portable. She had even instructed Dawn to warp it to
her during this mission.
And yet, she wasn't the one who had it right now.
"Ahahahahahaha! Come on! I thought you were supposed to be hot! I'm barely breaking a sw-"
"Whew!"
Pitohui let out the exclamation as she sidestepped the fireball rushing
past her. It only succeeded in singing the end of her ponytail and
making her sweat. Er, well, sweat more than she already had been,
running from the massive horde of Inferna coming up the street behind
her. That hadn't even been the first close-call fireball she had had to
dodge at the last minute. She had been looking over her shoulder every
few seconds as she ran, looking out for fireballs and admiring the
raging inferno that was consuming huge swathes of the city behind her as
her pursuers chased after her. She didn't even have a gun in her hand
for this mad dash. Instead, she had two Photon Swords, one in each hand,
neither yet having their actual blades extended out from the little
cylindrical rod from which they emerged. Dawn had been right. These
things were fast, and she was running at her absolute top speed to keep
ahead of them.
"Come on! I thought you were supposed to move as fast as fire spread! I wanted some cardio, not a stroll on mainstreet!"
While
Pitohui taunted the Inferna charring up the street behind her, a horde
was chasing after her friend as well. In order to conserve some stamina,
Kanade had finally turned off Symphogear, taking the risky bet of
relying on her own natural speed. While she didn’t have nearly the raw
strength Bikkie did, that wasn’t the important part here - the important
part was keeping her legs going. She had to push herself hard, but she
knew that if she did this run in her gear, she’d just exhaust herself
for later.
Left, right, center - the
Triggermen were aiming. The only advantage Kanade had was speed, being
able to duck behind the massive amounts of cover to avoid being shredded
- without how chewed up this area was, she’d have been shot to pieces
long ago. But it was all a matter of reaching the point that they’d
agreed on.
There. Pitohui could see Kanade,
charging right towards her, a horde of Triggermen firing bullets past
her. They were in the final stretch. Pitohui and Kanade both pushed
themselves even harder for the final stretch, sprinting towards one
another with renewed vigor, spurred on by the knowledge that one wrong
move meant death.
They should have, by all
accounts, smacked into each other. But, no. When Pitohui and Kanade
stopped on a dime, they had less than a foot separating them. There was
no time for a happy reunion, though. Even before she had come to a full
stop, Pitohui had activated her weapons, and had already plunged her
plasma blades into the ground. With no hesitation, she cut a circular
section of the earth beneath her and Kanade. The ground fell away
underneath them, and the two girls fell into a sewer, landing with a
rather hard thud as their backs hit the concrete beneath them. Flat on
their backs, they could see the chaos unfolding aboveground clearly
through the hole in the ceiling above them. Bullets met flames. Had they
been seconds slower, they would have been shot full of holes and
incinerated. They had made it through alive, though, and now, safe
underground, they could lay back and listen to the carnage and
destruction above as the two hordes of beasts destroyed each other and
absolutely everything in the vicinity.
Pitohui
remained sprawled out, her chest heaving as she tried to catch her
breath, and watched the destruction unfolding above with satisfaction.
Between breaths, she pushed out a question.
"So,
what'd you think? It's beautiful, isn't it? Pure, unadulterated chaos
and death on a massive scale. Almost makes you wish we were up there,
huh?"
“Maybe if we were on the rooftops.
Down here is - whoa!” Kanade rolls a bit as a burst of flame nearly
singed off some of that mess of red hair. “Down here’s just a bit better
than street level, I think. Except for those Noosemen.”
“Way
better, a bit better. Both are the same when you’re putting your life
on the line. Doesn’t matter if a bullet misses by centimeters or
kilometers, long as it misses.”
As the
chaos unfurled above them, Pitohui and Kanade rested their bodies and
composed themselves. This particular battle had been demanding, but they
had almost made it through the entirety of the city. They could afford
to rest, for now, and they needed it. There wasn’t much left, but
neither of them doubted that what was left would put up a fight.
----
SUPPRESSORS
“Some
things never change. This blind and deaf monster is another essence of
cruel dehumanization. Unfortunately, it’s not WHOLLY blind. The lights
embedded in its head will seek movement, targets, prey. If they fall on
anything, you, a passerby, even something in motion, it will open fire
with a fury the other two creatures who have had guns fused to them
cannot match. Stay out of the light. Match brutality with brutality.”
