Mina jerked as a freezing bolt of lightning shot up her back and flowered out to her shoulder-blades, warming in the process into something that felt more like hot coals rolling against her skin. It was a familiar feeling. The same feeling that had risen on Andurien and in the Magistracy whenever she had begun to close-in on a band of pirates. An inflated and exaggerated version of the feeling that had been slowly stalking her ever since the ball had ended hours before.
Something was very
wrong. The worst was that it was familiar. This wasn’t just another batch of raiders or pirates.
Uncrossing her legs and refocusing eyes that had grown distant and glazed staring at the…
transformation pen…thing one of the Sphere’s noblewomen had gifted her, Mina forced herself to instead examine the screen at the desk before her. Cycling through the security-cameras that ComStar had given her access to took only moments, but showed little to explain the dread in her stomach. She recognized the faces of the three guards making rounds in the floor’s hallway, no other presences stood out, and there was no sign of forced entry into the windows of
any room on the floor.
She might almost have been tempted to chalk it up to her imagination. But she was
never wrong about things like this. There was something, she just had to find it.
Mina brought the radio on the table beside her up. Hesitating only a moment, she tapped the code into it that would set Commander Holly’s own device to beeping. In the unlikely event she was overreacting to a momentary impulse, she could pass it off as an exercise testing the Royal Guards’ alertness.
She had done the same thing during Amaris’ coup and it hadn’t mattered. This time would be different.
“Holly here, milady.” The woman said, a waver in the background of the words the only indication that she had been asleep moments before.
Maybe she was going nuts. Thinking she’d been alive for the Fall of the Star League was pretty out there, wasn’t it?
It was probably just persistent after-effects from her earlier drug-trip.
“Wake the rest of your girls, commander. Sweep the floor, ensure the security of the exits and ready an alternative. Prepare for a potentially contested exfil. Quietly, if you can. I will be looking-in on my mother and sister.”
To her credit, there was only an instant of hesitation on the other end of the line as the commander of the guard digested the instructions, “As you order, milady.”
She could only
wish men were so easy to direct!
Pinning the radio to the neckline of her top and connecting an earpiece to it, Mina stood. Twisting around on the balls of her feet, she stalked off the plush carpet of the bedroom and onto the cool wooden decking that extended out of the edge of the room onto the small balcony. She slowed only long enough to bend down and grab the ‘whip’ she’d been able to sneak into the compound from its deliberate spot at the foot of the bed where it would only invite the
right kind of assumptions being made about its use if ComStar searched her room.
She did her best to ignore the pen that sat beside it, not wanting to be distracted by it or so much as touch it again after what she’d seen at the ball when it had been given to her. Apparently, New Earth had a very Canopian approach to the use of psychedelics at public parties. Even in the Magistracy, though, it would have been courtesy to warn her before passing off something coated in a hallucinogen!
It was the first time in many years she’d had to excuse herself from a party to recover from something. The memory—
hallucination—had been frighteningly realistic. It made her somewhat leery of even touching the bizarre, pen-thing again. Though maybe it was the soul-crushing despair she’d felt while she held it that had her afraid.
Shaking away the distraction, Mina exited her room and scanned the horizon and the shoreline of the ocean below for any reasonable explanation of her sudden chill, the half-full moon providing enough light to distinguish basic shapes even in the distance. The late-summer weather of Terra was quite comfortable even at night, and when she performed a basic series of yoga stretches across the balcony, she found no sneaksuit-wearing assassin on it poised for a kill. There was nothing that explained her worry.
“Floor is clear. Ad-hoc exit available from room four-three-four in addition to traditional. Ready to evac on your go-ahead.” Holly’s gruff voice spoke in Mina’s ear.
“Thank you, commander. Standby.” Mina responded, bringing both her hands up to wrap around the railing and leaning over so she could scan the side of building below.
Still nothing.
Mina backed away from her place at the edge, letting her hands slowly drop back down to her sides as if she were giving-up and simply deciding to enjoy the moonlight morning-hours. But she wasn’t. There was something
wrong. She knew it with a certainty she knew very little else, really.
And there was a final place she needed to check.
She began to turn back towards the entrance back into her room, but changed the movement midway-through into a mad dash for the edge of the balcony. Throwing one leg up in front of her, she settled it on the railing. Leveraging the rest of herself into the precarious position, she shoved off with both legs and dived towards the similarly-built veranda of the next room over.
Crashing onto the wooden floor with one leg extended and both arms splayed outwards to intercept anyone who might be in a sneak-suit wasn’t the most comfortable thing she’d ever done. It certainly wasn’t the most effective, either, as instead of knocking a would-be assassin out with a kick or body-tackling them, she went rolling into the railing on the far side of the balcony and hit her head. But it did at least have the benefit of assuring her that it was clear.
“What in the world are you doing?”
Emma Centrella, her ‘half-sister’, stared down at her from the doorway, still tying a loop in the belt of her robe. The chill in Mina’s spine lessened slightly at the obvious evidence Em was alright, but didn’t go away.
Mina grinned and threw herself back onto her feet, leaping on the potential chance to draw her sister into talking despite the situation, “Checking for assassins in sneak-suits…Also, I had to come over here anyways.”
Em seemed to be on the verge of responding to that with something significant. She could tell. The girl’s cheek twitched with restrained amusement, and her nostrils flared in the very beginnings of a laugh. But just as soon as it had come the friendliness was gone, replaced by the bizarre and cold distance Emma had treated her with since Andurien.
