Ikki

I leaned back against the stairwell door, panting for air.

"Ikki. She's unlocked. If you don't make a decision now we're going to lose her."

I nodded and wiped the sweat from my forehead. I didn't know what to say. I had no idea what to say.

But the choices presented to me weren't it. Neither were good options.

"We need a third option. Please. Check in on Celestial Sonata. Where is she?"

"I've been watching her. She's cutting through the security forces like a knife through butter, and just blew a hole in the ceiling of the fourteenth floor while we were busy with Hellhound. But I can't get access to anything up there. It's like it's completely cut off from the building's systems."

I leaned my head against the wall, trying to steady my breathing. I'd spent the better part of an hour sneaking through this facility and trying to get my bearings.

I was exhausted and I still had no idea what was happening. I was an idiot for jumping that fence and running in without any sort of plan or preparation.

"Can you still connect with her?"

"I think so. I can't see anything up there, but I have a bead on her Nexus Device."

"Do that," I said. I stood up, taking a moment to collect my thoughts and pull myself together.

"Ugh. It's a one-way communication channel. Unless she— oh hey, she just activated it."

I heard the sound of the line crackling in my ear and perked up.

"Hello. This is Sonata, I'm on-site at a research and development center in Greenhaven owned by some kind of Evergreen Foundation. There's some sort of secret facility here, and... I need backu—"

"Hello?" Rai-chan interjected. "This is Raiko again."

There was a long pause. I felt a pit of dread form in my stomach as I imagined all the possible outcomes. There was definitely an edge to Celestial Sonata's voice.

"Celestial Sonata? Can you hear me?" Rai-chan repeated urgently.

"Yes, I can hear you, Raiko. Where are you right now?"

I breathed a sigh of relief as Rai-chan continued. "Guiding Sparky. We're here in person and dug up some files. I'm just keeping him alive."

"Raiko, you guys need to get out of there! There are multiple unknown intruders on site, and it's turned into a total war zone. I don't want you to get caught up in the crossfire, and I'm fumbling in the dark and trying to figure out what the hell is going on up here," she replied quickly, the worry in her voice evident.

Rai-chan's reply was calm and collected. "We've got a bit of intel on that. It's a lab for the Evergreen Foundation, but they've also been running experiments with... well, it looks like some sort of human experimentation. They've been draining the emotional energy from the residents in the district. Sucking their very hopes and dreams right out of their souls."

"What did you just say?" she asked, her voice trembling with rage.

I heard some muffled chatter in the background. Then, there was another long pause as the line suddenly went to static. I could only hear the sound of my own heartbeat pounding in my ears and distant gunfire.

"Rai-chan, what happened?"

"She's shut it off on her end. She must be talking to someone. Ikki, we're running out of t—"

The sound of heavy metal footsteps filled my ears as someone or something stomped up the stairwell. Rai-chan and I both went dead silent.

"I have a bad feeling about this, Ikki," she whispered.

The heavy metal footsteps came closer and closer. They moved quickly and loudly. Urgently.

I held my breath, waiting for whoever or whatever it was to come into view. A glowing pair of eyes shone in the darkness. A Draupnir drone, but with an opaque dome shielding where a head would be.

My blood went cold, my throat tightening up.

I felt the air shift and then—

It turned and lunged at me with blinding speed.

Time slowed down in an instant as Rai-chan dilated my perception.

I threw myself backwards, rolling across the floor and just narrowly avoided the knife aimed at my neck. I heard a loud bang and the screech of metal on metal, the blade sparking as it struck the ground.

"Hijack!" I shouted.

A stream of light flashed from my hand as Rai-chan connected to the machine.

But there was no way she could take it over that quickly. It turned, aiming a pistol in my direction.

Then suddenly, its hand began to jerk and shake as it tried to maintain control, but the pistol was still aimed at me.

"Move!" Rai-chan shouted as I watched it squeeze the trigger in slow motion.

I kicked off and rolled to the side. My ears rang as the gun went off, sparks flying where the bullet impacted.

"I've got it!" Rai-chan said, the Draupnir's limbs all suddenly spazzing at once, before sparks erupted all over its chassis.

I sighed with relief and stepped back, panting for air as time snapped back into focus.

"Raiko, do you know who's running the place?" Celestial Sonata suddenly said through my earpiece, completely unaware of my close call.

Rai-chan didn't respond immediately, focusing on controlling the drone.

"Ugh. One second, let's huddle really quick."

There was a brief moment where the machine seemed frozen, and then it fell to the ground in an unceremonious heap.

Then everything slowed down again.

"Well, that was a hell of a jump scare," Rai-chan said with an annoyed grunt. "The good news is I've learned how to get control of these things faster after our scuffle with Hellhound back there."

"Thank you, Rai-chan," I breathed, my heart still racing. "God dammit.

I looked around, half expecting another one to pop out of nowhere. But there was nothing.

The only sound was the distant echo of gunfire and fighting. It felt like everything had been turned up to eleven and I couldn't help but wonder what would happen next.

"What's this guy doing alone up here?" I frowned, wondering what the drone had been up to.

The guys piloting these didn't seem like the sort to send a lone soldier up a stairwell.

