Chapter 25 - Last Of Their Line

Last Of Their Line
KC pointed a foot at Clayface, switching on her rocket boot, the bright flames burning through his clay body. His outstretched hand appeared to melt but Clayface just morphed another hand to try to catch her leg. KC jumped back onto the control desk. She was essentially caged in, the only exit out of this little control area to the rest of the room being the open security force field, blocked by Clayface. As he quickly approached again, KC let out a loud screech from her sound system in her abdomen but he was unaffected, successfully grabbing onto her leg. Clayface pulled KC off the desk with a crash but she managed to scramble out his grip by increasing her body temperature, the clay softening. Clayface had covered the entire floor, forcing KC to hover. She made a beeline straight for the exit but was caught in midair as soon as she passed through, clay completely engulfing her lower body. Falling to the ground, KC scrambled on the ground but was unable to get free, Clayface constantly changing his grip to prevent it from melting. Thinking fast, KC looked back at the console of the security gate and reactivated it. The force field came back online, with Clayface's outstretched appendage going right through it. He screamed in pain from the electrical shock, unable to free himself from the field. This distraction allowed KC to make her way out of his clutch. She got to her feet just as Clayface pulled apart the bars with the field emitters with tremendous strength, the field powering off and freeing him. Clayface roared loudly as he adopted a more humanoid form, towering over KC. She dived to the side as Clayface attempted to take hold of her another time. As a scout, she was agile and skilled at close combat, neither of which were useful in this situation. Especially when Clayface was more agile. He completely submerged KC, who was unable to do anything but screech.

"We're almost there," reported KITT, racing through the wide corridors of The War Factory.

"Alright, I'm getting off at the next room," stated Black, "Sora, hold onto this for me." She patted Sora on the shoulder just as KITT smashed through the next set of double doors into a set of office.

Sora instinctively held her palms upwards as Black jumped out the car door. The heavy metal doors ahead opened up before KITT reached them. "Wait!" shouted Sora, as KITT closed Black's door, "Hold onto what?"

But Black closed the thick double doors behind them, which self-locked, cutting them off. Black turned on the spot, a purple flame flaring from her eye, completely bypassing the blue stage. As Wesker approached, her clothes morphed to armour and a excited grin set on her face. "I hear you're invincible. Then there's no need to hold back." Wesker ran straight in and, taking hold of a desk with a single hand, threw the desk towards Black. Black took no risks, black chains shooting from all six walls catching the desk in midflight and pulled it apart with a shower of wooden splinters. Wesker slid under the chains to prevent any slowdown in speed but a chain from the floor wrapped round his arm. With a strong tug, he broke the chain with little effort. However, this was enough to speed Wesker down and distract him for Black to rush up and swing her cannon at him with a golf club, smashing Wesker through several desks into the side wall. Black stood up straight and licked her lips, still with a grin on her face, revealing fangs, "You can't be stronger than Remilia."

Wesker also got to his feet, unscathed. He pushed up his glasses at the bridge with a smile, "As expected of the Enforcer of Order. But is it wise to lose your sanity?"

KITT skidded to a halt in a laboratory. Sora got out, catching sight of the room's main purpose. By the wall were five bodies in glass cylinders, their backs wired to the top of the tubes. From left to right, the bodies were the Appends versions of Len, Rin, Miku, the original body of Gumi and a metal undershell of a female body, most likely the Append version of Luka. Looking around, Sora could see the room was otherwise completely empty. She detected a wireless connection in the area but was unable to pass encryption.

"This is a Vocaloid only room isn't it?" she asked.

"It's actually a Vocaloid only building, mostly," responded KITT, parking directly in front of the glass tanks and accessing the wireless connection, "The War Factory appears to be brought here by Doomsday with its own internal power supply. You need Vocaloid access codes to get in and access codes to get into most of the dead end rooms. The doors don't even have card readers so the Black Squad couldn't enter with their access cards. Similar to the HMS Thunder Child, all control panels and any form of human ergonomics are fake. The systems need wireless connection though the Thunder Child didn't need access codes, just authorisation, probably for your sake. No one could come in here without the blessing of Miku, Rin or Gumi. Apart from myself."

"The Black Squad was never meant to be here?"

"This is a research facility, one field androids surpass most humans, certainly the Black Squad at least. As far as I can assume, the Black Squad can only access confinement facilities such as the Arctic."