ISOLATIONISTS
“No
man is an island, and if you force that, you can be ground away like
the sea will wipe away such a small entity over time. If the Inferna was
purely a creation of elsewhere, misplaced, this one is purely a
creation of this city, its punishments, and its most subtle hells. It
shatters light wherever it goes, and its body seethes with electrical
harm. Don’t think past experiences gives you much of an advantage,
Pitohui. I have not observed any of these creatures in open areas, like
the streets and its alleyways, but if you enter buildings, you may find
it. In the dark.”
----
They
were back in the subway tunnels, and just like before, it was dark.
Whatever lights might have been working had been blown out - quite
literally, actually. They hadn't simply gone dark due to decay. They had
burst. All around, there were signs of the places where bulbs had
bursted, scorch marks where others had caught fire. Some kind of
overwhelming electrical pulse had surged through all of the circuits in
this portion of the city at some point in the past. Yes, it was dark.
Yet, it wasn't total darkness, not nearly as dark as you'd expect in the
depths of a tunnel beneath a concrete jungle.
Total
darkness would have been less frightening. All throughout the tunnel,
there were lights that pierced through the darkness. Harsh glow of
searchlight beams, low to the ground, in constant motion as the
Suppressors that emitted them clawed their way forward to inch along the
floor of the subway. Brighter, more blinding flashes only occasionally
lit up the tunnels. They were usually accompanied by the mangled howls
of a Suppressor, dying as the electricity of Isolationists coursed
through their bodies. Just as before, Pitohui and Kanade benefitted from
their foes' inclination to fight with each other. Both of these groups
of beasts had been drawn to the darkness of the subway, and they had
ended up in competition for the space. The results of that competition
were clear, considering how many charred corpses of Suppressors the
girls had to step over as they made their way through the tunnel, and
how many Isolationists slumped against the wall, their bodies riddled
with bullets.
Even with their foes' ranks
already considerably thinned, though, this had proven to be the most
dangerous stretch of the girls' tour of the city. As careful as they had
been to stick to the shadows and to kill anything they could safely
take out, they were at a significant disadvantage here, and the few
remaining beasts that had managed to survive down her so long had been
able to hit them and hit them hard. They had both been forced to endure
their own share of bullets, and they had both, at some point or another,
had the unpleasant experience of having high-voltage electricity rammed
through their bodies. Quite frankly, the only saving grace they had was
the fact that they were here together. When one of them had come under
assault, the other had been able to react within seconds and kill the
beast. Had either one of them been alone, they would have almost
certainly not made it through this subway.
They
had, at least, almost made it out. There were no more sounds of
monsters dragging themselves along the ground, and no lights in their
vicinity, save for the much more welcoming light pouring in from an exit
just barely visible in the distance. They might have even cleared the
tunnel of beasts already, but they had no way of knowing for certain.
Needless to say, even as she leaned her back against the wall and
inspected her wounds, Pitohui kept her assault rifle in her hands. Next
to her, Kanade caught her breath, not so much worn out by their recent
activities as simply worn down by the entire expedition. She certainly
seemed to appreciate the break, Pitohui noted. While the Suppressors
were deaf, the Isolationists were anything but, so Pitohui merely
whispered as she taunted Kanade.
"Aww, not getting tired already, are we? Can't blame me for not warning you that this was going to be a marathon."
"Oooooof...
what're you talking about? I'm ready to go. I could kill another
thousand of these things. I think YOU should be the one worrying."
Despite her bravado, it was clear from Kanade's posture that she really
was beginning to run out of energy, feeling drained by the lengthy
endurance session they’d been going through.
"You
sure can talk a big game. I like it. Makes you more fun." Pitohui had
held up better. She was tired too, not yet to the point of slumping
against the wall, but appreciating the break in the action nonetheless
as they prepared for the final push. These long, drawn-out battles were
her element, though. She'd have the energy to keep going for a good
while yet. That Kanade was merely drained and not already exhausted
beyond her physical limits was a testament to her strength, not her
weakness. She must have had some kind of experience with lengthy quests,
with expeditions of some kind... "Here's the thing about learning to
lie like a pro. You can't just sell everyone else on it. You need to
sell yourself on it, commit to the lie, y'know? I'd be more inclined to
believe you if I couldn't see it in you that you can't keep this up much
longer. But, hey, cheers to you for making it this far. You must have
had something in your past that helped you build up this kind of
stamina. You wanna tell me what that was? And, no, I won't be taking
spear practice as an answer this time."
