[Rave] Flashes of Light

The first of the mirror-polished orbs to float into view was met with a sky-blue bolt of mana fired from Tricia’s right hand, cleaving a head-sized gap into its side as it failed to evade it. The bits of metal that flung away from it revealed some of its internal mechanisms: a mesh of now-burnt rubber wiring, belts of circuitry installed on flexible boards, and the remnants of a machine gun once installed in its underbelly.

Blades shot out in a circular pattern around its unharmed circumference as it began to dive towards Rosa and Yui, but the entire assembly bounced away with several times the **** of its approach; a hasty ward by Rosa had sent it flying to be dashed on the near wall.

Tricia had only barely pivoted to fire on the one over her own head in time to stop the whirring of the miniature minigun that had dropped from its underbelly. At almost point-blank, she struck her target: the controller and cortex usually found at the center of Praxis smart drones, fortified against most small arms fire as they were. The end-trails of her blast exited out the top of the drone before its entire assembly crashed next to the Gorbachev. She quickly tapped on her wrist-mounted computer and prepared her drones for work.

Rave, still out of sorts, knew she or Travolta had the other drone. It cleared the lip of the server, this time with its gun lowered and ready to rain some kind of Hell onto the target-rich environment below. Rave spared no time: she kicked off the wall, onto the server, and uppercutted the third drone’s weapon before it could be aimed down at her, blasting a fistful of light into the minion and crushing its primary hardpoint. Her mirror-polished bracers finally revealed their use as she channeled her light into them: the impact of her fists of energy vibrated another foot forward and outward, extending the destructive reach of her knuckles until it had deformed the drone and sent it bouncing away on top of the servers.

A fourth drone came down on Yui, but the reporter could only turn herself invisible; the witch-lenses of the drone were not fooled as it opened fire. Rosa ducked Yui down... and covered her body with her own as John’s orders required of her. The bullets ricocheted in random directions, one bouncing into the server just over Rave’s head upon landing, but they wore away at the ward the hedge mage had prepared with machine efficiency. Tricia aimed a third blast and gutted the drone just as its last rounds tasted flesh. “No-!”

Rosa’s body remained upright, but blood oozed from deep wounds as she threw herself back with a grunt. Yui, stained with her blood, tried to hold her up with trembling hands.

They had repelled four drones... but there were likely to be more. Rave cursed as she barely kept herself from running over. “Blondie, fix her!”

But Tricia was already ahead of her as she launched two drones towards the dying mage. A reverberating round of gunshots annihilated both as Alois’ voice taunted, “That’s already about four million U.S. dollars of damages... and while I can only guess at your employer, I’m sure they don’t want you to build up an even taller bill for your actions!”

Cursing, Tricia began her weaker, long-range healing of the Spanish sorceress. Rosa gasped as she opened her shirt slightly and began drawing on the bared skin with her own blood, her wounds too grave to rely on the minor healing she could feel from Tricia. She gathered up her simple robes in her mouth as she began to hiss her incantation. Yui, despite her usual disposition, had become solemn and laser-focused under the stress of the moment; she got to work on another spell while Rosa grunted and began to visibly sweat.

Tricia watched, wide-eyed, as Rosa’s wounds suddenly accelerated to a close… but without the proper numbing magic or care that professional healers employed. Based on what she was seeing, the flesh was being **** closed… and Rosa’s scream through the bit of fabric she bunched into her mouth was proof that such was exactly the only kind of healing the amateur mage knew. Rosa seemed on the verge of passing out while the rest tried to work out a plan.

“This idiot still thinks we’re working for someone,” Travolta cursed.

“He’d shoot us even if he believed we weren’t,” Rave groaned, “so we need to just get past him and reach the others.”

Tricia quietly contemplated the drone corpse next to her… and almost grumbled as she waited for some chance to act on her suspicions.

“Don’t you worry about the others; they’re dead or secured already, depending on who you’re asking about.”

He’s… he’s bluffing. He has to be... Rave watched as Travolta dared a glare at their offensive host, but Rave pulled him back into cover just as trails of suppressive fire bounced off the server.

