Sparkly Soldier Yuki: For the Future (Story)
By
Sparkly Soldier,
Posted on: 2012-09-23 14:22 in Roleplaying
Sparkly Soldier Yuki:
For the Future
Prologue
"Cut the tough-guy act, Tony. You want her dead as much as I do. You'd pay twice what I'm offering you just for the chance. Consider this your excuse to make her a target."
"Yeah, and maybe this is my excuse to make YOU a target!"
Big Tony didn't become a made man with the Marcone family by letting some digitally altered voice over an unlisted phone line tell him what to do. Then again, he also didn't become an underboss by letting his pride get in the way of a golden opportunity. He took off his fedora, shaking his head a little at his lieutenant as they paced back and forth along the sunset docks, running his fingers through a thinning snatch of dark hair and then lifting the cell phone to his ear again. The truth is, he would pay everything this client's offering and more, just for a chance to take down the biggest headache the Family's dealt with since Manuel went up the river. And this wasn't some crank call: the down payment sitting in his bank account's proof of that. So if he could take care of her and actually get paid for the opportunity, all the better.
"How many Superadine shipments have you lost because of her," that crackling, digitized voice continued on the phone, "she's nearly cleaned out the Family in Steel Canyon, and really, how much longer can your boys keep hiding out on Striga? I'm giving you an opportunity to finally deal with this problem, make some money along the way and get Emil Marcone's attention doing it. You move up the ladder, and we're both free of her meddling. What do you say?"
"You know what," Tony muttered as he shook his fedora and flipped it back across his balding head, "I say what the hell, let's go for it. But I want to know one thing first. You seem to know all about our beef with her. What's yours? What are you getting out of this?"
"I have plans for the future," the voice answered, "and she's not a part of them."
"Now, I'm not saying this guy at Microsoft sees gamers as a bunch of rats in a Skinner box. I'm just saying that he illustrates his theory of game design using pictures of rats in a Skinner box."
Part 1
"I was expecting more of a fight," Yuki growled, hardly sparing a breath to swing another glowing white fist at the last of the guards. The black-clad Galaxy soldier went flying across the warehouse and slammed across a stack of crates, sinking unconscious beneath the tumbling avalanche of wooden boxes and palettes. The loading dock echoed with the clattering impact and faded into silence again, save for the stealthily pacing footsteps of the older woman striding fearlessly among the dangling chains and steel beams. Her bright red hair fluttered beneath the ventilation fans, eyes clouded with swirling darkness fixing their smirking gaze on the slight teenage girl standing before her, still dressed in her navy-blue school uniform.
"What can I say," the woman said with a soft, predatory smile, "they're only human."
"Not like you, huh?"
"You've done your homework, Yukiko," the woman answered with a light curious tilt of her head, glaring yellow lights casting the black skull painted across her pallid face into starker relief, her dark leather bodysuit with its flared collar, her cleavage bared by the deep V running down the length of her torso as her fists flexed and tightened in their black gloves.
"Oh, we know all about you, 'Sparkly Soldier.' You've made quite a name for yourself," she continued as she casually lifted her right hand toward the girl, "but I don't believe we've had the pleasure. My name is Arakhn. And you, hero, should... learn... your... place!"
Waves of shadow quivered through the warehouse, the air humming, the concrete ground throbbing and suddenly buckling into a shallow crater beneath the schoolgirl. Gravity reached out of the cement cracks like an invisible fist, tightening around her shoulders, wrenching her to her knees, then down to her elbows and shoulders, squeezing the sudden cry out of her lungs to leave only a choking, wheezing gasp of air. The villainess drew closer, the cold lavender glow of her eyes fading back into writhing shadows as she stood at the edge of the sinkhole, gazing down at the young heroine who hadn't even bothered to wear a costume to this fight.
"Did you really think you'd even last a second against me?"
"No," Yuki muttered, her voice hissing through teeth clenched more by the crushing gravity flooding the crater than her own fury, "but I was kind of curious."
She reached her right hand beneath her blazer, fumbling for a second as the Nictus watched curiously, and then suddenly drew a small, rectangular device, gleaming silver with a large motorized lens like some mad scientist's reinvention of the camera.
"Say cheese," Yuki snarled, and she clicked the shutter with a flash.
"What can I say," the woman said with a soft, predatory smile, "they're only human."
"Not like you, huh?"
"You've done your homework, Yukiko," the woman answered with a light curious tilt of her head, glaring yellow lights casting the black skull painted across her pallid face into starker relief, her dark leather bodysuit with its flared collar, her cleavage bared by the deep V running down the length of her torso as her fists flexed and tightened in their black gloves.
"Oh, we know all about you, 'Sparkly Soldier.' You've made quite a name for yourself," she continued as she casually lifted her right hand toward the girl, "but I don't believe we've had the pleasure. My name is Arakhn. And you, hero, should... learn... your... place!"
Waves of shadow quivered through the warehouse, the air humming, the concrete ground throbbing and suddenly buckling into a shallow crater beneath the schoolgirl. Gravity reached out of the cement cracks like an invisible fist, tightening around her shoulders, wrenching her to her knees, then down to her elbows and shoulders, squeezing the sudden cry out of her lungs to leave only a choking, wheezing gasp of air. The villainess drew closer, the cold lavender glow of her eyes fading back into writhing shadows as she stood at the edge of the sinkhole, gazing down at the young heroine who hadn't even bothered to wear a costume to this fight.
"Did you really think you'd even last a second against me?"
"No," Yuki muttered, her voice hissing through teeth clenched more by the crushing gravity flooding the crater than her own fury, "but I was kind of curious."
She reached her right hand beneath her blazer, fumbling for a second as the Nictus watched curiously, and then suddenly drew a small, rectangular device, gleaming silver with a large motorized lens like some mad scientist's reinvention of the camera.
"Say cheese," Yuki snarled, and she clicked the shutter with a flash.
* * *
"But you're a cat," Yuki sighed at the doorway of her bedroom, staring with blank, almost resigned confusion at the small plushy grey cat wearing a headset and typing cheerfully away on her computer, flipping quickly between a screenful of stock options, an online market and a swashbuckling fantasy game with quick clicks of the mouse between her paws.
"No, I'm a soldier stuck in the body of a toy cat," Mira answered back with a glance over her shoulder and then started typing faster again, "and it's not like anyone online knows about the toy cat part. You wouldn't believe how much money I've made this month alone, between the freelance programming, portfolio investments and Wentworth consignments..."
"Programming jobs? You're a programmer?"
"I've been hacking Nictus security networks since I was 10," Mira shrugged, "and they're mostly based on computer languages today, so it's not that hard to figure things out. Anyway, we're off to a pretty good start on your college fund. Now Yukiko, if we can just do something about your homework grades. I know you're fighting crime, but you still need to..."