"Heh,
I didn't think you would, would you?" Kanade said, panting. "Yeah, I
don't have any good lies for this one. But come on, are you really just
gonna ask for what it was? Just like that? What happened to the Pitohui I
know, who'd spend days researching for an answer?"
"Oh?
And here I thought people were always telling me that I'd never find
someone who appreciates all my effort." Pitohui had been thinking, quite
a bit, actually. Kanade was more versed in this kind of work than she
had any right to be. And, way back before they had embarked on this
quest, Kanade had mentioned her uncle facing down dangers. Archaeology
didn't exactly sound like a dangerous field. It sounded downright
boring, actually, but there was something to this story, and she wanted
to find out what that something was. "Fine, fine. We'll do it your way.
You want a question? Here's one. What kind of beasts were you watching
your uncle take down? You picked that spear up for more than just
exercise, and you've kept up too well. So tell me, how much did you
learn from a guy who never let danger stop him? Don't go telling me that
you were lucky enough to get taken on missions like this when you were
still a kid."
From the reaction Kanade
gives, she wasn't expecting Pitohui to nail that on the first try.
"...Well, damn. You're better at this than I thought, huh? I wish I got
to see him in action, but no, I just got to hear tales instead. His days
in the monster-infested ruins were when I was just a kid. No, all I got
to do was wander around dig sites and field work, though at least the
expeditions always liked me. I think they thought of me as a mascot,
almost. You're right, though. Uncle Lemeza and his tales of great
battle... yeah, that's why I took up a weapon. Though I wasn't lying
about why I picked up a spear in particular. Tried sword, tried axe,
tried club, but spear was just what felt natural."
"Whaaat?
No way! Are you telling me he fought actual monsters?" No longer
concerned with staying quiet to avoid attracting attention, Pitohui let
out a peculiar half-gasp, half-squeal of delight as she lights up upon
hearing Kanade's answer. Finding out why Kanade had taken up a weapon -
and that she had found one that suited her in a way Pitohui could very
much relate - was a delight of its own, but this was an even more
shocking discovery. "I thought that archaeology was all about picking up
clay shards and junk, but this sounds exciting! How many good stories
have you been keeping from me? Even if you weren't in those ruins
yourself, you have to tell me everything you know!"
"Yeah,
he definitely fought monsters. The two-headed snake, the stone statue,
the monstrous fish... In fact, if you do some digging, the expedition he
fought them on is pretty famous! And he didn't tell all the stories of
it to the public, but he definitely shared enough to get a lot of
interest." Kanade left it at that, a grin on her face. "Might become an
archaeologist yourself, with interest like that!"
"Be careful. You give me ideas, and I might just go and become better than your uncle." Pitohui
returns Kanade's grin with a smirk. Well, she had a new project to pursue. It might not have
been public record, but the stories would be out there somewhere. And if she could get enough
to ask a direct question, she'd get the answer out of Kanade.
“But
we’ll never find out if we sit around here and wait for them to kill
us,” she adds as she rose to her feet and gestured for Kanade to follow.
“Come on. I get the feeling we’re in the home stretch.”
------
ARSONISTS
“They
call cities urban jungles. Forests burn, and rot burns well. And sadly,
rot often contains life of its own. Now condemned to burn forever, this
creature will only know peace through extinguishment. Its fire will not
harm itself though, so you cannot wait it out. Water also seems lacking
in its effectiveness, though perhaps excessive amounts will serve. Be
warned: it will blaze one last time when it dies…”
---
It
wasn't often, with the Kobbers, that Pitohui had a chance to show off
her skill as a sniper. Here though, perched on top of what was once a
small store, probably built early in the city's history, considering how
tiny it was compared to the rest of the buildings, Kanade was treated
to a spectacular show.
Pitohui was on her
stomach, looking through the sight of her Blaser R93, kicking her feet
up in the air almost as if she were bored. It was simple, really, a
welcome respite as they neared the end of their mission. Every few
minutes, Pitohui would spot a small horde of the beasts wandering where
she could hit them, and there'd be a few - usually five or six -
pounding gunshots in rapid succession. Once she had made her shots, she
would toss a question to Kanade, who was standing tall on the rooftop,
looking through binoculars at the street below.