“Most people would use the hallway.” Emma said flatly.
“Assassins like to defy expectations. I’ll
not let any succeed while I live.”
Not again.
Mina blinked. Now where had that thought come from?
Emma’s eyes narrowed at her first words, before the glare faded into an unreadable confusion that contorted the girl’s face in amusing ways. Emma always had trouble hiding her reactions. She was just too honest and trusting.
Mina had to swallow down a sense of
painful déjà vu that she could almost
taste, the feeling so bad it almost hazed-over her vision with tears for no conceivable reason. She’d not been this out-of-sorts for…years. Perhaps not since her first memory in the Crimson Palace having to fight down the constant feeling of having
failed at something very, very important.
“Better come in. Explain to mother why you’ve interrupted her
necessary beauty sleep.” Emma said.
Mina latched onto the words with desperation. They weren’t quite
friendly. Said with more harshness than they really deserved, they could easily have been confused for insulting or dismissive. But it was the first, threadbare show of humor Emma had graced her with since they landed. She’d take what she could get until the girl opened up about whatever was eating at her, and focusing outwards was infinitely better than confronting the well of dark that she could feel waiting at the edge of her thoughts.
“I
heard that, young lady.”
With those five words from deeper in the room, the Magestrix managed to almost make Emma turn pale in fear—quite an accomplishment with the girl’s dark skin. All Mina could do was offer a sympathetic smile.
“Now get in here, both of you. Mina? You can tell me why you’ve interrupted my
completely superfluous beauty sleep.”
The march into the kitchen was short but silent. Whether out of guilt or awkwardness, Mina wasn’t sure.
‘Mom’ somehow managed to be embarrassingly racy even in the full-size, Combine-style kimono she had taken to wearing in place of her usual nudity ever since Emma had pointed out both of them sharing a room would make security easier. Bizarrely, the flat-edged cut of the fabric and oversized sleeves managed to
emphasize her figure more than hide it, and Mina was awkwardly reminded of just how much the woman liked…using…that figure.
Mina shuddered, suddenly glad that she had been able to enjoy her
own room even if she kind of missed BSing with Em. She could only imagine just how hard her sister had needed to put her foot down to prevent ‘mom’ from bringing someone up. She probably wouldn’t even have the decency to put a sock on the door as a warning.
...And she didn’t really want to
think about her mom’s still-active sex life anymore.
Bleagh-heagh-heagh.
“I understand you’re the reason Holly and Jenny burst in here a moment ago?” Her ‘mom’ asked, obviously already knowing the answer to her own question and instead asking
why.
“Bad feeling.” Mina answered simply, folding her hands meekly in front of her stomach but matching the Magestrix’s eyes.
Em cocked her head to the side as if she couldn’t quite believe what she’d just heard. Kyalla limited her own reaction to biting down on one side of her lips before leaning forwards.
“Still have it?”
Mina nodded.
The Magestrix didn’t hesitate, “Alright then, let’s get packing. Mina, I assume you want to check with…our people…about potential jumpship arrivals?”
Mina nodded again, feeling a bit silly as Emma stared, a croak in the back of her throat evidence of her
trying to verbally express her confusion but being unable to get any words out.
“Alright. In that case, why don’t you get my bag from—”
“Wait. We’re leaving? Just like that?” Emma interrupted, whipping her head back-and-forth as if she thought they were joking.
Kyalla didn’t quite laugh, but there was a waver of humor in her voice when she spoke, “Just like that. I thought you weren’t excited about being here anyways, dearie?”
Emma flushed, and looked to Mina for support, “I’m not. But…I mean…”
Unsure how to address the confusion, Mina bounced her eyes back towards the Magestrix.
“The bag, Mina? It’s in my closet. Go, fetch. Please.” Kyalla said, making a shooing gesture with one hand as she lounged back in her chair.
Mina slowly tiptoed away from what looked to be a brewing argument. Reaching the edge of the kitchen after a few steps, she twisted and rushed over to the closet. Stepping in, and ignoring as best she could the more risqué items, it took her only a few seconds to find the old-fashioned attaché case on one of the shelves with enough security-systems on it to probably make even ComStar have trouble opening it.
She tried not to eavesdrop as she crossed back to the kitchen, but it was difficult not to.
“—some things I can’t explain because it is
not the
place or time. So to be brief? Yes. When your sister has a bad feeling, you
listen to it.”
“Jesus.” Emma sounded more
terrified than Mina had ever heard, “Mom? Did you
actually let crackpots experiment
on one of your own children to try and make a
psychic?”
“What? No. It’s—”
Instead of stopping to listen longer, Mina stepped into the kitchen, entirely unsure if she should have. Judging by the look on her mother’s face, she was more relieved than anything. Emma was surprisingly more difficult to read, but her usual attempt at affecting a distant stare now looked surprisingly strained. In a way it was kind of relieving, really.
“It’s complicated, Em.” Mina explained for her ‘mother’ as she passed off the case and moved her eyes in a significant circle around the walls of the kitchen, hoping her sister would get the warning abut bugs, “We can explain later, ‘kay?”
“Yeah? You’d better.” Emma complained, crossing her arms in front of her and
actually pouting. She did her best to make the words sound tough, but there was no way of denying what it actually was.