Yuki dropped her bookbag and flopping across the bedsheets, the mattress creaking as the young girl looked blankly up at the ceiling for a moment and then rolled silently onto her side to stare at her dresser mirror. A sad smile played at her lips as she looked at the notes and photos stuck along the frame, her dark eyes glittering with tears.
"Look," she murmured lightly, "it's Cerulean..."
A group of hardened Carnival of War soldiers stood gathered for a picture snapped in the abandoned transit tunnels of First Ward, their blue-robed leader somehow managing to look put out even with his face shadowed by a wide-brimmed wizard's hat as Yuki stood beside him, beaming at the camera and flashing a bunny ears sign over his head. And just beneath his picture, a piece of notebook paper scrawled with the final version of the battle speech Yuki had stayed up until nearly dawn coming up with, the very first night after she met Mira....
"An angel of heroic resolve," it read, "preserving the past and fighting for the future! Legendary radiant Sparkly Soldier Yuki! Protector of innocents!"
"He was so annoyed having to stop in the middle of everything for a picture," Yuki continued quietly to herself, "but he did, and he even called the rest of the troops back and made them gather around too. I was going to give him a copy when we left, and some extra pictures for everyone else too if they wanted them, so we'd all remember each other."
"Yuki," Mira began, putting down the headphones and turning away from the computer.
"I killed him, Mira."
"You saved him," her mentor sighed sadly, "he was corrupted by the Talons until you freed him. I know it's hard, but he thanked you for that, with his dying breath."
"It was his dying breath because I killed him," she muttered back, her voice small and absolutely devoid of emotion except for a slight tremble in her words.
"You saved Katie," Mira offered in a soft, uncertain voice.
"Saved her," Yuki scoffed bitterly, suddenly lifting herself upright to sit across the foot of the bed, "I plugged her into some computer, turned her into a zombie and left her there! I didn't save anybody, Mira. We might as well have never gone there at all."
"You kept things from getting worse for them."
"And kept things just as bad as they were before. That's all we've ever done, isn't it?"
"This," Mira sighed a little and shook her head as she hopped from the study desk onto the bed and sat down beside the young girl, "isn't just about First Ward, is it?"
"They're going to die," Yuki's voice a trembling whisper, her arms wrapping tighter around her chest to hold herself as she stared off into space, "my friends are going to die. All the people we've saved are going to die. And if Mom and Dad live long enough, they'll die too."
"You don't know that," Mira said sharply, "not everyone's going to die. I'm proof of that, and so are you. It's not the end. We'll still be fighting to make things right."
"WE'RE LOSING!"
The words came out in a hoarse, furious scream, loud enough to leave the bedroom window panes shuddering, the otherwise empty house ringing with Yuki's shout as Mira suddenly drew back from her student and nearly tumbled over the edge of the bed.
"That's why you came back! That's why you're here, because we're going to lose! And all we've been doing since then is making things happen the same way all over again!"
"I know, but we can't change the past. All we can do is..."
"Why not?"
"Huh?"
"I said why not," Yuki quickly asked.
"Dr. Solaris said the process only creates non-zero trajectories," Mira began slowly, trying to remember the right words herself, "so anything that happens in the past..."
"Forget all that," Yuki snapped, her voice quickening with each word, "did he try it? That's what makes it an experiment, isn't it, he didn't really know what'd happen. I've been making choices ever since you got here, so why can't I just choose something different?"
"Like what," Mira asked nervously.
"Like something I'd never have done the first time," Yuki replied, and she suddenly flung herself off the bed, springing to life in a purposeful scramble about her room.
"So the little girl's got some fight in her," Arakhn said softly as Yuki gripped the rim of the crater with her fingertips and suddenly fling herself free of the pulsing gravity field to flip through the air and alight on her sneakers across a catwalk behind the Nictus.
"You have no idea," Yuki growled, and she suddenly leaped over the railing, dark blazer fluttering around her shoulders, her pleated skirt whipping across her thighs as she aimed one open palm at the black-clad assassin and sent a quick flurry of white energy bolts crackling across the loading ramps. Arakhn somersaulted backward onto another one of the platforms hanging above the docking bay and watched as the schoolgirl slammed onto her feet again, her dark hair fluttering, glowing with white sparks, her dark uniform glowing with silently flashing waves of psionic energy. The Nictus couldn't help but smile a little with admiration.
"Perhaps you'll be of some use after all," she murmured with a malevolent purr as she leaped back down from the overhead railings, the dangling chains left rattling as she stalked toward Yuki, "once the fragment's in place, of course. But first things first..."
Arakhn lifted her right arm and flung her hand out toward the girl. And nothing happened.
"Huh," she muttered as she lifted her gloved palm curiously up to her face, and then shot her arm straight out again... just in time to have it snatched by the enraged schoolgirl leaping at her, twisted and yanked forward to flip the assassin across Yuki's shoulder, flinging her hard onto her back across the concrete floor. The older woman stared blindly up at the overhead lights for a moment, trying to clear a head unaccustomed to the ringing pain suddenly filling it, and then she caught the glowing white knuckles of Yuki's fist smashing across her face.
"Blood," Arakhn lifted her glove back from a nose and lip dripping red, staring down with dazed, ordinary blue eyes at the crimson streaks on her fingers with a mixture of shock and stomach-twisting fear, "what did you do to me... what did you do to me?!"
"You like pretending to be human," Yuki spat as she charged at the stunned woman, her glowing fist raised for another blow, "why don't you see how it really feels!"
"Sunstorm mentioned this device," Yuki glanced over her shoulder at Kip, flashing a nervous smile to the goateed engineer before turning around to look back through the window at the empty, hermetically sealed white laboratory on the other side, at the gleaming silver box perched on the corner of a workbench. The rest of the SERAPH office stood just as empty for the weekend as the lab, leaving only the young engineer sitting at his desk in the City Hall basement, filling out forms and darting between various status updates on each computer.
"What's it called," she asked.
"Well, technically it's classified, but with your FBSA clearance," the pony-tailed inventor fidgeted for a second and then suddenly darted over to the window beside her with a giddy impatience, "okay, right now we're calling it a quantum inhibitor, but that's a little misleading. It actually amplifies the quantum-level bond between a Kheldian and its human host. Check this out, it uses the Copenhagen equations to collapse the Kheldian probability wave into a classical state that's governed entirely by the host's own biochemical processes."
Kip suddenly noticed the look on the young heroine's face.
"Oh, sorry," he smiled wryly, "how much of that made sense?"