Speaking of, there were more. Eight shots this time, interestingly enough.
"Only thirty meters east of the last group. How far?"
“Let’s see… wow. I’m impressed! I give it twenty feet up and about a fifty meter total spread.”
Yes,
Pitohui wasn't asking whether or not she had hit them all. She knew she
had, she could see it for herself, and even if she couldn't, she
wouldn't have bothered to ask, anyways. Kanade would have said
something, in that unlikely scenario. Instead, she wanted to know how
far the resulting blaze extended upwards when it flared up and how far
pieces of the Arsonists' corpses had scattered. She was using, for the
first time in a real hunt, dumdum bullets. She was eager to know just
how effective they were.
“Hmm. Impressive,
but not what I was hoping for. Ah well, let’s try the next one.” Pitohui
shrugged off the disappointing - in her eyes, at least - result and
peered through her scope to try and find more of the beasts. A task that
wasn’t easy, with how many they had already eliminated! Darn, would
this mission end with a whimper?
No.
----
THE HORDE
“I
have not observed this creature. I have simply observed other aspects
of this corruption and its creations, and what happens when they are
dealt sufficient physical damage that they are disabled, and am
presenting a possibility.
“Everything you
do, will come back to you. All massed together in one final nightmare.
If it does come for you, I will drop in whatever I can to balance the
scales. All cards will be on the table. This possibility is hell itself
bursting to the surface of the Earth.
Good luck. You’ll need it.”
----
"Ahahahahaha, you couldn't have picked anything better for that final boss feel, could you have?"
Most
people would not have laughed as the ground trembled and buildings
threatened to topple, except perhaps as a result of shock, of having no
other reaction to offer.
Most people would
not have thrown their head back as they watched a beast that looked like
it could have come from the depths of hell, a beast as tall as a
two-story building, emerged from the earth, tearing through asphalt,
concrete, and steel with ease as it rose up from beneath the ground.
Most people were not, it was always worth reiterating, Pitohui.
With
the bay to their backs, Pitohui and Kanade stood on top of a freighter,
left to rot in what was once a shipyard. They had already been in its
depths. Down below, every single type of beast - save for the Burrowers -
they had encountered so far roamed around, refugees set on killing one
another and killing anything else that even so much as dared to move. It
would have been the perfect final obstacle before a final boss, the
perfect final rush of foes before facing down a final boss. Had the
circumstances been any different, Pitohui would have happily jumped into
such a challenge. But the two girls had tried to avoid killing, tried
to avoid fighting, as much as they could, while setting up their final
trap. They had crept through the insides of the ship, killing beasts
when they had to, but for the most part avoiding fights as they put
their plan into action.
The beast emerging
on the peninsula they had been overlooking was already leveling
everything around it. It hadn’t noticed them, not yet.
“Whew! This one’s a big boy! Hope you aren’t too disappointed that none of these guns are made for something this big.”
“I
mean, that’d make it too easy, wouldn’t it?” Kanade said, taking deep
breaths. Symphogear wasn’t meant to be used this long, and any minute
now it could run out, leaving her nearly but not quite defenseless… but
she wasn’t going to show that.
The roar
that came next seemed to shake the crust of the earth itself, the water
churning as if a fierce gale had descended upon the bay. The old ship
lurched and pitched and heeled violently, threatening to send the two
girls off balance, its creaking and the groaning of its worn-out joints
just barely audible over the beast’s mighty roar.
Now, they had been noticed.
All
at once, all hell broke loose, both atop the ship and in its depths.
The beast - the Horde, that is - lunged at Kanade and Pitohui. The
Gungnir-wielder, her athleticism boosted by the magitch, leapt high into
the air, Pitohui clinging to her back. Seconds later, as the Horde
slammed into the ship’s surface, the two girls came down, Pitohui
jumping off Kanade’s back to do so. Gigantic spear and blade of
superheated plasma, both weapons plunged into the beasts’ heads, each
girl landing on a different portion of its massive body.
As
she pulled out her magitech spear from the creature's head, Kanade
suddenly feels a tugging sense of exhaustion. Her entire Symphogear
began to glow, and in a burst of light, it simply... dissolved. Her
pendant, now the normal red jewel of its inactive state, dangled around
her neck, as Kanade nearly collapsed from the sudden loss of strength
she's experienced from the lack of a gear. She staggered, wavered
dangerously for two seconds, then managed to regain her balance,
wobbling on her feet.