Kyalla set the case on the table and held her face up to the scanner on its front. The sequence of movements she then ran through next were so practiced and automatic for her as to be almost impossible to keep track of, but the result was the case opening without destroying the contents inside. Scooping the oldest device out of it, she handed off the computer-pad to Mina before pulling Emma along with her to pack, bringing the secure case with her.
Mina ran her hand on along the edge of the ancient pad, fingers tracing out the well-worn ‘Nirasaki’ etched onto its rear. She didn’t like the idea of accessing
The Blazing World or her machine from inside ComStar’s compound, but didn’t see much choice. She certainly wasn’t about to believe some acolyte’s assurances that everything was alright if they contacted traffic control. Not after how many times ComStar had been implicated third-hand in
bizarre things in the Periphery.
It would be alright. She’d come to understand the computer-assistant in her ‘Mech had a surprisingly sophisticated capability for electronic warfare and communications security.
Mina tapped the recessed tab on the side of the pad that brought the system instantly to life, feeling a slight relief at how quickly the system responded to her commands in comparison to the much less efficient modern versions. She rested her palm on top of the screen until it emitted a bright chirp, then began to type through the series of commands she needed.
Perhaps the chill she’d felt had been the result of something happening at the dropship or an inbound jumpship. It wouldn’t be the first time that kind of thing had happened.
Blazing.World.SubSys-CPN-1V1. 1991—direct-NetConnct: AdvResponsive.TacEvaluation-Monitoring.InfSys.cat—.
Pass: ****s
Mina hesitated. She’d not consciously paid it any mind for years, but something about the password…It had always confused her why it would be the second planet of the Terran solar system.
Now, instead of being confusing, it was…haunting?
—Protected by Venus, the planet of beauty, I am—
Mina tightened her hands around the pad as the thought ended before it was
supposed to. She’d come to accept not knowing who she had
been. Come to understand and even accept that she’d lose her memory again in a few short years.
Now, when she needed it to be focused on a potential crisis her mind was dredging up things that were coated in the familiar that she could recognize but
still didn’t remember.
It wasn’t fair.
[Connecting…]
[Connecting…]
[Connected]
[Securing]…DONE.
GREETINGS, MINA
HOW MAY I BE OF SERVICE?
Search for incoming dropship tracks or jumpship
signatures from all possible sources.
…THAT WILL REQUIRE I ACCESS COMSTAR’S
SECURE SYSTEMS AS WELL. THERE IS A SMALL
POSSIBILITY THEY WILL DETECT SOMETHING
IF I DO SO. DO YOU WISH ME TO PROCEED?
Yes.
VERY WELL. PLEASE WAIT...
…
…
NO INBOUND DROPSHIP TRACKS DETECTED
-MANUAL OBSERVATION OR REPORTED-
NO JUMPSHIP ARRIVALS DETECTED
-VISIBLE JUMPSHIPS ARE IDENTIFIED AS
IN SERVICE OF WEDDING DELEGATIONS-
Status of The Blazing World?
ALL IS WELL ON-BOARD.
IT IS A VERY DOWN-TO-EARTH SHIP.
Despite lingering concern over what had caused her bad feeling and whatever
else it was that kept gnawing in the back of her mind, Mina had to laugh at the choice of phrase. She could almost
hear the machine saying it in the almost
catty tone that had been programmed into it and that came through whenever it made one of the odd comments.
And people thought Bitching Betty was bad! At least Bitching Betty didn’t have bad jokes baked-in to its programming,
Not programming. Thought. Harnessed and focused towards a specific goal, and restricted in its knowledge until fully-revived by a Guardian, but thought…
Report on the status of The Blazing World and systems?
CURRENT WATCH:
LT. O’CONNOR COMMANDING.
SECURITY: NO REPORTED CONCERNS
TACTICAL: NO REPORTED CONCERNS
ENGINEERING: IDLE MAINTANANCE-NONPRIORITY
ENVIRONMENTAL: NO REPORTED CONCERNS
…
NO SYSTEM CONCERNS DETECTED. ENGINEERING IS
TRACKING A FAULT THAT IS IN THEIR OWN EQUIPMENT.
THERE IS AN UNAUTHORIZED AND UNREPORTED
GATHERING IN THE ‘MECH BAY.
CARDS AND THE REMOVAL OF
PERSONAL CLOTHING ARE INVOLVED.
SHALL I INVESTIGATE FURTHER?
No.
Investigate other dropships on-planet for
reported concerns or other anomalies
WILL-DO, MINA.
THAT WILL REQUIRE I ACCE—
[Connection interrupted]
[Connecting…]
[Connecting…]
[Connecting…]
[Connection has been lost. ]
-----Your planetary datanet may be experiencing technical difficulties, or there may be a problem within your connection software. Please check your equipment, and try again, or contact a service-center for assistance. This is an automated response message number eight-seven-eight-nine-two-----
Mina jerked. That should not have happened. Places where communications were much older and less reliable than Terra’s was had always let her piggy-back off their signals without any interruptions. The only other time she’d ever lost connection…
Palming the pad, Mina pivoted on her foot and marched out of the kitchen. They had to go. If she was going to protect them, they needed to go
now. That much perhaps she could do.
She wouldn’t fail again.
“Leave what’s left. I don’t think we have time.” She said, nodding towards the cases and clothes that Emma and Kyalla were packing as she made her way towards the door.