"Well," Yuki answered as she rubbed the back of her neck with her right hand, "the words 'it actually' were very clear. It's just the rest of it that's sort of fuzzy."
"You'll learn about the other stuff when you're older," he chuckled, "but the gist of it is that it completely suppresses a Kheldian's powers and reverts them to the same abilities as their human host. It only works for a few minutes, but with the right strategy that could be enough to bring even the most powerful Nictus into custody without a fight."
"It almost looks like a camera," she said curiously.
"That's because it kind of is," he replied, "it uses the observer effect to collapse the Kheldian's wave form, so part of the process is that, well, it takes pictures."
"Huh," Yuki murmured to herself, and then in a still softer voice, "I hope it doesn't hurt."
"Oh no, it's completely painless. They won't even know what happened."
"Not that," she shook her head with a sigh.
And she slammed her fist across the back of the engineer's head, knocking him forward against the shatterproof glass and sending him tumbling across the burgundy carpet.
"Fight back," Yuki screamed at the battered shape staggering backward across the loading ramp, and then sent its head twisting back across one shoulder with another hard blow, both her fists clutched together like a glowing white hammer, "I said fight back!"
"I can't," Arakhn gasped, catching herself against the steel railing behind her and spitting out a mouthful of blood before glaring back up at the charging heroine.
"Fight," Yuki snarled viciously, backhanding the assassin and sending her tumbling sideways to the ground again, her face paint misshapen with bruises, "back!"
"I CAN'T!"
Arakhn lifted herself atop her wobbly knees and elbows, gloved fingers curling, clawing at the ground, azure human eyes blazing furiously at the glowing, crackling shape of her opponent, all the defiance that'd been drained out of her limbs distilled into that glare.
"You sealed my powers, but you've kept all of yours. Would it help if I held up two little fists against your energy bolts? If I wagged my leg around to try to kick you away?"
"Shut up."
"Would that make it easier for you," Arakhn hissed at the approaching girl, "you couldn't defeat me, so you froze me inside this shell so you can beat her instead."
"Shut up!"
"And I'm not going to pantomime a useless fight just to ease your conscience about it!"
"I said," Yuki suddenly shouted, "shut up!"
And she swung her glowing fist furiously down into the woman's gut.
"Are you crazy," Mira shouted into her headset as she sat in front of the bedroom computer, the screen flashing with Yuki's cheerful face and cell phone number, "the FBSA is looking for you, they even called me trying to find you! They think you've been compromised, that maybe the Council's controlling you somehow. I'm not so sure they're wrong."
"You know what this is about," Yuki's voice answered flatly, "Arakhn's at an old warehouse in Independence Port right now. I don't know what the Council's planning there, but they must be trying to keep a low profile. She's only brought a few guards."
"I don't have a clue! You've attacked SERAPH, stolen their prototype weapon and now you're talking about Arakhn and her guards and... oh no," Mira breathed silently to herself, and then she began to speak again after a moment, her voice softer now, "Yuki, no, this isn't the way. Listen to me, we'll figure things out. Just come home first, okay?"
"We have to try to change things," Yuki's voice sounded numb, almost metallic through the internet phone connection, "I can't keep being myself. That's what messed everything up the first time, isn't it? I have to change the future, and you know Arakhn's part of it."
"We don't know that! We don't know if she had anything to do with the shadow storm!"
"But she's in the future," Yuki answered, "she's the one leading the Nictus."
"Seraphea's fought her before," Mira quietly admitted, and then she suddenly shook her head wildly, nearly knocking the headphones off her plushy ears, "but Seraphea wouldn't have done this! Yuki, listen to me! She's not like that... you're not like that!"
"I'm not Seraphea," Yuki said coldly, "and if Arakhn dies, maybe I never will be."
The click seemed to echo through the headphones, leaving Mira staring at the screen, blue marble eyes alive with panicked worry as she tried to call Yuki back, then again, then a third and fourth call. No answer, probably not even a ring on the other side since she'd almost surely flipped the phone off. Mira tapped a paw against the desk, fidgeted helplessly with the headset for a moment, and then took a deep breath and began to type wildly on the computer.
"But you're a cat," Yuki sighed at the doorway of her bedroom, staring with blank, almost resigned confusion at the small plushy grey cat wearing a headset and typing cheerfully away on her computer, flipping quickly between a screenful of stock options, an online market and a swashbuckling fantasy game with quick clicks of the mouse between her paws.
"No, I'm a soldier stuck in the body of a toy cat," Mira answered back with a glance over her shoulder and then started typing faster again, "and it's not like anyone online knows about the toy cat part. You wouldn't believe how much money I've made this month alone, between the freelance programming, portfolio investments and Wentworth consignments..."
"Programming jobs? You're a programmer?"
"I've been hacking Nictus security networks since I was 10," Mira shrugged, "and they're mostly based on computer languages today, so it's not that hard to figure things out. Anyway, we're off to a pretty good start on your college fund. Now Yukiko, if we can just do something about your homework grades. I know you're fighting crime, but you still need to..."
Yuki dropped her bookbag and flopping across the bedsheets, the mattress creaking as the young girl looked blankly up at the ceiling for a moment and then rolled silently onto her side to stare at her dresser mirror. A sad smile played at her lips as she looked at the notes and photos stuck along the frame, her dark eyes glittering with tears.
"Look," she murmured lightly, "it's Cerulean..."
A group of hardened Carnival of War soldiers stood gathered for a picture snapped in the abandoned transit tunnels of First Ward, their blue-robed leader somehow managing to look put out even with his face shadowed by a wide-brimmed wizard's hat as Yuki stood beside him, beaming at the camera and flashing a bunny ears sign over his head. And just beneath his picture, a piece of notebook paper scrawled with the final version of the battle speech Yuki had stayed up until nearly dawn coming up with, the very first night after she met Mira....
"An angel of heroic resolve," it read, "preserving the past and fighting for the future! Legendary radiant Sparkly Soldier Yuki! Protector of innocents!"
"He was so annoyed having to stop in the middle of everything for a picture," Yuki continued quietly to herself, "but he did, and he even called the rest of the troops back and made them gather around too. I was going to give him a copy when we left, and some extra pictures for everyone else too if they wanted them, so we'd all remember each other."
"Yuki," Mira began, putting down the headphones and turning away from the computer.
"I killed him, Mira."
"You saved him," her mentor sighed sadly, "he was corrupted by the Talons until you freed him. I know it's hard, but he thanked you for that, with his dying breath."
"It was his dying breath because I killed him," she muttered back, her voice small and absolutely devoid of emotion except for a slight tremble in her words.
"You saved Katie," Mira offered in a soft, uncertain voice.