Pitohui caught the
sight of Kanade's gear dissolving around her out of the corner of her
eye as she herself pulled her sword out of the Horde's head. Not
straight up, though. She dragged it through the head she was standing on
for maximum damage. It had been fun, for a moment, causing the beast so
much pain, but all of the thrill evaporated as she watched Kanade
stumble. She had to stop herself from gunning for the other idol, acting
on instinct to jump in the middle of the fray and put herself between
the beast and her ally. She had to find a way to defend Kanade, but...
if they were together, they'd be easy targets. The plan relied upon each
of them fighting on their own, to keep the beast's attention split.
But
sometimes, plans had to change in the midst of battle. She didn't have
any explosives left on her person, but Pitohui still had plenty of guns,
as she whipped out one of her XDM .40 pistols. The gun wouldn't do much
to the beast, not much at all, but it'd let her keep it's attention on
her for the moment, and she'd be fine fighting by herself while Kanade
recovered. Getting Kanade something to defend herself with, though...
that was another matter...
As the beast
raised itself back up, itching to fight, Pitohui blasted it with a
series of shots, and the Horde turned its full attention to her. It
swiped at her with a scythed claw, and she raised a shield to block it.
Woman and beast struggled against one another, Pitohui using her might
to push back against her attacker with her shield and the Horde adding
greater and greater force in an attempt to drive its claw through the
shield. Back and forth their struggle went, each able to gain the upper
hand for a moment, but never long enough to break off the attack. The
shield would hold just fine. The question wasn't whether or not Pitohui
would be impaled, but how long she could avoid being knocked to the
ground.
All the while, she watched Kanade,
observing what the other idol did with the precious moments bought for
her to recover, trying to assess if she'll be in a state to fight at
all.
As she saw Pitohui block the attack,
Kanade realized she had to make sure of this chance. She still had the
energy to keep going, even if she did feel immensely drained - Kanade
had just never fought to the point where she lost her gear before, and
it was a surprise and a shock to her system. Now that she's got the
chance to keep going, Kanade's started to act, quickly searching for
something to fight with.
Nothing at hand. Darn it Dawn, this would have been a good time for a loot crate.
"...It's not a spear, but it's close enough! Toss me your photon sword!"
"Hey,
hey! Back in the fight? I thought I'd get the chance to be the hero
rescuing the princess, but whatever." Despite the casual tone of her
choice of words, the strain in Pitohui's voice was all too easy to hear
as the beast started to overwhelm and overpower her worn-down body.
Ultimately, she made the decision at the last minute to avoid giving in,
and, with one final heave to give herself an opening, she dashed out
from underneath the shield, letting the beast slam it to the ground with
her now out of the way. She'd have to retrieve it at some point, but
that'd be far from impossible. Better to lose it for a moment than get
sliced through the abdomen. Out of harm's way for the immediate moment,
Pitohui tossed her photon sword - in its inactive state, of course - to
Kanade. She was still on her feet and ready to fight, but that little
match against the beast had worn her out. But the Horde was already
preparing to launch another attack against - readying itself to slam
into her with its massive form - her as she worked to sling her assault
rifle over her shoulder to take it from being strapped onto her back to
being in her hands. She might, she noted, just have to rely on Kanade to
intervene here, considering the edge of the ship was immediately to her
back and she'd only be able to start firing once the beast had already
committed to its attack.
Well, she didn’t
have to worry. With a flick, the photon sword erupted into life, a
bright red blade searing in the night air. Kanade takes a couple
experimental stabs, figuring out how she could account for the weight
and shape - she'd never be able to do something like conquer a Brawl
with the sword, but to finish a fight? Or at least hold it up until
their plan went into action? That was easy. She spun the sword, then
stabbed it right into a part of the Horde that strayed near her, causing
it to roar at her loudly. It immediately took a swing, Kanade dodging
out of the way - she still had the stamina to keep fighting, at least
for as long as they needed!