“But you guys are getting more interesting by the moment... I mean I hate to appear soft, but the research opportunities are too much to pass up! I’m willing to let you join the living as prisoners, this one last time, if you’d just give up peacefully.” A pause as he audibly swapped weapons. “Then again, I’ve been dying to test these new swarm shells for myself... ah,” he chuckled, “I probably shouldn’t say that on a live mic... ah well! I never was good at PR. Probably how I ended up out he...”

His voice grew difficult to hear even from the omniscient speaker-microphones planted in the barrier; the air thickened visibly as his voice faded, and a glance back at Yui confirmed the wisps of gray had been extending out from her as she enveloped some hundreds of feet in dense, enchanted fog.

“We can communicate here, freely,” her voice announced with startling clarity, “and it will not escape the mist.”

Rave could barely see Travolta right next to her, much less Yui or Rosa, now. “This is Praxis we’re talking about-”

“Which is why I know it is working,” Yui confidently replied. “I choose who can speak and be heard in here… not anyone else, and certainly not electronics.”

The sound of sudden, ballistic impact vibrated into the mist.

“He’s blind-firing into the gap; do not cross it.”

“Good, good…” Tricia’s mumbling did nothing to ease Rave’s building nerves, nor did a soft sound like chittering or vibrating beads that came from her.

“¡Me cago en tu madre, hijo de puta!” Rosa’s cussing was more groaned then yelled, but it confirmed she managed to stay awake through her own, ugly healing cantrip.

“I believe I have devised a solution that has at least a... 34% chance of success, presuming all conditions are met.”

Rave turned to where Tricia had surely been a moment ago; now she couldn’t even be sure. “Those... odds suck.”

“They’re better than mine,” Yui grimly noted. “I’ve only seen the inside of one of these places once, and it was while I was warded from detection. I barely got out and only because of a lazy overseer; given the near-identical design… I don’t know, I sort of feel confident that I can move around in it the same way.”

“Did that one have a shielded platform of this design?”

“Identical in looks and seemingly in the shield raised. I scanned it before we started running: it seems to send everything in one direction, repelling everything that tries to come in but slightly accelerating whatever leaves. It’s also warded against spells based on light or gas… and if it works the same way as the one I saw before, then that barrier goes all the way to the ground. Unless we can sneak in some poison from the vents below it… I don’t see us getting through to him without a lot of firepower.”

“So John’s big damn disruptor cannon,” Rave concluded.

“Which isn’t here.”

“Yes!” Tricia’s sudden exclamation surprised the rest as she cleared her throat. “I’m happy to report that our chances are now an estimated 53%.”

“I-I said we don’t have that cannon!”

“Yeah,” Rave grumbled, “and you can’t even see your computer in this soup; you’re just making these numbers up, now!”

“I can see my interface just fine, actually, but more importantly: I’ve been working on this solution since we arrived and identified the servers.”

A pause.

“That was like three minutes ago!”

“Yes. Which is why I started the completed plan the moment we had cover.”

“A-Alright, Gorbachev," Travolta nervously asked, "so where do we come in on this plan-?”

The mist suddenly blasted down and scattered across the floor in a wide carpet. Overhead, a glowing orb continued to press down harshly on the humans with hurricane winds; Travolta and Tricia pinned their backs to the server as they struggled to hold Rave down while her feet danced and tried to find purchase on the wall. Yui and Rosa, anchored and low to the earth, clutched onto it for dear life. A few stray shots dotted the wall just over Rave’s feet as they were occasionally blown into the line of fire, barely missing her thanks to the chaos the winds wrought on ballistics. Finally, the hurricane orb eased, fizzled, and exploded with shrapnel, slicing everyone up with minor cuts or scrapes with its sudden wrath.

As the noise of its explosion eased, Tricia hissed, “We can’t stay grouped together… just keep up what pressure you can!” She dashed away from cover and the rest of her allies, her sleek body **** as she wore nothing but the cloth bands between the solid pieces of armor she had remaining. A blind shot to her right, and the mana bolt flew out of view until it ricocheted off Alois’ barrier as predicted. Two shots rang out simultaneously: the Praxis solid rounds being sent towards the Gorbachev and said Gorbachev’s remaining armor, a band of micro-drones around her body, leaping off to sacrifice themselves... and, to prevent injury to their master, taking her last armor pieces with them. The armor and drones were shredded to pieces by the shotgun blast of swarm rounds that, with a crackling noise, released secondary explosions wherever they struck. Tricia, with only some tattered bits of cloth and her prized bracers left to cover her, had made it across without further harm. She looked over to Rave and Travolta with a firm nod. "We need to split up and make it harder for the next wave to corner us."