Her ‘mother’ raised an eyebrow and spared a moment’s glance towards her closet. Clothes had always been her weakness. Em twitched, visibly trying to decide between being frustrated or just growing further confused.
“What did you find out?”
Nothing good.
“Not much. Something cut the signal. The dropship is still on the pad, though, and as of right now not in any trouble.” Mina answered automatically, bringing her hand towards the door to lead her charges out of the room.
Pretending calm and control of the situation would help them not to panic, Emma especially. Others could falter or fail themselves if they saw her frightened or defeated. The consequences of that could be disastrous and long-lasting. As everything in the Inner Sphere demonstrated.
She slammed her hand down on the door’s handle, pushing it open for the
real Centrellas behind her and the pair of cases both carried with them. She owed the family an inexpressible debt of gratitude for caring for her the past centuries, even if she had been an enforcer and bodyguard for them over those years.
Mina
ko Aino, as much as she wished otherwise, wanted to swear she would protect them. But she was beginning to remember a past promise she had made of the exact same thing to two others, even if she didn’t
want to.
A promise she hadn’t kept.
Mina closed her eyes a moment and shoved away the memories—hallucination!—that had greeted her when she’d taken the
transformation pen. It was in the past. It didn’t matter anymore. She didn’t want to think about it.
This would turn out differently than that had! Then, when the Centrellas were safe…Then she could do something about her previous failure. Find the woman who’d given her the pen, find Setsuna, and try again. Alone if she had to.
There was always a way. No matter how hopeless things seemed. The only defeat would be in not getting it up!
No. Not growing up?
Giving up! The only defeat would be in
giving up. That was it.
“Holly? I’ve got Libertine and Fencer moving. Where should we be heading?”
The guardswoman’s reply came quickly and confidently, though through such a haze of static and distortion it was hard to make out, “West stairwell’s closest to you.”
Mina acknowledged the words bluntly and began to lead the two women beside her down the hall. At least their short-range gear worked, however half-heartedly.
“Scratch that. I’ve got at least a half-dozen people coming up the west stairwell now. They
look like ComStar. Hold a moment.” There was a pause that made Mina want to strangle someone, and she inwardly cursed, “Getting nothing from our folks the bottom of the east. Think it’s safe to assume our visitors are there as well. Seems like that intuition of yours was right again, m’lady.”
“I’d rather it had been proven wrong.” Mina said, stopping to think and paying no mind as the Magestrix bumped into her back, “How ad-hoc is the exit you made?”
“Very, m’lady. It’s basically a controlled fall. But we’ve still got contact with the motorcade down below, so if you can make it they should be available to take you on the next leg.”
“And you?” Mina asked, unable to stop herself. The Royal Guard was well-trained, but not having firearms was a major disadvantage—especially if ComStar’s intruding minions weren’t so restricted in their choice of arms.
“We’ll chide our guests for their nighttime adventures. Perhaps the
irony of being told such a thing by a Daughter of Canopus will be deadly to them.” Holly said, headshake coming through her words, “I wish I had my service pistol right about now. Always makes me feel better to hold ‘neutrals’ at gunpoint until they decide where they really stand.”
“Them trying a nighttime raid against us is evidence enough of where ComStar stands, I think.” Mina said, only slightly surprised at the heat in her own words.
“I suppose you’re right. Too bad, some of their adepts were kind’a cute. They seemed so friendly, too. Good luck, m’lady.”
“You too, commander.”
She
hated the words even as she spoke them. They shouldn’t sound so final. Not when they were on Terra under promise of safe passage. Yet they did.
“Where are we going now?
What’s going on?” Emma asked as Mina turned them around and dragged both her ‘sister’ and ‘mother’ back the way they had come. She had to give the girl credit, she sounded more frustrated at lack of information than the whining she might have expected. Em did know when to buckle down and get serious.
“ComStar’s got people coming up the stairwells and I don’t trust the elevator to take us where we want to. We’re going to try to get around the problem.” Mina explained, passing by doors until she reached 434 and could throw herself into the room.
Emma, thankfully, went silent with that answer. Mina supposed there was the possibility that none of the intruders were actually with ComStar. That, however, only seemed like it would make their presence more worrisome and raising
that specter seemed completely unnecessary. One problem at a time…
Scanning the room as she crossed, Mina tried not to be overly concerned that she’d not had the chance to clear it herself before bringing Kyalla and Emma in behind her. Even if Holly and the other members of the Guard had looked already, it never hurt to be paranoid. Something about Terra made it a place very prone to friends betraying her.
The room was largely similar to the one she’d started the evening in, though a pair of smaller, separate beds took the place of the single her own had. Combined with the unfolded cot in the corner, they eliminated most of the free space. If anyone was to be in the place without being immediately noticed, they’d have to tuck themselves into a closet or underneath a bed.
Waving her charges along after her, she crossed the room and exited onto its balcony. On the right side of the door was a basic anchoring system stabbed into the concrete of the building. Circled around the bolt-and-trunnion was a bundle of line that looked thick enough to reach the ground, with a set of carabiners clipped into the ends of the rope. Holly hadn’t been lying when she’d said it was crude. But as long as it worked, it was enough.
Mina’s heart sank as she leaned over the railing at the edge. Four stories below, breaking-up the darkness, were circular splashes of light centered around almost a dozen men in robes.
Too slow.
Too slow,
again.
“
Dammit.”