"Why would the Black Squad have access to the Arctic but not UTAU?"

"As the Guard, UTAU deals with issues before they happen. As Order, the Black Squad deals with issues as they happen. As the Law, the Stray Posse deals with issues after they happen. UTAU answer directly to the Stray Posse and as they're all androids, there's little reason to grant Teto the codes since Rin already has them. The less that have the codes, the greater the security. Something that has somewhat paid off as Doom has Teto under his control."

"So why not only have Miku know the codes? What's the point of giving access cards to the Black Squad?"

"Haruki, what happened to Rin and Gumi in the future?" inquired KITT seemingly ignoring Sora's question.

"Rin was a confirmed death at the garage. Gumi was not confirmed but Naluri doubted she survived," answered Haruki.

"Assuming Gumi did not survive," began KITT, now answering Sora, "There would be no access codes left in the world with Miku also gone and all Black Squad access cards destroyed. All Vocaloid facilities would be locked down until their internal power supply powering their Sonic Barriers die down which could take centuries, which would risk Yamaha's power. The access system with the White Noise and Sonic Barriers prevent even Haruhi from opening the facilities, assuming she had not picked up the codes somehow. Another reason could be if any particular holder of the codes malfunctioned, another could recover them. The inclusion of the Black Squad as holders may have been to prepare for any event of a mass malfunction through the android portion of the administration. But the reason could just be for convenience. Out of the three enforcement agencies, Order would need to imprison the most personnel."

"But they did backups, right?" replied Sora, "Well, I guess they didn't back up the codes on the network, to prevent anyone from accessing them."

"There's actually a bigger problem," mentioned KITT, "I've found Len's backup intact. But... Miku's, Rin's and Gumi's... seem to have been deleted."

Ælious turned to Alice and pointed to the roof of Pentagon, using his body to hide his signal. She nodded and jumped off the building once more.

"What are you planning?" asked the Captain.

"I'm just wondering," began Ælious, "But you're aware of the plan to use a helicarrier to capture the Thunder Child?"

"Yes, I am. You sided with the Yamaha Administration."

"Have you wondered why Superman didn't stop us from leaving the area?"

"I admit, I did."

"He was fighting Superboy-Prime. Prime destroyed the helicarrier. Had it not been for external intervention, people would have died on that ship. Doom gave permission for Superman, Prime and White to break The Unwritten Law."

"Do you have proof?"

"We are here. Superman is not."

"... So what is your objective? To allow the crew of the Thunder Child to time travel?"

"My primary objective is to uphold The Unwritten Law. Allowing the time travel is a means to this end."

"You don't seem to be in a hurry."

"I guess not," replied Ælious, putting a hand on the katana at his waist.

Captain America threw his shield at the ground directly in front of Ælious' feet, the ground crumbling. However, Ælious suddenly disappeared as the shield rebounded back into the air. The Captain felt a heavy metal boot kick him at the back of the right knee, forcing him to kneel, but caught Ælious' sword arm as it approached from his right. Ælious had appeared behind him. Far stronger than Ælious, the Captain threw him away back in front of him in time to catch the returning shield. "I have heard of Instant Movement," commented the Captain as Ælious jumped back onto his feet. Ælious said absolutely nothing, resheathing his katana and pocketing his left hand. To the Captain's surprise, he also stood up straight. Without warning, the Captain was punched in the face and in the neck and Ælious disappeared. Despite being slightly disoriented, the Captain noticed this instant movement and threw the shield towards him. Ælious easily foresaw this common response and cut his instant movement early and chained another to instantly move into the air over the Captain. When directly over him, Ælious performed a fast single-handed sword strike straight downwards, almost instantly unsheathing the katana. Even though he was further than a sword's length away from the Captain, the strike hit the ground, a long cut appearing across the floor. The Captain did a mighty flip backwards, avoiding the slash. In response, Ælious kicked off the air with Void Instant Movement in the same direction and repeated another slash downwards. This time the slash was quicker as the blade was not sheathed but the Captain avoided it again with another flip back. Unable to use Void Instant Movement twice in one jump, Ælious was suddenly hit by the returning shield. He struck the ground with a crash, rolling to a stop onto his back. With a frown, Ælious crossed his arms and sighed.