"Next wave-?"

Rave was ahead of Travolta on figuring that out, as were Rosa and Yui: everyone was back on their feet now, though Rosa still covered in blood and looking woozy. Another four drones had arrived, guns already deployed, and split between the original two hiding places for the enemy. Rave was more careful this time: kicking off the server, she launched herself up and punched her light-enveloped fist to just beyond the edge of the server, sending her light as far as it would reach to shatter the two miniguns before they could get a good spin going. Alois’ sniper fire, this time in the form of miniature rockets, exploded harmlessly on the wall high above their heads as Rave landed on her feet.

Behind the other server, the tattooed mage tapped her fingers together until a spark sang out from between them, electrocuting both drones that, inexplicably, ignored the effect she expected the attack to have. The reporter was more prepared: she bowed to slap the ground just underneath the drones, sending sudden, violent gusts up and shooting the drones into the ceiling, crushing them both. Her earlier prep in the fog was thus spent.

"Use their anti-grav against them; they're built to fight in the Abyss, so skip the fireballs and lightning bolts!"

Travolta and Rave faced their half-ruined drones as each deployed its blades and shot downward, barely missing the senior members of Collide. Rave blasted her light-tipped foot into the drone, bursting its core. Travolta was less surgical, delivering kick after kick on the only unsharpened parts of the drone until the dented, sad thing finally stopped spinning and was reduced to digital grumbling. Another crushing blow, and the mirror orb's protests died. "They're not built to beat muscle."

"They are," Yui yelled, " you're just monstrously strong!"

Travolta caught Yui's eye... and the two stared at each other briefly in the chaos. "T... Thanks."

It wasn't a compliment... but Yui's blush told Rave she wasn't going to correct him. "You two can get a room later; try not to die, first!"

Yui had no wits left to answer that, but Travolta steamed right past the jab. "Alright, you know what we have to do. Move while he shoots at me. Rave: give him something to stare at."

Rave looked to him with a grin. "Like old times, Baldy?"

"Just like old times."

"What-?"

Travolta offered no other explanation before he sprinted, full-tilt, towards Yui and Rosa.

Rosa took the signal well enough: a second later, she began running to the next, empty bit of cover. As Travolta's body cleared the threshold, Rave's open hands came around the corner as well and channeled as bright a flash as she could manage, each palm aimed dead at the sniper waiting for Travolta's move. Yui blinked away as she was stunned by the sudden, blinding light even on the peripheral; Travolta had already squeezed his eyes shut; and Alois, still in the safety of his shield, had barely managed to flick his latest scoped gun towards Travolta when it caught sight of the brilliant light. The scope dimmed its feed to prevent stunning its owner; the helmet did the same, effectively blacking the field out. "Fil à putain-!" came Alois' curses...

... before he did his best to track where the shot would go and fired for center mass. Travolta had ducked his head down behind his folded arm in case the trick hadn't worked... but he had also expected himself to be fast or tough enough to survive whatever next was on the Praxis menu. Getting whirling blades shot at speeds faster than sound was not expected, much less dozens of them. Only four had connected, but they shredded terrible lines into his back and only barely managed to miss his spinal cord as they sunk into his bones or continued their journeys, digging deeper into his flesh until they ceased. Blood exploded from him as he fell onto his side and struggled to reach the objects sunken into his back.

"D-Don't move," Yui stammered, shaken loose from her earlier cool, "t-they're near your spine!"

Rosa, meanwhile, had crossed her gap painlessly. She watched from behind her new cover, grimacing as she watched Travolta struggle.

Rave herself only stared in horror as she stood alone and incapable of helping him. Tricia and Rosa both were too far to help, now. If they didn't do something soon, he'd bleed out. Rave glanced at Tricia, wondering how far her remote healing, however weak, could go… only Tricia seemed too busy with her computer to even look up at what had transpired.