She instantly hated using the word for the fallen look it inspired on the faces of both women with her.
Mina stared down at the men for a breath, trying to come up with another viable escape route but drawing a blank. The stairwells were covered. The elevator wasn’t to be trusted.
This was being watched. What was
left?
The elevator shaft itself? The elder Centrella might have some trouble with the amount of physical effort it involved and more than likely its exit was already covered by ComStar’s men. But it was the only option she could come up with. Hopefully all of Kyalla’s…nighttime exercise…Would have her in good enough shape to do some climbing.
Bleagh-heagh-heagh. It was worse
when she remembered the girl had been her sister once as well…And had been just as flamboyant and open about her activities then
as she was now
.
“New plan. Back out into the hallway, we’ll drop down the elevator shaft into the garage.” She said with as much confidence as she could manage, shooing her mother and sister back towards the door.
The muffled shouting and scuffling that grew in intensity as they backtracked through the small room was worrying. The way the Magestrix froze after taking a single step into the hallway more-so.
Mina
knew she should have forced her way into the lead.
“What is the meaning of this?”
Kyalla Centrella could sound positively ice-cold at times. Mina had already known that intellectually from hearing her talk about Emma’s late father, and the Magestrix had oft ordered mass execution of pirates and bandits who had preyed on her people. But it was always more striking in-the-moment than in her memory. A reminder that the woman before her who she’d known since her birth, had once called ‘sister’ just like Emma, had risen into the position of a national leader.
The voice that greeted the Magestrix managed to compete with her in its degree of icy detachment. Though it was close, it didn’t sound quite
human enough. Mina knew with a cold certainty that the man could not be trusted.
“Lady Centrella, a thousand pardons. I know this is incredibly unorthodox, but we are here to ensure the safety of you and your delegation while we sweep the building and reexamine your personnel.”
Mina stretched a hand onto Emma’s shoulder as her latest sister of the Centrella line began to step forward to join her mother. Emma’s head whipped
instantly around to face her, and the flaming rage in her eyes contrasted sharply with her mother’s cold countenance.
Mina shook her head very slowly.
“My Royal Guards were doing that job quite adequately,
adept, and you appear to be holding them
hostage.”
“Once again, I apologize, Lady Centrella. But circumstances require ComStar take a more proactive role in your and your family’s protection. There was an attempt on the Coordinator’s life just moments ago by an unknown party thought to be in service of one of the other House Lords. As such, we are taking over protection duties for all the House Lords and gathering everyone back in the main hall until we can reexamine all personnel records and documentation we were supplied. ComStar is not about to let Holy Terra be used to kick off another Succession War.”
It was a very convincing series of statements the
thing probably didn’t believe. It couldn’t even if it wanted to. It was too…
twisted and
wrong inside.
Mina pulled on Emma’s shoulder, trying to draw her back further into the relative safety of the room. But her sister planted her feet and refused to be moved, turning her eyes back on her mother and obviously coiling to do something
really stupid.
“I see. This is not the end of the conversation,
adept, but if such is the case then lead on. I can
assure you the Magistracy shall extract suitable compensation from your organization for this breach of its word.” Kyalla said, chin cocking upwards and to the side so she could look back into the room and silently urge her daughter down.
Emma took a shaky step backwards. Despite the slight retreat, her shoulder was still tensed, moments from throwing a punch.
“Your daughters, Lady Centrella?”
Kyalla smirked, “As Commander Holly can tell you, the special circumstances of the marriage and the unique opportunities it provided had me encourage them both to venture out and…
personally…try to secure
better relationships between the Magistracy and other countries, adept. Because of the…
sensitivity…of the job, I trusted them to look after themselves except for one minder on my heir. I’m sure they’ll both show up in the main hall. Hopefully with a nice person or persons with them from one of the Successor States. I’m sure you understand.”
She could almost feel the awkward silence that emanated out of the hallway with those words. Awkward silence from everyone but the adept Kyalla was speaking directly to.
“Very well, Magestrix. If you would accompany my associates, they will direct you and yours to the main hall.”
Mina managed to drag Emma back another pair of steps as their mother disappeared from view in the doorway. The process began, she grabbed hold of her sister with another hand and pulled her to the side into the small closet cut into the wall. It wasn’t much as far as cover went, but beds would require they drop onto their stomachs. It was
really difficult to wind up a punch or kick from lying down prone on her chest.
Moving slowly to ensure the door’s hinges didn’t squeak, Mina pulled the door of the closet closed in front of them.
She managed not a moment too soon. The sounds of the crowd in the hallway began to recede, but there was still a
presence just outside the room. Mina wasn’t sure if it was the sound of footsteps she made out, the subtle croak and shift of floorboards underneath her that shifted with its movement, or something else entirely, but whatever the case she could feel the
thing slowly stalk its way into the room.
Mina silently handed-off the computer to her sister, taking the chance to withdraw the whip from her side and force Emma to the very edge of the small space.
This time the threat would have to get through her first!
The
thing approached slowly, and Mina had an instant’s temptation to try and burst out and surprise it as it passed the closet by. Perhaps she should have. But after walking past the closet it performed a small circuit of the room, poking into the kitchen, stepping out on the balcony, and then coming back in.
By the sounds it was making, it seemed to repeat the move a couple of times. It would move into the kitchen, come back, step onto the patio, and then repeat the circuit in reverse.