With Kanade's
attack, the Horde took its attention off Pitohui, at least for the
immediate moment. That gave her the time to finish getting her assault
rifle in her hands, and once she had that, she wasted no time in
spraying a barrage of bullets at the beast. It once again turned and
roared at her. But that didn't last long. On the other side of the
beast, Kanade took another stab at it. Before it could even fully turn
around to face its red-headed foe, it was being assaulted by gunfire
again, Pitohui running to the opposite side of Kanade and even
retrieving her shield as she did. Back and forth. From one side of the
ship to the other, the beast turned, as heavy fire hit it from one side
and alternated with a sharp, searing, stabbing pain erupting from its
other side. Yes, this was a beast born from mob mentality, but the
madness of mobs meant that it could only focus on one threat at a time,
and Pitohui and Kanade kept their attacks alternated to keep the beast
from focusing on either one of them for too long.
As the battle raged atop the ship, a series of explosions rocked the ship from the inside.
Grand
Grenades, positioned all across its keel, throughout its lowest depths
and placed just underneath every partition between its compartments,
finally went off all at once. More powerful, time-delayed models of a
standard plasma grenade, the sheer size of the ship meant that even
these massive explosions didn’t damage it too heavily, but it did allow
water to begin pouring in. The ship, which had survived in this lonely
harbor for some unknowable but undoubtedly large number of years, was
finally beginning to sink. The explosions and the influx of water sent
the beasts below into overdrive, and the killing within the ship began
in earnest.
Listening to the sounds of
pandemonium beneath them, Pitohui and Kanade both kept a silent count
going in their head. They had discussed the plan, had estimated the time
they would need and gone over it again and again to make sure. Until
that moment came, though, they had to keep fighting this looming beast.
That was easier said than done, given its size and the limited room on
the battlefield. Kanade kept her borrowed photon sword in hand, and
Pitohui stuck with her assault rifle in one hand and her shield in the
other, willing to drop the latter when she needed to focus on firing.
Neither girl could do much with their attacks, but they kept them up,
slowly chipping away at the Horde even as it forced them to dodge an
onslaught of its own. It tried repeatedly to slam its heads into them,
to swipe at them with its claws, and to catch them in its gaping maw.
And more than any of that, it just tried to outlast them.
For
some twenty minutes, the girls fought the beast on the top of the
freighter as more and more of the ship sunk beneath the choppy water of
the bay. Corpses piled up in the increasingly waterlogged belly of the
ship. During this confrontation, Pitohui and Kanade had continued to try
to stay on opposite ends of the ship, had tried to split the beast’s
attention between the two of them. As they hit the time they had agreed
upon, though, Pitohui dodged yet another one of the beast’s swipes, and
then ran over to Kanade. One more series of explosions rocked the ship,
the blast this time much larger, and concentrated in the few areas of
the ship that remained dry. The beasts inside let out twisted screams as
they were blown to pieces all at once. Racing against the final few
moments of the countdown only they knew about, Pitohui dropped her
shield flat on the ground. Within seconds, she had dropped on top of it
herself, gripping its handles with all of her might as her stomach
pressed against metal. And just as planned, Kanade dropped on top of
her, gripping to both her and, as best she was able to with Pitohui’s
hands already there, the handles on the shield itself.
Pitohui
looked directly at the beast, watching it prepare to impale herself and
Kanade with one of its claws, and offered but a single word.
“Byeee~eee!”
Normally,
this would have been a great way to get killed, but in a fraction of a
second after Kanade had dropped down, just after Pitohui had uttered her
goodbye, the ship itself exploded.
True
though it may have been that the girls didn’t possess the weaponry
required to create a blast that could take out the Horde, that didn’t
mean they couldn’t make one. Inside the hull of that ship, two key
components came together as they had distracted the Horde. One component
was an immense amount of water in a confined space. That had been
allowed in by the first series of explosions. The second was an immense
amount of heat, released all at once. When the Arsonists inside the ship
had been killed in the second series of blasts, they had provided more
than enough heat. And water, plus heat, plus pressure…
The entire freighter had been turned into one gigantic steam-powered explosive that would have made Herman and Otto shudder.
With
Pitohui’s absolutely ecstatic cackling ringing out, Pitohui and Kanade
used the shield to ride the shockwave on the leading edge of the
explosive burst of steam high into the air, and the ship, the beasts of
the city, and even the Horde disappeared, replaced by nothing more than a
massive, expanding cloud of steam engulfing the bay beneath them. Had
it been an incredibly reckless plan that could have seen them horribly
burnt at best, and killed in a most painful way at worst?
Yes.
Had it worked, though?
Yes.