But something else about Tricia caught Rave’s attention… something that had not registered. Wait, she had hundreds of those little scale drones... did she really use up the last of them on that one attack? She had them before the mist came up, right…? The sound of more of the razor-shrapnel from Alois’ latest weapon rang right through Rave’s thoughts as they pelted and decorated the wall and server near her shoulder. She nearly jumped back from the sudden attack; another two salvos were fired at the wall near where Travolta and Yui cowered.

Travolta screamed as he tore one of the jagged shuriken from his back, much to Yui’s unease. "Fucking... ASSHOLE! Who shotguns NINJA STARS at people?!"

"Lambda Securities for at least ninety-two years. Also," Alois angrily lectured as he swapped weapons again, "they're not 'ninja stars' at all! They're technically razor wheels made using a graphite-steel composite fortified with mana... and they're technically designed for killing, not dis... oh...?" Their enemy paused his rant; the drones, too, had not continued their march, if any remained. Tricia tapped feverishly onto her keyboard while Rave tried to find some opening. She dared a glance around the corner... and caught sight of Alois looking away, an open right hand to his helm as if he were receiving communications... or nursing a headache. If he was distracted, he wasn't distracted enough: his gun arm, cradling a new, angular rifle, went from hanging loose in his arm to aiming up at Rave. She barely ducked behind cover before it started to come apart in chunks as enemy fire chipped at it.

Rave glared down at the dead drones they had killed so far behind her server, hoping to make some kind of cover out of them. They had three… and only now did she notice the one Tricia had shot. Its innards had been partially dragged out and broken down or cut up in strangely systematic ways. When did she do that? Rave glanced back up at Tricia… who hid a plotting smile.

Almost a minute passed in relative silence from there... until Tricia suddenly dared another peek and fired another mana bolt towards the enemy. Again it bounced harmlessly away, this time in scattered bits of light before fizzling out completely. She ducked behind cover just as quickly as the same burst-fire counterattack bit away pieces of her server's hull. Groaning, she resumed tapping furiously on her keyboard.

Precious seconds passed, and the tension was finally interrupted as Alois almost whispered, "You brought... a Null?"

Tricia and Rave exchanged knowing glances: the Soulless were often called "Nulls" by more contemporary mages, but they had all but forgotten about her. They didn't scoop her up with us... and they probably couldn't at all! Maybe they didn't even pick up her presence until now! What she's doing...?

"Merde, but you do your homework! It still won't change anything, though: the element of surprise is no longer yours, and Nulls are wildly susceptible to bullets... well, most of them." Again he began to fiddle with the weapons in front of him. This time the bench groaned as he picked something heavy off it. "Sadly, that means my expertise is required... and our time must be cut short. No time left to capture you, and really, the cost of this engagement so far has probably exceeded our estimated value of your imprisonment, interrogation, and recycling... my fault for using my favorite guns first, I suppose! Ah well... let's wrap this up, then."

Rave glanced at Tricia, hoping for some sign of her plan... and instead watched the half-naked blonde ask, "But our immediate surrender would still mean a greater net gain than our termination, yes?" She watched her holographic feed with wide eyes; she was very nearly there, Rave was sure of it… but so was whatever Alois thought would kill them, cover be damned.

"I think I'll kill the mouthy one first-"

Tricia's eyes met Rave's with desperation; they needed more time... for what Rave could only guess, but she knew they wouldn't make it out otherwise.

The distractions Rave could pose were limited; she could blind him again, but it only barely had any effect the first time... and that's if he wasn't capable of compensating for it from now on. She didn't know anything about the man... except, of course, that he was…

So he thinks I’m cute. Wait, Rave, that can’t possibly work-

"Fucking... Hell!" Rave screamed as she left her cover, her mirrored bracers raised to her chest... as she pulled her top down and revealed her perky, barely-legal tits in the middle of a battlefield. "Zoom in on these, asshole!"

She readied to turn back into light with what little mana she had left to do it, especially if she saw some sleek rifle pointing her way. Instead, Alois was cradling a three-tubed weapon fed by two wheels of what had to be small missiles. He was already raising it to arc fire into Rave's hiding place when she made her gambit, nipples hard in the heat of battle...

... and actually managing to stun the Destroyer of ****. He had paused... and that was enough. Rosa grimaced as she realized what Rave was up to; Tricia, with a snort more from disbelief than humor, did her best to prepare to play along.