She couldn’t help but wonder if it was looking underneath the beds.
The closet was already beginning to get stuffy and awkward. She was mostly alright, except for a awkwardly-placed coat hangar that insisted on digging into her lower back no matter how she tried to slide it away. Emma was worse off, and had to keep awkwardly shifting her weight to properly breathe, pressed as she was into the corner where racks of coats got in her way.
Neither one of them could risk the noise it would make trying to scoot into more comfortable positions now, though. They just had to wait for the
thing outside to leave the room.
As if it were spurred on by the thought, the floorboards creaked once again as it started back from the kitchen towards the hallway. Holding her breath, Mina brought one foot as far back as she could and curled the handle of the whip to the side so she would have an unobstructed swing at the door.
She was thankful she had when the knob began to twist.
Bringing a leg forward, Mina slammed her heel into the door and sent it flying open. The robed
thing in the shape of a ComStar adept on the other side didn’t look overly surprised. It’s right arm wrenched at an angle that was physically uncomfortable just to look at, the only reaction it had to her was a cock of its head.
Driving the butt of her whip and the side of her fist into the corner of that
inhuman head a moment later was satisfying in a way she wasn’t sure it was supposed to be. But she wasn’t going to let it have Emma.
The monster staggered backwards a few steps until it hit the wall. A human would have been stunned or outright unconscious—she’d punched-out a fair share of pirates, vagabonds and tramps in two-and-a-half centuries protecting the Magistracy. But the monster before her was only human in shape, and was charging back towards her in an instant.
“Emma, run.” Mina managed to growl, just before stepping forward to meet the monster’s attack with her own.
The adept-shaped monster didn’t avoid her strike. She drove the densely-cored pommel of the whip into the edge of his neck, feeling something underneath shift and then
crack. But it had little effect, and she was struck full-force by the thing’s charge.
She was forced to buckle her knees to keep herself from sliding backwards. Not quite having enough motion in her right arm to strike again with the whip thanks to the monster wrapping one arm over her elbow, she instead drove her left into its stomach a half-dozen times in rapid succession.
The thing countered with its own series of clumsy but powerful strikes into her midsection, and the fight devolved into an almost-alternating exchange of blows between them. It was painful, and she
knew that if she were brave enough to face what taking hold of the pen would bring her it would be over more quickly. But she still found herself satisfied. The monster might have inhuman endurance, but she’d bank on her own coming out in the end.
Even if it didn’t, she was buying more time for Emma to get clear.
“Enough.”
The word came as a surprise from the creature. The way it took hold of her and then
bit into her left shoulder came as an even bigger one.
Mina screamed, forced to stop her own punches as a streak of pain shot through her entire side. It only worsened as the thing before her rippled and shook, shuddering as the robes it was in and the skin underneath them both began to split open to reveal a red-and-black mass in only vaguely human shape underneath. The head bulged, and horns began to extend themselves around its crown. The arms seemed to almost burst into new shape, impossibly large for a human. Inside of her shoulder, Mina could feel the monster’s teeth elongate and
twist.
A stuttering series of gunshots pounded into her ears. On the monster’s rear, furthest from her, a small line of wounds burst into being, leaking the black ooze that served the thing for blood.
Mina didn’t waste time looking for the origin of the shots. Fighting through the pain, she curled both her arms over the surprised monster’s and grabbed onto opposite sides of its still-growing mouth. While it was still partially-dazed, she dug her nails into thick, leather-like skin, and forced the creature’s mouth to slowly creak open. She accompanied a sigh of relief at removing the teeth with an energetic knee into the monster’s side, sending it into the air, through the closet-door at their side, and halfway to the balcony exit before it finally crashed onto the room’s floor.
Free of the thing, Mina stepped away from the closet and back towards the door. Her eyes took a moment to drag away from the monster, though, morbidly fascinated by the way it seemed to be trapped midway between the shape of a human and a much larger, blood-red colored beast that was its more typical form. As she drew even with an auto-pistol in a surprisingly dainty pair of hands, it resumed its blasting, making her wince as the noise of the gunshots seemed to bore into and then
through the side of her skull.
She wasn’t overly surprised to find her sister standing behind the New Earth noblewoman from the night before at the doorway.
Lorinette Kalkenny looked only a little more threatening with a gun in her hand and in flat-black slacks-and-jacket than she had the previous evening unarmed and in fancy dress. But she was still undeniably attractive. More attractive than anything was the auto-pistol in her hand and her willingness to use it.
“This is where you come in with your bullshit!” Lorinette growled, punctuating the words with another series of shots, “That thing isn’t going to stay down long from just this!”
Mina frowned, then realized exactly what the woman was referencing.
“I uh…I don’t have it on me at the moment!” She said, almost having to yell the words over the bursting gunfire.
Lorinette turned her head, eyes dropping into a thin-slitted rage that probably made it difficult to even
see let alone
shoot. Even without using the sights her next series of shots managed to hit the half-beast still writhing on the floor, inhuman screams almost deafened by the ringing in her ears from the sound of the pistol.
“You should go get it then.” The woman said flatly, before beginning to back up and shooing Mina through the door. “Right. Now.”
With Emma right there, Mina couldn’t object to the idea, much as she didn’t want to think about the
transformation pen. Grabbing onto her sister’s hand, she almost dragged her up the hallway back towards her own room and
away from the monster she’d been fighting. It was a good first step. Once she got there was when the more difficult part would start.