"Saved her," Yuki scoffed bitterly, suddenly lifting herself upright to sit across the foot of the bed, "I plugged her into some computer, turned her into a zombie and left her there! I didn't save anybody, Mira. We might as well have never gone there at all."
"You kept things from getting worse for them."
"And kept things just as bad as they were before. That's all we've ever done, isn't it?"
"This," Mira sighed a little and shook her head as she hopped from the study desk onto the bed and sat down beside the young girl, "isn't just about First Ward, is it?"
"They're going to die," Yuki's voice a trembling whisper, her arms wrapping tighter around her chest to hold herself as she stared off into space, "my friends are going to die. All the people we've saved are going to die. And if Mom and Dad live long enough, they'll die too."
"You don't know that," Mira said sharply, "not everyone's going to die. I'm proof of that, and so are you. It's not the end. We'll still be fighting to make things right."
"WE'RE LOSING!"
The words came out in a hoarse, furious scream, loud enough to leave the bedroom window panes shuddering, the otherwise empty house ringing with Yuki's shout as Mira suddenly drew back from her student and nearly tumbled over the edge of the bed.
"That's why you came back! That's why you're here, because we're going to lose! And all we've been doing since then is making things happen the same way all over again!"
"I know, but we can't change the past. All we can do is..."
"Why not?"
"Huh?"
"I said why not," Yuki quickly asked.
"Dr. Solaris said the process only creates non-zero trajectories," Mira began slowly, trying to remember the right words herself, "so anything that happens in the past..."
"Forget all that," Yuki snapped, her voice quickening with each word, "did he try it? That's what makes it an experiment, isn't it, he didn't really know what'd happen. I've been making choices ever since you got here, so why can't I just choose something different?"
"Like what," Mira asked nervously.
"Like something I'd never have done the first time," Yuki replied, and she suddenly flung herself off the bed, springing to life in a purposeful scramble about her room.
* * *
"So the little girl's got some fight in her," Arakhn said softly as Yuki gripped the rim of the crater with her fingertips and suddenly fling herself free of the pulsing gravity field to flip through the air and alight on her sneakers across a catwalk behind the Nictus.
"You have no idea," Yuki growled, and she suddenly leaped over the railing, dark blazer fluttering around her shoulders, her pleated skirt whipping across her thighs as she aimed one open palm at the black-clad assassin and sent a quick flurry of white energy bolts crackling across the loading ramps. Arakhn somersaulted backward onto another one of the platforms hanging above the docking bay and watched as the schoolgirl slammed onto her feet again, her dark hair fluttering, glowing with white sparks, her dark uniform glowing with silently flashing waves of psionic energy. The Nictus couldn't help but smile a little with admiration.
"Perhaps you'll be of some use after all," she murmured with a malevolent purr as she leaped back down from the overhead railings, the dangling chains left rattling as she stalked toward Yuki, "once the fragment's in place, of course. But first things first..."
Arakhn lifted her right arm and flung her hand out toward the girl. And nothing happened.
"Huh," she muttered as she lifted her gloved palm curiously up to her face, and then shot her arm straight out again... just in time to have it snatched by the enraged schoolgirl leaping at her, twisted and yanked forward to flip the assassin across Yuki's shoulder, flinging her hard onto her back across the concrete floor. The older woman stared blindly up at the overhead lights for a moment, trying to clear a head unaccustomed to the ringing pain suddenly filling it, and then she caught the glowing white knuckles of Yuki's fist smashing across her face.
"Blood," Arakhn lifted her glove back from a nose and lip dripping red, staring down with dazed, ordinary blue eyes at the crimson streaks on her fingers with a mixture of shock and stomach-twisting fear, "what did you do to me... what did you do to me?!"
"You like pretending to be human," Yuki spat as she charged at the stunned woman, her glowing fist raised for another blow, "why don't you see how it really feels!"
* * *
"Sunstorm mentioned this device," Yuki glanced over her shoulder at Kip, flashing a nervous smile to the goateed engineer before turning around to look back through the window at the empty, hermetically sealed white laboratory on the other side, at the gleaming silver box perched on the corner of a workbench. The rest of the SERAPH office stood just as empty for the weekend as the lab, leaving only the young engineer sitting at his desk in the City Hall basement, filling out forms and darting between various status updates on each computer.
"What's it called," she asked.
"Well, technically it's classified, but with your FBSA clearance," the pony-tailed inventor fidgeted for a second and then suddenly darted over to the window beside her with a giddy impatience, "okay, right now we're calling it a quantum inhibitor, but that's a little misleading. It actually amplifies the quantum-level bond between a Kheldian and its human host. Check this out, it uses the Copenhagen equations to collapse the Kheldian probability wave into a classical state that's governed entirely by the host's own biochemical processes."
Kip suddenly noticed the look on the young heroine's face.
"Oh, sorry," he smiled wryly, "how much of that made sense?"
"Well," Yuki answered as she rubbed the back of her neck with her right hand, "the words 'it actually' were very clear. It's just the rest of it that's sort of fuzzy."
"You'll learn about the other stuff when you're older," he chuckled, "but the gist of it is that it completely suppresses a Kheldian's powers and reverts them to the same abilities as their human host. It only works for a few minutes, but with the right strategy that could be enough to bring even the most powerful Nictus into custody without a fight."
"It almost looks like a camera," she said curiously.
"That's because it kind of is," he replied, "it uses the observer effect to collapse the Kheldian's wave form, so part of the process is that, well, it takes pictures."
"Huh," Yuki murmured to herself, and then in a still softer voice, "I hope it doesn't hurt."
"Oh no, it's completely painless. They won't even know what happened."
"Not that," she shook her head with a sigh.
And she slammed her fist across the back of the engineer's head, knocking him forward against the shatterproof glass and sending him tumbling across the burgundy carpet.
* * *
"Fight back," Yuki screamed at the battered shape staggering backward across the loading ramp, and then sent its head twisting back across one shoulder with another hard blow, both her fists clutched together like a glowing white hammer, "I said fight back!"
"I can't," Arakhn gasped, catching herself against the steel railing behind her and spitting out a mouthful of blood before glaring back up at the charging heroine.
"Fight," Yuki snarled viciously, backhanding the assassin and sending her tumbling sideways to the ground again, her face paint misshapen with bruises, "back!"
"I CAN'T!"
Arakhn lifted herself atop her wobbly knees and elbows, gloved fingers curling, clawing at the ground, azure human eyes blazing furiously at the glowing, crackling shape of her opponent, all the defiance that'd been drained out of her limbs distilled into that glare.
"You sealed my powers, but you've kept all of yours. Would it help if I held up two little fists against your energy bolts? If I wagged my leg around to try to kick you away?"
"Shut up."