"You want these, right? Fine," Rave yelled, almost dizzy with adrenaline, "take me in, do whatever you want. Play with them, fuck them, I don’t care; just spare my friends!"

"That's... that's not-"

"You want all of us for yourself?! Huh?! Your own little harem, stolen from another?” Her thoughts went to John, but more specifically to that amateur succubus he kept around. She did her best to improvise with the lusty, slavish mutterings of that bizarre little demon as she added, “We get it! You want to be our Master… and to take us all to bed, just like he wanted to! Why do you think we're all here with the same guy?! You’re going to take us all at the same time, aren’t you?!"

Travolta sat up, wounds be damned. "W-What?"

Yui, too unsure to comment, just continued to stare in shock from behind her cover.

Alois glanced about at unseen cameras. "If this is some idiotic ploy- no, it must be-"

"I accept your terms, Alois, but only begrudgingly." Out of Rave's sight, Rosa suddenly made her appearance... and with a sigh, the sound of her robes falling to the ground could be heard. "I cannot protect my virginity from you... it is yours, then, to do with as you see fit. I only ask that you not saddle me with children as hastily as our previous owner thought to."

“O-Owner- children, I’m…” Alois shook his head, doing his best to recover. "Look, I-I see what's going on here! You're just- wait, no, you accessed my confidential therapy- n-not that it means-- alright, maybe you think a few hundred years of not laying with a human has gotten to me, b-but I am virile male, I mean I will be once I… that’s…” His best was not very good. “I’m more than capable of... of handling my own affairs!"

"Virile... I see," Tricia suddenly offered, stepping out of her own hiding spot. "You believe we must all offer ourselves to your carnal lusts, and become your harem in truth... very well: we cannot resist such terms." Tricia pushed the ragged bit of cloth she had left between her pert breasts and did her best to accentuate them as she pressed her arms closer. "We only ask that you handle us gently during your lustful bouts."

The missile launcher slacked in the man’s grip as he tried to come to senses with the blonde now joining in flashing her body at him. He was needed elsewhere, but he just needed to secure them, right? Rave prayed for that much… and for what little time these perverted fantasies bought them.

"I-I'm... not sure, what... I-I... I guess," Yui stammered, "I was already **** to w-watch once... I-I can do it again...?" She looked ready to pass out from the compounding stress of **** threats and roleplay, but she was only half as stupefied as the businessman with the gun.

"F-**** to watch?! I'm..." He looked around at the menu of offerings, positively stunned... and hard as stone in his pants, Rave had to guess.

This sputtering display went on for nearly a minute… right until Tricia's wrist softly beeped with an indicator. She quietly pressed a single key on her wrist before aiming her hand at Alois, threatening to shoot at him again as she began calibrating the cannon on her wrist. "That will do. Thank you, Rave."

It was enough to knock him out of his horny fantasies and back into reality… where Tricia’s knowing smirk could suddenly be found on the faces of the four girls who had just offered themselves… falsely, he now knew, to draw him into this uncalculated weakness.

Alois, the Destroyer of ****, had been utterly humiliated.

Shaking with impotent rage, he turned the wrath of the YU-334 "Skyfire" missile launcher towards the blonde. "You little harlots are mocking me?! I'm on the Board of the goddamned VRC! If you think I’ll let you embarrass me-!" The rest of his final taunt was drowned out as his missiles sang out in rapid procession to fly through the shield and all but atomize the offending, fake Gorbachev.

Except those missiles never made it past the shield.

The explosion of fire and blood that filled and painted the shield bubble in front of Rave and the others was so sudden and violent as to make everyone but Tricia flinch and stare. They tried to make sense of the orange light and blue splatters that had manifested where their enemy had once stood, or the flickering of the lights in the servers, but none save Tricia could arrive at a satisfying conclusion.

The mesmerizing effect of the sudden **** was broken only when Tricia started sprinting behind Rave and towards Travolta. The pink-haired dynamo slowly put her top back on as she backpedaled towards Tricia, her unsure glances occasionally returning to the billowing pocket of smoke that continued to pop and scream with detonating munitions inside. "What... What the fuck just happened?!"