“Mina…Mina what the hell
was that?”
Mina glanced behind her, looking past the visibly-shaken but visibly getting-a-grip-on-herself Emma to the pistol-wielding blonde behind her. Lorinette was just getting into the hallway as the pistol locked-back in visual display it was empty.
It wasn’t a bad question, though it was kind of a bad time for it.
“That was a ‘youma’. Or ‘monster’. Whichever you prefer. They eat people. Then pretend to be people so they can eat more people.” Mina explained.
“What?”
“Yeah, that’s about the proper reaction.” Mina growled as she pounded open the door to her room and sprinted into it.
She almost dived onto the bed, swiping up the pen at its foot in one hand and then rolling off of the mattress in a single motion. The move was only partially complicated by her sister still getting dragged along behind her throughout it. It was a minor miracle they both landed on their feet and steady.
Mina raised the pen over her head.
Protected by Venus, the planet of beauty, Guardian of Love, I am Sailor Venus!
“Venus Crystal Power, Make-up!”
Nothing happened.
“What?” Emma asked again, staring.
There were gunshots in the hallway.
She
refused to let her sister be hurt. Not by that
thing. Not by
anything.
Mina squashed the urge to panic the lack of
change and chased through memories only starting to fully come back to her for an explanation. It took a surprisingly long amount of time from where she was, though Emma still staring at her in uncomprehending shock assured her that was a trick of her own mind more than reality.
The explanation struck her as she heard Lorinette scream, her body thrown past the doorway.
Mina tried again as the red-skinned monster entered the room, now standing so tall it had to burst through the doorway and hunch-over to keep from scraping the ceiling with every step it took. Now that she remembered just how
limited the ancient pen in her hand was she knew it would work. She couldn’t ask so much of it—or herself—just yet. If she did she was more likely to break it. Or, worse, lose control of the power it gave her.
And if it didn’t work again, she’d just have to beat the damned thing to death herself without any magic!
“
Venus Power, Make-up!”
This time she had just enough time to see the pen flare with a light from within before she felt the
change.
She was no longer in a room with her sister and the beast, no longer trapped within the confines of man-made structures at all. She was flying—
floating—through an endless stream of
stars that curled around her in the glowing welcome of family. From each and every one of them there radiated a blooming warmth that shot through her, curling and embracing in what she could only compare to a wandering hug that traveled from her extremities inward.
Mina extended the pen above her head, dipping into the endless bound of Love the stars obscured and letting it draw out what was necessary from it.
Just like that, she was back in the room. The
youma was growling out something that might or might-not have been words. She was more concerned with the confused, uncomprehending stare coming from her sister.
This was going to be a challenge to explain.
Mina blinked, spots dancing in front of her eyes from where the light of the pen had struck them. The pen itself had disappeared, converted into another portion of the energy she’d needed to complete the ritual. It was a useful conversion. It left one hand free to use. Not that she would probably
need it for the joke she was facing.
Mina jumped towards the monster, twisting her shoulders into the flying side-kick she aimed squarely at its bulging neck. It had just enough time to try and swipe at her with one of its clawed arms, but missed as it underestimated just how quickly she’d cover the distance.
The creature’s snarling growls morphed into pained howls as it was launched into a dresser and then through wall it was set against. Destroyed drawers and pieces of pressed-wood exploded outwards, followed by a light dusting of plaster and poufy bits of insulation. Mina wasted no time and ducked through the new hole in the wall into the next room over…And then repeated the process when she found the creature had kept going through the next room.
“
You are not supposed to be here.” The beast growled, shoving its way back onto its massive feet and scraping splinters and dust off of its face.
“Oh? And who told you that?”
Instead of answering, the monster bull-rushed towards her, extending its arms to the side and splaying its claws out to catch her if she tried to dodge. But she didn’t want to. No more messing around. It was time to take the bull by the throat and run with it!
Letting the whip in her left hand unfurl, Mina flicked her wrist upwards and sent it into the air in front of her. The thong snapped around the beast’s neck, swirling dangerously before snapping tight. Taking a tight hold of the handle, Mina threw herself forward between the beast’s legs and jerked the whip forwards and upwards as she emerged behind it.
Exposing a back to an enemy was never a good idea. In this instance she could excuse it only because it let her lay the bastard out with a minimum amount of fuss. The floor itself rattled as behind her the beast slammed down into it face-first.
Mina turned around, closed the distance, and slammed her heel into the center of the youma’s back. Combined with pulling the whip taught, she kept it shoved into the splinter-strewn carpet below. A half-dozen different ways of using the excess thong of the whip to further restrict the beast’s movement ran through her mind, but she was confident enough in her control as it was.
Now call me Queen!
“I asked a question.” Mina said instead, painfully aware of how awkward it was to fight down a blush in the immediate aftermath of an actual fight.
The red-skinned monster writhed underneath her, twisting its head around so it could stare up with one of its beady, black eyes. It offered her a smirk that exposed a fang-studded mouth before twisting one of its arms around to swipe at her more exposed leg with its claws.
Mina easily sidestepped the blind swipe. She would have preferred interrogating it further, but there was only so much she could try and she refused to risk it getting loose long enough to harm her sister. No more.