"Would that make it easier for you," Arakhn hissed at the approaching girl, "you couldn't defeat me, so you froze me inside this shell so you can beat her instead."
"Shut up!"
"And I'm not going to pantomime a useless fight just to ease your conscience about it!"
"I said," Yuki suddenly shouted, "shut up!"
And she swung her glowing fist furiously down into the woman's gut.
* * *
"Are you crazy," Mira shouted into her headset as she sat in front of the bedroom computer, the screen flashing with Yuki's cheerful face and cell phone number, "the FBSA is looking for you, they even called me trying to find you! They think you've been compromised, that maybe the Council's controlling you somehow. I'm not so sure they're wrong."
"You know what this is about," Yuki's voice answered flatly, "Arakhn's at an old warehouse in Independence Port right now. I don't know what the Council's planning there, but they must be trying to keep a low profile. She's only brought a few guards."
"I don't have a clue! You've attacked SERAPH, stolen their prototype weapon and now you're talking about Arakhn and her guards and... oh no," Mira breathed silently to herself, and then she began to speak again after a moment, her voice softer now, "Yuki, no, this isn't the way. Listen to me, we'll figure things out. Just come home first, okay?"
"We have to try to change things," Yuki's voice sounded numb, almost metallic through the internet phone connection, "I can't keep being myself. That's what messed everything up the first time, isn't it? I have to change the future, and you know Arakhn's part of it."
"We don't know that! We don't know if she had anything to do with the shadow storm!"
"But she's in the future," Yuki answered, "she's the one leading the Nictus."
"Seraphea's fought her before," Mira quietly admitted, and then she suddenly shook her head wildly, nearly knocking the headphones off her plushy ears, "but Seraphea wouldn't have done this! Yuki, listen to me! She's not like that... you're not like that!"
"I'm not Seraphea," Yuki said coldly, "and if Arakhn dies, maybe I never will be."
The click seemed to echo through the headphones, leaving Mira staring at the screen, blue marble eyes alive with panicked worry as she tried to call Yuki back, then again, then a third and fourth call. No answer, probably not even a ring on the other side since she'd almost surely flipped the phone off. Mira tapped a paw against the desk, fidgeted helplessly with the headset for a moment, and then took a deep breath and began to type wildly on the computer.
"Now, I'm not saying this guy at Microsoft sees gamers as a bunch of rats in a Skinner box. I'm just saying that he illustrates his theory of game design using pictures of rats in a Skinner box."
Part 2
"Bet you regret coming to Earth now," Yuki said in a hollow voice that somehow sounded more defeated than the woman doubled over on the floor a few feet away, her right palm lifted toward her enemy with a cold, steadily building white glow, "huh, Nictus?"
Most of Arakhn's face paint had dribbled away into streaks of sweat and blood, leaving only the battered face of a beautiful red-haired woman who might have just been finishing college this year, her blue eyes burning with righteous fury between dizzying waves of pain.
"You think I regret it," she laughed bitterly through bloodied teeth, "look at you!
"What do you hope to gain," Arakhn snarled up from the ground, still clutching her stomach with one arm, "another badge for your collection, your name in the papers, some extra autographs to sign? So you can tell your friends how you beat the evil Nictus?
"I've fought to save my kind from extinction," she rasped through a sudden, gurgling coughing fit, "I've spent every minute of a hundred centuries raging against that nightmare, trying to save billions of lives. How does that weigh against all your trophies and medals?
"I've been fighting for the future, hero... what are you fighting for?"
Yuki had already dropped her arm, the electric white glow fading from her palm and gradually subsiding from the rest of her body, leaving an ordinary teenage girl standing above the young woman, her expression riddled with confusion, sympathy and wrenching guilt.
"But that," Yuki began in a soft, broken voice, "that's why I'm..."
A clatter of tommy-gun bullets suddenly cut off her words, sparks raining down from the dangling chains and bolted steel beams adorning the loading dock, the rusted warehouse doors kicked in to let crimson sunlight and ominous silhouettes slant through the dusty air. A half-dozen men in pressed business suits stood on every side, machine guns aimed at the pair.
"Big Tony sends his regards," their brawny leader quipped in a thick Brooklyn accent, and then he motioned to the rest of the men, "alright boys, take her down!"
Bullets sliced through the air as Yuki lifted up and swung around towards the mafia thugs, both her arms raised to fling out a translucent blue shell of energy around herself and the silently watching Nictus. The bullets pounded against the shell, tumbling harmlessly away to the floor, and another burst of energy swept through her school uniform and enveloped her.
"You want some too," the young girl growled, her body suddenly glowing, her clothes rippling with crackling white sparks of energy, "then come on!"
"Oh isn't that cute," the purple-clad hitman rolled his eyes to his underlings, "the kid thinks we're after her. Everybody ignore the half-pint, I want Arakhn in a casket!"
The words hardly had time to finish crossing the thug's lips before the woman collapsed on the floor had suddenly leapt up into a quick, feral sprint, charging their leader and grabbing him by the shoulders to knock him out with a headbutt. She snatched his gun away in another instant, leaping up and twisting around in a roundhouse kick that sent another one of the Marcone gunners tumbling over the railing as she landed on her feet with a swaying groan.
Arakhn aimed the gun in one white-knuckled fist over her right shoulder, a single icy blue eye meeting the rest of the men before she pulled the trigger. The bullets rattled across the stairs and steel catwalks in a clinking shower of sparks, sending the team of assassins ducking and scattering about the crates and pillars. Their own rattling bursts of gunfire streaked through the air, one of them piercing the back of Arakhn's right palm, the young woman giving a sharp cry and flinging the smoking handle of her own gun aside as she caught the railing behind her with her left hand and gave a lithe, acrobatic flip away from the clattering bullets.
"But she," Yuki stood forgotten by everyone amid the chaos engulfing the warehouse, murmuring her bewildered thoughts aloud, "she told me she couldn't fight back..."
The Council assassin scrambled across the room and snatched one of the hooked chains dangling nearby, bracing her weight against, twisting and flinging it with all her ebbing strength to slam and rattle across one of the walkways, sending the gunner who'd been peppering the floor all around her with machine-gun fire darting for cover. Another bullet sliced her right calf, sending her tumbling onto one knee with a fierce animal cry, glaring up at the thugs standing above her on the catwalks... and finding the sight of them obscured by a pulsing blue energy shell.
"Stay down," Yuki muttered softly, one arm still raised to keep the force field lifted around them both as she looked over at the woman, and then she turned her stare back up to the rest of the criminals, "if you guys don't want a fight, just leave right now!"
"And what," Arakhn hissed, "do you think you're doing?"
"The only reason they're a threat to you is because of me," she answered amid a silent lightning storm of bullets flashing against the force field, "so I'm balancing things out.