Clayface grinned as he completely absorbed KC and laughed out loud as KC's shrieking died off. "Ah, it feels good to destroy things again."

Suddenly, Clayface felt something smash through his head. As his head reformed, he turned round to see a glaring Reimu at the room's entrance with her hands over her ears. After a brief stare-down, Reimu slowly lowered her hands and turned back round to reenter The Green Mile. Clayface smiled and launched himself at Reimu, his clay toxic to the touch to humans. But this was Reimu. With a roar, Reimu spun round sensing the violent intents. In response, she fired dozens of colourful danmaku at Clayface, ripping apart his body to shreds, preventing any contact between the two. Watching the clay on the ground reform, Reimu clicked her fingers, a rainbow coloured Hakurei Barrier forming round the muddy material. Clayface reformed inside the Barrier, trying his best to break it down, raging inside his prison. However, the Barrier blocked all sounds from inside. Reimu watched Clayface frenzy against the Barrier before making her way back into The Green Mile.

Two metres away, KC shut down most of her non-essential functions, successfully irritating Reimu enough to summon her. However, it cost her her lower body, completely severed by the Barrier's formation. Luckily, all her major components were in her torso and head. She slowly dragged herself back to the control panels. Unable to pull herself up to look at the controls, KC had to rely on her android memory to find the right buttons, deactivating all security gates.

Black just laughed, Wesker scowling at her reaction. Regaining her composure but keeping her grin, Black wiped a hand over her forehead, "You might have a point." Purple fire was slowly spreading along the ground from her feet. A chain suddenly shot out from the wall, wrapping itself round Wesker's right arm. Wesker reacted quickly, drawing his Samurai Edge handgun holstered at his right side with his left arm. The ambidextrous gun allowed Wesker to shoot the chain at the wall. With the chain still wrapped round his arm, he whipped it at Black, catching her leg and giving a strong tug. Black fell backwards, dragged along the floor for several metres before regaining her grip. She pulled back on the chain, realising too late this was a bad idea. Wesker took advantage of the pull, instantly moving straight to Black, aiming his left hand straight for her chest. Black, still on the floor, caught his wrist before his fingers could make contact, fully aware Wesker could rip a person's heart out of their ribcage with a bare hand. With a smile, Wesker pointed the Samurai Edge at Black's forehead. With a frown replacing Black's own smile, she brought up the jagged sword in her left hand, stabbing the back of Wesker's gun hand. With his aim off, Wesker did not fire, scowling at the pain. Black rose both legs. With her left leg, she stamped down hard on Wesker's foot with her heel, causing him to yell out in pain. With her right foot, she kicked strongly into Wesker's left armpit, still holding tightly onto his left wrist. With a sickening pop, Wesker's shoulder burst out of its socket. Before Wesker could react, Black pulled both his arms down to either side. A chain grabbed Wesker's ankles from behind and pulled back. He fell forwards and down towards Black, his chin striking her raised left knee, knocking him out instantly.

Black tossed him to the side and stood up with a stretch, purple fire once again spreading from her feet, "But being insane doesn't make me stupid." As she picked up her arm cannon back off the ground, she turned to the room's entrance to see a person hovering in. She scowled, "It just had to be you."

"Deleted?" repeated Sora, "Not overwritten? When files on a system are deleted, the space is just unassigned. The files are still there, just not monitored."

"I'm aware of that," pointed out KITT, "As far as I can tell, Rin's and Gumi's files have been completely overwritten. Miku's files still seem to be here. It seems that she was unable to fully overwrite them before her destruction."

"So you can recover her?"

"It will take time, assuming the data is not corrupted."

There was a moment of silence. "KITT," began Sora, "I was wondering why you're helping us. I know the intentions of everyone else but not yours."

"I am a servant and I prefer it that way. I am not as advanced, AI-wise, as you Vocaloids. You could say I am intelligent but am not wise. I calculate everything by numbers, the facts are my opinions. It is my operator who supplies the personality. These past few hours, I have made more individual judgements then any other period of my operation. Given this responsibility is daunting as I fear I may make the wrong decision. But I want to take this opportunity to choose to work under those who appreciate me but will not use me to hurt others."

"What do you intend to do after all this finishes?"

"I want to find my former operators. I want to ensure their wellbeing. What about you?"

Sora looked at the room's entrance, "I have a friend to find."

"Do you know her general location?"