Swinging herself off the monster’s back and bringing both hands onto the handle of the whip, Mina threw her full body into another
jerk that pulled the beast into the air behind her. With careful timing of another wrist-flick, she let the whip loosen from around the youma’s neck. It screamed as it went flying, burst through
another wall, crashed over the steel railing on the balcony, and spun into the open air beyond.
It didn’t take long to retrace the course of the fight back to her own room. Emma was still there, peeking through the hole in the wall, mouth half-open and eyes wildly tracking every errant noise and every scrap of wood or plaster that dropped to the ground from the broken walls. At some point during the fight Lorinette had joined her in the room. Leaning up against the far wall favoring her right side, the blonde woman held a rag up to a cut across her head with one hand while the other was still wrapped around the auto-pistol she’d entered the fray with.
“Huh. That magic bullshit really does armor you
all up in a blouse-and-mini? I would’ve sworn Mariah was lying and it was just her own weird eccentricities coming through.” The blonde growled, letting her pistol-hand drop to her side.
Mina stared as she slowly unpacked everything the comment suggested. She’d already suspected Lorinette of knowing more than she let-on ever since she’d given her the pen in the first place. Her showing up minutes before only reinforced that. But she had
seen a transformation before?
Who was Mariah?
“You two know each other? Who are
you, and what did you do with Mina?” Emma spoke up, shaking out of her shock and stepping back into a lower stance that left her equally open to fight as to flee.
It had been
so long since Mina had last faced that question—and even longer since she’d last been able to answer it truthfully. At the same time, she would prefer not to risk the easiest and most thorough way of answering. She was pretty sure the pen would rematerialize when she abandoned the energy of Sailor Venus, but she wasn’t
sure it would. Until Emma and her mother were safe, she wasn’t going to risk it.
“Em, this is Lorinette Kalkenny, she’s—“
“Lori Kalmar, your Grace…I work for a portion of ComStar that
doesn’t want anyone getting eaten by big red bastards.” The woman explained, very obviously being careful with her words. “This is ‘Sailor Venus’. She’s a centuries-old ‘Guardian of the Star League’ that the Magistracy has been sheltering. It’s a very long story that we can discuss while we move.”
Mina didn’t have a chance to challenge the woman on any of that before her sister’s eyes turned to her. She could almost
see the question behind them. The one that had appeared when she’d called her ‘Em’.
“I
am Mina.” She admitted.
Emma Centrella didn’t
quite faint. But her knees buckled and she wobbled much more than a person should after a simple introduction.
“What? But how—“
“It’s a very long story.”
Lorinette—Lori, rather—shoved herself off the wall, “And not one we can afford to stand around for you to explain. I hate to cut the twenty questions short because
believe me Lady Centrella, I can sympathize with how you’re feeling. But we
really need to get moving, link up with a few friends of mine. You can ask on the way.”
“She’s mostly right.” Mina agreed, stepping closer to her sister and relieved when the woman winced but didn’t move away from the hand she put on her shoulder, “We need to rescue mom—the Magestrix.”
Lori started slightly at that and winced, “Not…Quite what we had in mind.”
“It’s what
I had in mind, though.” Mina pivoted on the back of one heel and brought her head down slightly so she could stare up at the woman through her brows, “We save the Magestrix, or I don’t come with you.”
It was a height of selfish arrogance she hadn’t extended herself to for centuries. She didn’t care. She was
curious which of the others had survived and apparently set this up. But it wasn’t the all-consuming drive she knew it probably should be. She had a lifetime of memories slowly coming back to her of Kyalla Centrella and her mother, and her grandmother, for generations. ‘Mariah’, whichever of them it was, would understand…
“We’ll see.” Was all the woman said, turning away and speaking into a portable radio of her own.
Mina didn’t even have enough time to offer an apology or partial explanation to Em before Lori spat a string of curses out underneath her breath.
“Problems?” Emma asked, sounding like she was testing out her voice for the first time.
“Comms are jammed.” The blonde sighed, and bit one side of her lips for a moment.
Mina resisted the temptation to say ‘I could have told you that’.
“I could have told you that.” She said after managing to resist for a
whole second. “I lost a datanet connection to the Magistracy’s dropship just a little while ago.”
Lori acknowledged the words with a nod, but her eyes remained unfocused as she thought.
“The top floor is supposed to be some kind of communications center.” Emma offered, glancing between them. “If we got to it you could talk to your people and Mina could call for…reinforcements.”
By the way Emma emphasized the last word and flashed the Nirasaki computer she still had in her hands, Mina immediately knew what she was talking about. It wasn’t a bad idea, either.
“Could work. Could get us killed.” Lori snapped, though the words lacked any real fire. “It’s better than staying here, I guess. Come on. We can iron out the rest on the way.”
The rush
back to the elevators was surreal after the evening Mina already had. Emma took the opportunity to probe both of them with questions—one of her first an attempt at spycraft trying to reveal Mina as a fraud by mistaking what they’d done for her eighteenth birthday. It was actually rather well-done by the girl. Unnecessary, but well done.
“They’ll be able to track us on security cameras if we take the elevator itself.” Lori explained as they reached the doors and she set to prying them open. She managed to pull them apart and stuck her head in to look up the shaft. “We’ll have to climb.”
“I’ll go first.” Mina said, stepping forward.
Lori raised one finger in quiet objection, “Maybe second?”
Emma was more final, “Third. Definitely third.”
Mina was about to demand why when the identical stare both had fixed on her skirt answered the question.
Prudes.