"Alright, fine," Yuki growled at the hitmen, and she let the shimmering blue sphere drop again, instead flinging her arms left and right, open palms sending a hailstorm of crackling white energy bursts across the catwalks and loading ramps, her whole body aglow with energy as she twisted toward one assassin after the other, One by one each of the clattering guns grew silent, until only wisps of smoke and pained groans remained of the assassination attempt.
"I guess," Yuki sighed as she turned back around toward Arakhn and, not quite sure what to do, offered her hand to help the wounded woman to her feet, "we're even then."
"Oh, I wouldn't say that," Arakhn answered softly, and as soon as she grabbed Yuki's hand the electric white glow surrounding the young girl began to sweep and flow through her arm, pouring through the villainess's own black suit as she tightened a crushing grip around the wincing teenage girl's hand. Arakhn's mottled black bruises smoothed themselves into pale flawless skin, flakes of blood crumbled around wounds already sealing themselves tight, a limp and broken body steadying its balance and gradually gathering all its strength again as the young girl's life drained away through that ruthless grip until she finally collapsed into helpless spasms.
The Nictus suddenly wrenched Yuki off the floor like a rag doll, the crushing fist around her hand replaced by a bruising clutch of her chin as Arakhn hoisted her up by the head to glare furiously into her eyes, Yuki's clouded eyes reflecting a smoldering stare that swirled with living darkness once more. A moment's silent glare, and then a quick, hard punch into Yuki's stomach, her body flung to the concrete, her head smashed against the floor, once, twice, and then Arakhn lifted and effortlessly tossed the dazed girl across the loading dock with one arm.
"But we're getting closer," she smirked as she paced toward the fallen schoolgirl, and then her burning eyes alit on the silver camera-like device that'd tumbled out of Yuki's blazer, just a few feet away from the girl's shoulder, "and as for this toy you've brought me..."
And with a pained, coughing moan, Yuki flung her left hand out toward the weapon, a wave of blue-white light racing across the floor and smashing it into bits of metal.
"No matter," Arakhn replied with smug indifference, turning her gaze back toward the heroine sprawled limp across the floor, Yuki's groans muffling any defiant words she might've offered, "I'm sure our own scientists can figure out how you pulled off that trick.
"Now," the assassin continued as she grabbed Yuki's collar with one hand, hoisting her halfway up off the floor to snarl right into her face, "here's how this is going to play out. I don't know what brought you here or what this little temper tantrum was about, but the Marcones just tried to kill me and you didn't. So I'm choosing to make them my priority, not you. But if we ever cross paths again, I promise that you will have my undivided attention. Understood?"
"Unless you've decided to reform," Yuki muttered groggily, "we're going to meet again."
"I'm counting on it," the Nictus gave a very unpleasant smile into Yuki's dazed brown eyes, and then let go of her collar, the girl's head bouncing on the concrete again as Arakhn turned back around to walk into the middle of the warehouse. She stretched her arms out as she paced toward the shadows, darkness billowing out like a cloak around her to engulf the platform, and, without ever breaking her stride, both Arakhn and the remaining Marcones vanished.
Most of Arakhn's face paint had dribbled away into streaks of sweat and blood, leaving only the battered face of a beautiful red-haired woman who might have just been finishing college this year, her blue eyes burning with righteous fury between dizzying waves of pain.
"You think I regret it," she laughed bitterly through bloodied teeth, "look at you!
"What do you hope to gain," Arakhn snarled up from the ground, still clutching her stomach with one arm, "another badge for your collection, your name in the papers, some extra autographs to sign? So you can tell your friends how you beat the evil Nictus?
"I've fought to save my kind from extinction," she rasped through a sudden, gurgling coughing fit, "I've spent every minute of a hundred centuries raging against that nightmare, trying to save billions of lives. How does that weigh against all your trophies and medals?
"I've been fighting for the future, hero... what are you fighting for?"
Yuki had already dropped her arm, the electric white glow fading from her palm and gradually subsiding from the rest of her body, leaving an ordinary teenage girl standing above the young woman, her expression riddled with confusion, sympathy and wrenching guilt.
"But that," Yuki began in a soft, broken voice, "that's why I'm..."
A clatter of tommy-gun bullets suddenly cut off her words, sparks raining down from the dangling chains and bolted steel beams adorning the loading dock, the rusted warehouse doors kicked in to let crimson sunlight and ominous silhouettes slant through the dusty air. A half-dozen men in pressed business suits stood on every side, machine guns aimed at the pair.
"Big Tony sends his regards," their brawny leader quipped in a thick Brooklyn accent, and then he motioned to the rest of the men, "alright boys, take her down!"
Bullets sliced through the air as Yuki lifted up and swung around towards the mafia thugs, both her arms raised to fling out a translucent blue shell of energy around herself and the silently watching Nictus. The bullets pounded against the shell, tumbling harmlessly away to the floor, and another burst of energy swept through her school uniform and enveloped her.
"You want some too," the young girl growled, her body suddenly glowing, her clothes rippling with crackling white sparks of energy, "then come on!"
"Oh isn't that cute," the purple-clad hitman rolled his eyes to his underlings, "the kid thinks we're after her. Everybody ignore the half-pint, I want Arakhn in a casket!"
The words hardly had time to finish crossing the thug's lips before the woman collapsed on the floor had suddenly leapt up into a quick, feral sprint, charging their leader and grabbing him by the shoulders to knock him out with a headbutt. She snatched his gun away in another instant, leaping up and twisting around in a roundhouse kick that sent another one of the Marcone gunners tumbling over the railing as she landed on her feet with a swaying groan.
Arakhn aimed the gun in one white-knuckled fist over her right shoulder, a single icy blue eye meeting the rest of the men before she pulled the trigger. The bullets rattled across the stairs and steel catwalks in a clinking shower of sparks, sending the team of assassins ducking and scattering about the crates and pillars. Their own rattling bursts of gunfire streaked through the air, one of them piercing the back of Arakhn's right palm, the young woman giving a sharp cry and flinging the smoking handle of her own gun aside as she caught the railing behind her with her left hand and gave a lithe, acrobatic flip away from the clattering bullets.
"But she," Yuki stood forgotten by everyone amid the chaos engulfing the warehouse, murmuring her bewildered thoughts aloud, "she told me she couldn't fight back..."
The Council assassin scrambled across the room and snatched one of the hooked chains dangling nearby, bracing her weight against, twisting and flinging it with all her ebbing strength to slam and rattle across one of the walkways, sending the gunner who'd been peppering the floor all around her with machine-gun fire darting for cover. Another bullet sliced her right calf, sending her tumbling onto one knee with a fierce animal cry, glaring up at the thugs standing above her on the catwalks... and finding the sight of them obscured by a pulsing blue energy shell.