"I've been unable to track her in Yamaha. Solace says she wasn't in North High. So I want to check Gensokyo's former territory."

"... What if your friend's in the Arctic?"

Silence once again filled the room as this new possibility sunk into Sora. Before she could come up with an answer, there was a strong knocking at the door. Sora turned to KITT, "Can you tell who it is?"

"No, I can't. There are no cameras nor other monitoring equipment in the room. A rather odd design choice if I say so myself."

Sora walked up to the door and placed her hands on the door. "Who are you?" she spoke loudly via her hands, her mouth unmoving. The speech easily passed through the solid door.

"Hey, Sora! It's Black!" shouted Black on the other side, with a hand on the door, "Could you open the door? Wesker won't be any more trouble."

Sora turned to KITT again, "It's Black. Open the door."

The door slowly opened, revealing Black standing behind the door still in her insane form, her arm cannon strapped to her back. The floor of previous room was covered in purple fire. "Good work, Sora," greeted Black, entering the room. As they passed, Sora felt something stab her in the abdomen. Black had thrust her sword into Sora and without emotion tossed her aside, leaving her sword embedded in the android. She walked up to KITT, lifted the car up from the front bumper with her right hand and threw him to the side, moving him out the way of the Append pods. Black stood in front of pods and smiled.

"Hey, you know, Captain, I've been thinking," began Ælious, still laid on the floor, "How come you have so much confidence in Doom and Ganondorf?"

"They helped the world recover," explained the Captain, walking up to Ælious, "We are working with them to repair all the damage The Three Kingdoms have caused."

"And letting Doom and Ganondorf own the world is better?"

"We are working with them," stressed the Captain, "They have announced the independence of all the territories they have freed, returning all countries back to their rightful owners, the natives."

Ælious scoffed, "You do realise that just means that everyone is in their debt? If either of them 'requests' anything from any country, the natives can't do anything to protest."

"We have them under constant surveillance. They won't do anything out of line."

"So you know he allowed the breaking of The Unwritten Law?" Ælious asked sarcastically. He looked at the Captain, "Besides, you come from the same universe as Doom. You should know that none of you heroes can keep Doom in check, let alone Doom and Magneto. I mean, why do you even have a battalion here at the Pentagon? Gensokyo only had the Yakumos here and they had no interest in tanks or military power. And there's the issue of Doom owning Latveria too. That land hasn't been given back to the natives, has it?" The Captain said nothing, realising Ælious had valid points. He watched Ælious get up and walk over to the engine-like object by the helicopter. "Newcomers can change. But some newcomers are defined not to change." As soon as Ælious took hold of one of the handles of the portal generator, Alice flew right overhead and grabbed hold of Ælious' right arm, flying off into the distance, Ilse attached to her back somehow and facing backwards.

Alex landed on the carpark next to Captain America, "Just letting them go?" he asked with an unamused expression, "They took out the anti-air."

"... I'm going to meet with Superman. Get some confirmation on a few matters," the Captain looked at Alex, "What about you? You're letting them go?"

"They don't annoy me as much as Doom," stated Alex, plainly.

White spotted the force field to the cell block deactivate, quickly followed by the deactivation of the electric floor. After a quick glance at the unconscious Maul, White jumped down, picked up her scythe and rushed into the cell block.

Ælious, using his own Hammerspace abilities, replaced his copper boots with simple trainers to reduce the weight on Alice, "Alice, you alright with the weight?"

"I'll manage..." she replied, continuing to look ahead, waiting a moment to allow for a talk before breaking the sound barrier.

"Hey, White," reported Ælious, "How close are you to getting Sakuya?"

"I'm not with White," stated KC, "I'm in the security hub. I had to wake Reimu so I had to sacrifice my lower body."

"... Okay, KC, stay away from Reimu. Don't provoke her any more. I don't want to lose you."

"White's not with us either," noted Haruki, "She's definitely inside. Hopefully, she'll- Whoa! Lynette! Heads up!"

"What's ha-" began Ælious.

"Sorry to interrupt," interjected Ilse, "But we've got a Raptor military aircraft right behind us."

Black put a hand on the glass of Miku's Append pod. Then she heard a scuffle behind her. Turning, she saw Sora stand back up straight, unaffected by the sword in her body. They glared at each other but said nothing as Sora's left eye flared a strong blue flame.

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