The
girls didn’t rise straight up. The blast had imparted a great deal of
energy to their horizontal motion as well as their vertical motion. That
proved important when they fell back down into water much, much further
out in the bay. Had they fallen from much greater a height, they still
would have died upon smacking into the water. As it happened, though?
The two tired, worn-down girls had a long swim back to the shore. Not so
long they couldn’t make it, but long enough, by any reckoning. The
mission, though? It was over.
----
“Mark
Twain said go to heaven for the climate, and hell for the company.
Sorry Samuel, but I believe you were speaking out of your buttocks in
that regard.” Dawn said, as she again passed Pitohui the breathing mask.
Pitohui
fiddled with the mask, trying to find a way to get it on that made it
the least difficult to talk before giving up on the idea altogether and
resigning to wear it as intended, choosing to increase the volume of her
voice to compensate for the mask’s muffling of it. It had certainly
been a long, grueling battle, considering the sheer variety of foes
involved, but that had only made it more thrilling.
“Wew!
Haven’t had a night out like that in ages. It’s almost too bad they
weren’t more intelligent. They might’ve put up a better fight. Would’ve
been more fun getting to hear them scream, too, if it meant something.”
It’s
rather difficult to laugh with the mask on, but one gets the distinct
impression she would have been cackling right about now, given the
litheness in her movements and the shine in her eyes, the way she’s
practically moving about with a skip in her step as her body comes down
from the rush of adrenaline.
“Well, Kanade?
Tell me the truth, you think you’re down for making this a regular
girl’s night out? We hit the mall one week, do a little monster-hunting
the next?”
Kanade looks over at Pitohui
with a raised eyebrow. She was exhausted, she’d nearly broken her
Symphogear in the process, and right now she was too tired to do
anything but sleep. To be honest, she didn’t want to even think about
monster-hunting - that had been absurdly dangerous, something that they
had only made it through with a whole boatload of luck. The idea of
doing it again so easily made her wonder how Pitohui even handled it.
But…
she had to admit, fighting alongside Pitohui had its own charm and
energy to it. Something about the gunslinger just kept her coming back
to see more of this wild, unrestrained power. So she decides to call
Pitohui’s bluff for now. “Sure. You want to pick the next set?”
“Hell
yes! Now you’re getting it!” She could tell that Kanade was trying to
call her bluff, but she wasn’t going to give her the satisfaction of
that. It was hard to tell how much of the excitement on her face was
genuine and how much was part of the act she had constantly been putting
on for Kanade. It’s not like she wasn’t hurting, either, she was just
better at hiding it and - all hopped up on adrenaline - outright
ignoring how worn down she was. “I say we get another one in next week!
I’d get right back out here tomorrow, but we don’t want to burn through
all the fodder yet. Wouldn’t be enough fun left down the road.”
The
glance she shoots Kanade, the grin barely visible in the curl of her
lips, it all makes it clear - she intends to keep this up until Kanade
blinks first. “Hey, yo, Dawn! What else do you have rattling around that
head of yours? Know any other monster-infested worlds you could beam us
down to this time next week?”
“After that
insane choice of a final plan? It would be irresponsible of me to make
such an offer.” Dawn said. “In practice yes, in execution it would be a
bad idea. Not every two woman army scenario plays out as smoothly as
this one. There’s a reason I picked you and let Kanade come along. And
it also says a lot that this can be classified as SMOOTHLY. Speaking of
you, Kanade, I have another mask. High oxygen in small doses helps
refresh. I also have painkillers. Non-opiate based.
“I wish I’d had your services about three weeks ago. There was this exceptionally unpleasant
business with rats…”
Kanade
looks at Pitohui. She sighs deeply. “Hwaaaah… alright, alright. MAYBE
we’ll do this again, but on a special occasion.” She shakes her head and
leans back, taking the mask and painkillers from Dawn. “Whatever am I
going to do with you?”
“You’ll be holding
the shovel to bury all the bodies I leave in my wake, that’s what you’re
going to do,” she responded with a wink, not at all concerned by how
dark her joke was as she reached for a handful of painkillers herself.
She didn’t actually take any of them, though. Not now. She only stuffed
them inside a pouch on her suit, one that had been emptied of ammo in
the fight. She had the good sense to know she’d need to take them, but
she didn’t feel like she needed them yet. “But hey, I can live with
that. We’ll save these for special occasions. But I hope you know that
means you’ll have to find a different way to keep me entertained next
time I invite you over~.”
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