"Stay down," Yuki muttered softly, one arm still raised to keep the force field lifted around them both as she looked over at the woman, and then she turned her stare back up to the rest of the criminals, "if you guys don't want a fight, just leave right now!"
"And what," Arakhn hissed, "do you think you're doing?"
"The only reason they're a threat to you is because of me," she answered amid a silent lightning storm of bullets flashing against the force field, "so I'm balancing things out.
"Alright, fine," Yuki growled at the hitmen, and she let the shimmering blue sphere drop again, instead flinging her arms left and right, open palms sending a hailstorm of crackling white energy bursts across the catwalks and loading ramps, her whole body aglow with energy as she twisted toward one assassin after the other, One by one each of the clattering guns grew silent, until only wisps of smoke and pained groans remained of the assassination attempt.
"I guess," Yuki sighed as she turned back around toward Arakhn and, not quite sure what to do, offered her hand to help the wounded woman to her feet, "we're even then."
"Oh, I wouldn't say that," Arakhn answered softly, and as soon as she grabbed Yuki's hand the electric white glow surrounding the young girl began to sweep and flow through her arm, pouring through the villainess's own black suit as she tightened a crushing grip around the wincing teenage girl's hand. Arakhn's mottled black bruises smoothed themselves into pale flawless skin, flakes of blood crumbled around wounds already sealing themselves tight, a limp and broken body steadying its balance and gradually gathering all its strength again as the young girl's life drained away through that ruthless grip until she finally collapsed into helpless spasms.
The Nictus suddenly wrenched Yuki off the floor like a rag doll, the crushing fist around her hand replaced by a bruising clutch of her chin as Arakhn hoisted her up by the head to glare furiously into her eyes, Yuki's clouded eyes reflecting a smoldering stare that swirled with living darkness once more. A moment's silent glare, and then a quick, hard punch into Yuki's stomach, her body flung to the concrete, her head smashed against the floor, once, twice, and then Arakhn lifted and effortlessly tossed the dazed girl across the loading dock with one arm.
"But we're getting closer," she smirked as she paced toward the fallen schoolgirl, and then her burning eyes alit on the silver camera-like device that'd tumbled out of Yuki's blazer, just a few feet away from the girl's shoulder, "and as for this toy you've brought me..."
And with a pained, coughing moan, Yuki flung her left hand out toward the weapon, a wave of blue-white light racing across the floor and smashing it into bits of metal.
"No matter," Arakhn replied with smug indifference, turning her gaze back toward the heroine sprawled limp across the floor, Yuki's groans muffling any defiant words she might've offered, "I'm sure our own scientists can figure out how you pulled off that trick.
"Now," the assassin continued as she grabbed Yuki's collar with one hand, hoisting her halfway up off the floor to snarl right into her face, "here's how this is going to play out. I don't know what brought you here or what this little temper tantrum was about, but the Marcones just tried to kill me and you didn't. So I'm choosing to make them my priority, not you. But if we ever cross paths again, I promise that you will have my undivided attention. Understood?"
"Unless you've decided to reform," Yuki muttered groggily, "we're going to meet again."
"I'm counting on it," the Nictus gave a very unpleasant smile into Yuki's dazed brown eyes, and then let go of her collar, the girl's head bouncing on the concrete again as Arakhn turned back around to walk into the middle of the warehouse. She stretched her arms out as she paced toward the shadows, darkness billowing out like a cloak around her to engulf the platform, and, without ever breaking her stride, both Arakhn and the remaining Marcones vanished.
* * *
"I just need my bookbag," Yuki shyly asked the City Hall clerk, staring pensively down at the polished floor and casting a few shamed glances up at the heroic statues lining the foyer before the kindly clerk came back with her satchel. The girl gave a grateful wave and then slipped out through the double doors between a group of gray-clad bureaucrats, darting across the sunlit marble square and then slowing down as she turned toward the train station. From afar, she could be any ordinary girl on her way home from school, her slight limp and a few dull bruises here and there just the mark of an athlete who takes her after-school practice too seriously. She glanced furtively about as she walked and finally flung her satchel over her arm and opened the zipper to let Mira's beady blue eyes peek out from the shadows above her right shoulder.
"How did it go," Mira asked quietly with a careful glance around for passersby.
"Well," Yuki answered with a slight shrug, "Shadowstar spent five minutes praising my quick thinking in destroying the prototype to keep it out of the Council's hands."
"Really?"
"Yeah. Then she spent the rest of the hour furious that I assaulted an FBSA employee, stole a prototype anti-Nictus weapon and gave Arakhn a working demonstration of it. Sunstorm, Azuria, Rebecca, none of them really said anything. That was actually worse..."
"Right," Mira sighed forlornly, "what happens now?"
"Kip was, um, really nice about being knocked out," Yuki said with a guiltily abashed frown, "he's not going to press charges, and the FBSA isn't going to mark my record. But I'm off active patrolling for three months, and I have community service every weekend until then. I'll be at the library as Sparkly Soldier Yuki, reading to kids, giving talks, things like that."
"That'll be good for you," Mira answered from the satchel, "being a hero doesn't just mean fighting all the time. It'll help remind you of the people you're fighting for."
"Yeah," Yuki nodded a little and stared down at the cracks in the sidewalk.
"What happened with Arakhn? I know you said you helped her, but... why?"
"The things she said, the reason she's doing all this," Yuki answered softly as they walked through the swaying shadows of the trees lining the sidewalk, "she's kind of like us, Mira. It just made me think there has to be another way, it can't just be us or them."
"And then she," she hesitated a moment, shaking her a little as she tried to gather her thoughts, "well, she said she couldn't fight me. But then she fought so hard against those Family goons. She could have fought me, even without her powers. Who knows, maybe she could have won without them. But she didn't try. And that made me realize something."
"That she was faking it and playing on your guilt?"
"Of course she was," Yuki replied with a small, sheepish laugh, "but it's more than that. Even with how I was acting, even with what I did to her, she thought I was a hero. She thought if she could just make the line I was crossing clear enough, than I wouldn't cross it. She was even betting her life on it. In her own weird villainous way... she believed in me."
"I won't exactly be joining her fan club," Mira's voice whispered from the satchel slung over her shoulder, "but she's right about that, at least. I'm proud of you, Yukiko."
"Thanks," Yuki said quietly, glancing down again as she paced along the curb.
"And you were right," Mira continued, "we shouldn't just wait for the future. If it can't be changed then there's no harm in trying, right? We'll try to learn everything we can in the present and see if there's something we can do that'll stop the war from ever happening."