"A moment, please," Tricia responded as she scanned and emitted healing energy into Travolta's wounds.

Rosa was putting her clothes back on as she shot Rave a withering glare. She spoke slowly as if to hold back yet more venom as she hissed, "Only... because dying cowering behind a computer server... is no **** more dignified... did I join you on such a pendejo-brained plan!"

Yui glanced between the two, a nervous laugh bubbling inside her. "Ha... haha, I... I was really... really scared you were... you had no other plan, and we’d end up... ha... haha... oh..."

Rave opened her mouth to answer Rosa, but gave a quick, unsure glance at Yui. Deciding to let that one be, she answered, "I had a feeling he was going to use something that made cover pointless... and I was dead right. I mean, we had to do something!"

"So how did you know about him being some weird, centuries-old pervert?"

"He's... a male mage," Rave said with a shrug. "Aren’t most of them?"

Rosa's bewildered anger visibly grew.

“I bet even Old Man Brighton has some weird-ass porn saved in a wooden chest somewhere…”

Rosa fixed her clothes with a hurried fury as all looked down to Travolta slowly standing up, restored and rejuvenated.

He gave Rave a knowing, judging stare. She grinned back at him. "Just like old times, Baldy."

"Nothing like old times, unacceptable as current times, and not allowed as future times. Now let’s get that eye checked out.”

“Oh, for fuck’s sake… you know what, another time. Trish... how the Hell did that happen?"

Tricia stood, her torn-up robes only barely giving her more decency than when she flashed the dead gunner, and quietly explained, "I hypothesized that the liquid runoff from the servers could only be coolant, and my scan of its composition confirmed that much. Because the warm, used coolant drained into joint channels, it seemed obvious they all ran towards some centralized cooling system that renewed and reused the same, explaining why mixing the run-off from so many different heatsinks at differing temperatures would be acceptable." Rave was almost sorry she asked, but she was still too high on adrenaline to protest. "That collective construction suggested the possibility of at least some centralization of systems in general; Yui's description of how these rooms are constructed furthered that design suggestion; and finally, my drones confirmed it when I had sent them into the disabled drone, had them harvest it for additional materials and communication mediums compatible with Praxis systems, and forwarded them all into that vent while I worked out how best to utilize those same components."

Tricia pointed daintily to where she had been standing side-by-side with Rave... and only now did Rave notice that several bars of one of the grates had been cut out.

"I had them travel in **** to the central unit and hacked through its dated outer security protocols. I avoided sensitive data--that no doubt has modern encryption that I couldn't defeat on the fly--but went right into the engineering unit and reversed the polarity of the shield he raised." She nodded towards the bubble of acrid smoke. "Once I realized the shield was reversed, I had hoped to merely disable him with a modified attack from my weapon bracer, but I was unsure of how it would be modulated by the acceleration field... and our joint distraction was perfect, too, but I took too long to try and compensate for the acceleration field and... well, I did not think he'd blow his load so quickly."

"... Did you just-?"

"Rather, fired his ordinance first and thereby obliterated himself once they detonated at near point-blank range."

Rave narrowed her eyes before the two shared smirks.

"W-Wait... what if you weren't able to hack into it?!" Travolta demanded.

Tricia almost scoffed at that. "Then we would have been killed, most likely.”

Travolta made nervous, angry noises… but Rave pointedly asked, “Well, that explains most of it… but what about the blue blood?”

“Blue…?” Tricia turned towards the bubble, noting no remnants in its top-half… and let her eyes trail down to the area around the platform, also shielded, where bits of clothing and gore had landed free and clear from the initial, point-blank detonation. Wherever those bits had not been blackened… they were indeed a stark, bright blue, one too familiar to Tricia and the rest who had fought the Lawmen.

That was Dorani blood.

“I… was certain he was human… he seemed certain he was…”

“We have to move,” Rosa suddenly commanded. The rest turned to her… and saw the alarm in her eyes. “John is in trouble-”

As if to cue it, the servers began to whir and flicker all around them. The barrier’s lights began to dim; the shield began to pulse outward and inward as it struggled to retain its shape; and all around them the coolant began to cycle in greater volumes.

“Now what, blondie? Some last-minute sabotage-?” Rave’s words fell off as she saw Tricia’s worry.