"Maybe it's a scout?" Rai-chan offered, the Draupnir's arms flailing and twisting as she made it stand up and experimented with its controls.

"Whatever it is, we don't want to run into anymore of those," I muttered.

"No shit, Ikki."

"I'm just saying, if they're sending out scouts then that means there might be a lot more of them. Why don't they show up on the HUD you've created?"

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"It's because of the shielding that makes hijacking them so damned difficult. I've been taking advantage of the building's life support system and mana flow, and piggy-backing on its security feeds to create an overlay for you to see through. But the drone has this mana shielded core. I can't get any data from it, even with the building's sensors. It's a huge blind spot. The drones' armor is made from an alloy designed to resist mana and magic and I can only extrapolate where they are if I catch them on a camera. And my multi-threading capacity isn't all that great, all things considered."

Fucking hell. This just got better and better.

Rai-chan chirped. "I'm going to respond to Celestial Sonata really quick."

"Okay, go for it."

Time snapped back into focus.

Rai-chan's voice crackled over the line, speaking in a calm, measured tone.

"The people running this place? Well, we do know, actually. They're a front. The Evergreen Foundation is a shell company. But if you go far enough up the chain, it's owned by Zamir & Petrov."

"Zamir & Petrov...? Zamir?!

Celestial Sonata went quiet, the silence dragging on. Rai-chan waited patiently, the drone's body twitching occasionally as she experimented with its functions.

"Ikki, try making it do something."

"Do a-what now?" I stammered, caught off guard.

"Mental commands, imagine you're inside it right now controlling its movements. Like a video game."

"Well... okay then."

I put myself into the perspective of a person in its position, trying to picture myself moving the drone. Its limbs twitched in response. Rai-chan let out a sound of amusement.

"See, you're getting the hang of it! Well, one second..."

The communications channel crackled and Rai-chan's voice came back again.

"Sonata?" she asked. "Sonata, are you still here with me?"

"Um... Yeah, I'm here," she replied quietly.

I could hear the uncertainty in her voice. It sounded like she'd just heard the most shocking news in the world and was still processing it.

"Where are you right now?" Rai-chan asked.

"I just penetrated the research facility above the offices. There are some... disturbing things happening here," the magical girl responded, the sound of her voice getting clearer and stronger. But there was also something off there I couldn't put my finger on.

"Disturbing things?" I muttered under my breath. "Leeching off of the community as literal emotional vampires is already bad enough. She sounds shaken up pretty badly, Rai-chan."

Rai-chan nodded. "Yeah. I think there's more going on here. We'll find out in a second."

Celestial Sonata continued. "There's a whole bunch of captive scientists are up here. They were abducted and forced to do their work. They've got state of the art weaponry and defenses here and it's been... a real pain."

Rai-chan hummed softly. I could feel her concern.

"Well, that definitely changes our plans then. On that subject, we've got some really bad news," Rai-chan said slowly, cautiously.

I grimaced.

"...What kind of really bad news?" Celestial Sonata asked tentatively.

"Don't freak out. But... we managed to take down one of the intruders and interrogate her for a bit a few minutes ago. It's the same group that hit the Mana Exchange about two weeks ago."

"The same group?"

"Yeah. And they're carrying something bad. Something that can deal with all the scientists and their data."

"What do you mean?"

"We have reason to believe that the intruders have brought a bomb to destroy this building. They're carrying it right now."

"A... a what?"

"A bomb. Probably multiple, actually. They're gonna level the building."

There was a brief pause before she spoke again, her voice strained and hushed.

"Raiko, are you sure?"

"Yes," Rai-cha replied firmly. "They're terrorists or mercenaries as far as we can gather. We can deal with one right now, maybe. But multiple bombs going off in the facility is probably a really bad thing."

"How many are there?!"

"I... don't know. They probably brought several. They could be planted throughout the building. In which case..." Rai-chan trailed off.

There was a pause in the conversation as Sonata spoke to someone, but it was too muffled to hear properly. Rai-chan was silent for several moments.

"What are the chances we can deal with Hellhound?" I asked while she was distracted. "Can you still shut her down from here?"

Rai-chan sighed. "I still have access credentials, but she already moved out of range while we were dealing with this unit here. She'll probably be a lot warier of us now too."

The line clicked back on.

"Raiko... You were able to unlock the security on the lower floors and stall their forces in the elevators. I take it you aren't able to access the systems up here?"

"Yeah. I can't access anything up there. The entire upper part of the facility has security protocols that are way more complex than what I can access. I can't hack it remotely. We need to find some way to physically access it from the upper floors. That means that there's nothing Sparky or I can do to help you out there. It's all up to you."

There was another long pause.

"I need to find the hostages and rescue them before I can go looking for the bombs," she replied finally. "If you guys find anything else, tell me."

"Right," Rai-chan responded.

We waited for another moment or so, then I heard a faint sigh coming over the comms.

"Miss Sonata...?" a soft feminine voice suddenly spoke faintly in the background.

"Come on. Just who do you think I am? The Songstress of Hope will save you all! No matter what!"