"Yeah, I'd like that," Yuki smiled a little as she climbed up the ramps, emerging from the sunlight and into the fluorescent white glow of the monorail platform just as the outbound train arrived, rushing past the railing and sliding gradually to a slow, hissing stop.
"Train's here," she whispered to Mira as she zipped up her bookbag, "see you soon."
"I just need my bookbag," Yuki shyly asked the City Hall clerk, staring pensively down at the polished floor and casting a few shamed glances up at the heroic statues lining the foyer before the kindly clerk came back with her satchel. The girl gave a grateful wave and then slipped out through the double doors between a group of gray-clad bureaucrats, darting across the sunlit marble square and then slowing down as she turned toward the train station. From afar, she could be any ordinary girl on her way home from school, her slight limp and a few dull bruises here and there just the mark of an athlete who takes her after-school practice too seriously. She glanced furtively about as she walked and finally flung her satchel over her arm and opened the zipper to let Mira's beady blue eyes peek out from the shadows above her right shoulder.
"How did it go," Mira asked quietly with a careful glance around for passersby.
"Well," Yuki answered with a slight shrug, "Shadowstar spent five minutes praising my quick thinking in destroying the prototype to keep it out of the Council's hands."
"Really?"
"Yeah. Then she spent the rest of the hour furious that I assaulted an FBSA employee, stole a prototype anti-Nictus weapon and gave Arakhn a working demonstration of it. Sunstorm, Azuria, Rebecca, none of them really said anything. That was actually worse..."
"Right," Mira sighed forlornly, "what happens now?"
"Kip was, um, really nice about being knocked out," Yuki said with a guiltily abashed frown, "he's not going to press charges, and the FBSA isn't going to mark my record. But I'm off active patrolling for three months, and I have community service every weekend until then. I'll be at the library as Sparkly Soldier Yuki, reading to kids, giving talks, things like that."
"That'll be good for you," Mira answered from the satchel, "being a hero doesn't just mean fighting all the time. It'll help remind you of the people you're fighting for."
"Yeah," Yuki nodded a little and stared down at the cracks in the sidewalk.
"What happened with Arakhn? I know you said you helped her, but... why?"
"The things she said, the reason she's doing all this," Yuki answered softly as they walked through the swaying shadows of the trees lining the sidewalk, "she's kind of like us, Mira. It just made me think there has to be another way, it can't just be us or them."
"And then she," she hesitated a moment, shaking her a little as she tried to gather her thoughts, "well, she said she couldn't fight me. But then she fought so hard against those Family goons. She could have fought me, even without her powers. Who knows, maybe she could have won without them. But she didn't try. And that made me realize something."
"That she was faking it and playing on your guilt?"
"Of course she was," Yuki replied with a small, sheepish laugh, "but it's more than that. Even with how I was acting, even with what I did to her, she thought I was a hero. She thought if she could just make the line I was crossing clear enough, than I wouldn't cross it. She was even betting her life on it. In her own weird villainous way... she believed in me."
"I won't exactly be joining her fan club," Mira's voice whispered from the satchel slung over her shoulder, "but she's right about that, at least. I'm proud of you, Yukiko."
"Thanks," Yuki said quietly, glancing down again as she paced along the curb.
"And you were right," Mira continued, "we shouldn't just wait for the future. If it can't be changed then there's no harm in trying, right? We'll try to learn everything we can in the present and see if there's something we can do that'll stop the war from ever happening."
"Yeah, I'd like that," Yuki smiled a little as she climbed up the ramps, emerging from the sunlight and into the fluorescent white glow of the monorail platform just as the outbound train arrived, rushing past the railing and sliding gradually to a slow, hissing stop.
"Train's here," she whispered to Mira as she zipped up her bookbag, "see you soon."
"Now, I'm not saying this guy at Microsoft sees gamers as a bunch of rats in a Skinner box. I'm just saying that he illustrates his theory of game design using pictures of rats in a Skinner box."
Epilogue
"Your men failed."
"Yeah, well, we had some complications," Big Tony's gruffly defensive voice answered over the phone, "like that Sparkly Soldier kid who's been making the news. She was there, and helping Arakhn for who knows what reason. It would've worked if it weren't for..."
"I warned you she'd be there," the caller cut him off, and even through the digital distortion the anger building in its voice couldn't be missed, "your men were supposed to be in and out before she showed up. She wasn't supposed to be a part of this at all!"
"Look, this isn't a pizza delivery," Tony retorted, "they got there as fast as they could! Anyway, hey, it's Paragon City, these things happen. But it's not like we won't get plenty more chances. All we have to do is wait a little while for things to cool down and then..."
"This was a mistake," the voice interrupted, "I'm calling off the hit."
"Hey wait a second! We had a deal!"
"And I'm keeping the deal. You have half the payment in your account for services rendered so far. I just have no further need of those services, that's all."
"Okay, fair enough. But what about the future? You said you had plans for it, and she wasn't a part of them. What's going to happen to those plans now?"
The caller tapped the keyboard to disconnect the line and then sighed deeply, flinging her headset onto the desk and closing her eyes for a moment to listen to the sound of Yuki downstairs with her parents, the three of them watching an explosion-filled movie together.
"I guess we'll find out," Mira whispered to herself.
"Now, I'm not saying this guy at Microsoft sees gamers as a bunch of rats in a Skinner box. I'm just saying that he illustrates his theory of game design using pictures of rats in a Skinner box."
(Ironically, my most cheerful and innocent character gets the darkest, most violent CoH story I've written. The premise emerged from the First Ward arcs, as the missions there have a way of assigning your character dialogue that didn't really fit with a character like Yuki, unless maybe the hopeless futility of the place was really starting to get her. That interpretation actually made sense: First Ward's events would leave anyone emotionally damaged, much less a sheltered and idealistic middle school girl, and her initial excitement over being told that she's destined to be a heroine in a future war would naturally give way over time to the grim realization that the war is coming and she doesn't know how to stop it. Those two themes merged with the game's alignment concept to inspire a story that, in a sense, is Yuki's own personal vigilante morality mission, a moment that decides whether she's a heroine or something else.
This story involves her character premise, and it's a complicated one. Yuki is a hopelessly anime-addled girl destined to lead a war against the Nictus in a post-apocalyptic future. Her mentor is the talking stuffed cat Mira, actually a psionic mutant who projected her mind back in time to... well, I'll just post her bio! The AE arc "Mira & Yuki: A Sparkly Soldier's Tale" delves much more into the details of her origin and both their personalities.)
"Now, I'm not saying this guy at Microsoft sees gamers as a bunch of rats in a Skinner box. I'm just saying that he illustrates his theory of game design using pictures of rats in a Skinner box."