That sounded like an internal pep-talk, but I guess she was trying to reassure the person with her.

Whoever it was sounded relieved at the words. Rai-chan and I both chuckled lightly at the display.

Celestial Sonata was doing her best and we had to do the same.

The channel clicked again, and with that, the line cut off. I turned to look at the commandeered drone again.

"Sooo..." I drawled, tilting my head. "This thing looks like it can pack a punch."

It looked similar to the one I'd piloted during the chaos event. Sleeker, clearly less armored, but I recognized the basic shape of the chassis.

"Mmhm," Rai-chan replied. "And we just took it over without alerting anyone. Probably."

"Probably?"

"Yeah. I figured out a way to deliver a nasty feedback to the pilot. He'll be out for a bit, so we don't have to worry about him alerting his buddies."

I nodded. I tried imagining myself moving my arm to lift the machine's hand, and the drone did just that. I did the same to its head, making the camera look around and experimentally lifting the arm to move the drone around.

"Interesting."

"What's interesting, Rai-chan?"

"The linkup I created for you and this drone, Ikki. Well, I can't quite make sense of it."

I looked over the drone, trying to figure out what she meant.

Rai-chan continued. "It just came to me that we could probably do something like this this. I don't know why."

"What do you mean?"

"Well... I just felt the idea click together, and the way I was using the building's sensors was just a perfect match. And then... this happened," she said, highlighting the machine in my HUD. "And I'm not sure how or why. I've got no clue where the knowledge came from."

"Huh," I hummed thoughtfully.

The mystery surrounding Rai-chan would only deepen, it seems.

"Is this related to that feeling you had before, Rai-chan? About being 'incomplete' and that sensation of 'wrongness' - of being human?'"

"I think so, but I'm not sure how," Rai-chan said.

"Well, it doesn't matter. We don't have a lot of time. We have to either get out or go after these paramilitary types and find out where they're hiding these bombs. And Celestial Sonata needs our help."

"Ikki, no. You're not a fighter and you know it. It's one thing to do this from a distance, but if you get in the thick of it you're going to die. And even if I'm here and can do things to protect you, I'm not going to be able to save you from a bullet to the head."

I bit my lip. "But I can't leave. If they blow up this building..."

"Ikki."

"If I can stop that, I should."

"Ikki..." She trailed off, clearly frustrated.

I sighed, rubbing the back of my head, taking a deep breath.

"But you're right, Rai-chan. If we're going to do this, I can't be stupid about it. You can only find these guys on the camera, right? And they're basically invisible to your sensors unless they're on camera or I'm within a few meters?"

"Right."

"Then... how about we use our little friend here?"

I tapped on the drone's opaque head dome.

"Ikki, we're not using that to fight the terrorists."

"No, not that. That's ridiculous," I scoffed. "I only have the most basic of basic combat training compared to those guys. It'd be a total waste to use it that way. I don't have a chance in hell against them. No way."

"Good. We're on the same page. Then what are you getting at?"

I took a moment, thinking. "What would you say our effective control range is right now for our sensor network?"

"With my connection to the building, I can get to all the lower levels."

"And this drone?"

She paused. "I... don't know, honestly. Our synchronization level is 13 right now, and I'd guess maybe eighty meters?"

"Okay. Good enough. I have something I want to try, and I don't know if it'll work or not, but it's better than trying to run around in circles and getting into fights."

I looked up, taking in a deep breath and letting it out. My palms were clammy, my heart was racing, and I felt sick to my stomach. I didn't know what was going to happen, or what the future had in store for us. I just hoped I wasn't making a huge mistake by sticking around.

"Whatever it is, you need to be sure. You might die if we're not careful."

"I know," I replied softly, trying to steady my nerves.

I looked around, scanning the area. There were no other people or cameras in sight on this floor. Just us.

"You don't know that," Rai-chan hissed. "Don't give me that shit. I can sense your vitals. Your blood pressure is spiking and you're barely able to hold it together right now. You've got no business in the thick of things. If you go out there, you'll be shot. If we get caught in an explosion, we'll die. If you run into Hellhound again or proxy another drone, we'll be dead too. You know that, right?"

"Yeah, I know."

I took a deep breath.

"I understand. I know it's stupid, I know it's insane. But if we do nothing and the building explodes with all those people here. If the blast zone goes wider than we'd thought. If I could have stopped it, I'd never forgive myself. If I run away now..."

"I know you now, Ikki. I get it," Rai-chan sighed, and I felt a sense of calm wash over me.

I was still scared and my heart rate was still too high, but... it was like the calm before a storm.

Like standing in front of a crowd or giving a big speech in school.

You're nervous and jittery and excited, and there's no reason why, you're just... you just are. And then it passes and you can breathe again. The feeling faded as quickly as it came and left behind nothing more than a faint tingling in the back of my skull and a strange, warm sense of security.

I circled the drone, trying to get a feel on the thing.

"So I have a hunch, given what we were able to do at Fort Hiawatha and Lenape Territory or whatever you call it..."

I placed a hand on its shoulder, and then tried to connect with it the way I had with the mech, trying to visualize the drone's systems as an extension of my body.

And then suddenly—

It worked.

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