Chapter 3 - Caught Blackhanded

Caught handed
blinked. Her vision remained pitch black with no sound whatsoever. She stretched her hands forward, only to end up touching cold metal. Then she noticed she was floating, not in contact with any surface. she murmured to herself.

stated, who was sat in front a desk covered in unlabelled but colourful buttons. In front of her, attached to the wall, was a huge monitor. Luka was the Overseer of, effectively monitoring all information that officials gather, leaving  free to deal with more important issues. The monitor was displaying full colour real time video of from one of  s with the moon noticeably getting bigger. After a few seconds, information began appearing on screen.

commented, leaning over Luka's left shoulder. Strength, also know as STR, was currently representing in 's absence, having previously been off duty in the nearby. Her large mechanical hands were easily her most noticeable feature.

Miku was standing behind Luka's right shoulder and was frowning at the onscreen information, "You've only got three minutes, Atlas," she said into the microphone attached to her headset, "Are you ready?"

"Ready and waiting," boomed a low male voice from outside. Given how big Atlas was, his voice easily reached the city's borders without technological or magical aid.

"Remember, watch where you step," reminded Miku, "London is a fragile city." The room was oddly calm given the situation though with all calculations and preparations made there was little to worry about.

"Wait, there's spacecraft intercepting the moon," reported Luka, with noticeable concern in her voice. On the screen, multiple spacecraft came into view from the left, approaching the moon.

Miku scowled, "Those are Deviluke Battlecrusiers from Haruhi's fleet aren't they? What are they doing?" Suddenly, the Battlecrusiers began firing upon the moon, shooting off large pieces of the giant rock. Additional numbers appeared onscreen for these segments.

"The smaller segments are still large enough to pass through the Sonic Barrier," informed Luka, "They're going to rain down in the surrounding area and possibly cause major damage if they hit ground. All segments are about to pass through the Sonic Barrier!" Miku was grinding her teeth with anger. "Sonic Stations A and H and Ion Cannon Delta, you have incoming projectiles, perform evasive manoeuvres. To all Ion Cannons, projectiles are incoming too rapidly, do not shoot down any projectiles. I repeat, do not shoot down any projectiles."

As the vastly downsized but still threatening moon and its segments passed through the Sonic Barrier, their sizes vastly shrinking as the Barrier continued its shredding of the foreign objects. Some segments, having entered being the size of an aircraft carrier, left the size of a baseball.

Miku began calling orders, "Atlas, focus on the moon, ignore the fragments. We'll deal with those. Luka, when you get predicted impact data, notify anyone or anything capable of destroying those fragments, keeping efficiency in mind. Industrial sectors get first priority protection. Residential gets second. Ignore superficial damage if need be. Strength, let's go."

"Roger," nodded Strength, running out the room.

"Wait, Miku," called Luka, as Miku was about to follow Strength out, "I'm detecting psychic magic traces from the moon. It was brought down by magic."

Miku paused, "... Gensokyo could never and would never bring the moon down. Is Haruhi trying to get us to start a war with them? Is attacking the moon supposed to be a pretend attempt at helping us? Haruhi can go burn in hell for all I care," she spat and left the room.

"...seven, eight, nine, thirty, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, thirty, on- wait, that's not right. Ah, whatever," mumbled Solace, "This is a loooong three minutes..." She blinked before frowning, "Hmm... When did I start calling Haruhi, 'Empress'?"

"So it seems Haruhi's pretty bored today," smiled Saigyouji Yuyuko, ghost princess of Hakugyokurou, a traditional Japanese shrine placed in Florida during Doomsday.

"I'm not sure it's boredom, Yuyuko-sama," responded Konpaku Youmu, Hakugyokurou's resident gardener. The two of them were sat on the steps of Hakugyokurou watching the descending moon in the distance through the rainbow coloured Hakurei Barrier as evening was beginning to fall. "I think Yamaha and North High had a falling out."

"Ah, isn't youth a wonderful thing?" declared Yuyuko, full of innocence.

"Uhh, dropping the moon isn't exactly wonderful... It could lead to war and terrible planetary damage."

"But that's great, right?" grinned Yuyuko, completely serious.

"... There won't be any more moonlight. Ever."

Yuyuko blinked before it sank in. She stood up with a start, fists clenched in anger, though coming from Yuyuko, it felt more like determination, "We-we can't stand for that!" she shouted, "How dare Haruhi do such a thing! We must stop it!"

Youmu sighed, "Yuyuko-sama, we're inside the Hakurei Barrier. And even if we weren't, we wouldn't be able to get the moon back to its original place. Definitely not now."

Fuming, Yuyuko began to shout, "I... I... I demand... popcorn!"

"I've got a bag right here," Youmu pointed out, prepared for Yuyuko's gluttony, a little flushed, "Please sit down, you're embarrassing me." Yuyuko did as she was told, gladly accepting the bag of popcorn and attempted to open it. "I've been thinking though, what are Yamaha going to do with the moon when it lands?"

"Probably throw it over the border," suggesting Yuyuko, struggling with the bag.

"But then Haruhi would just throw it back harder. Miku's probably got things all planned out being a robot and all. Look, I'll help you with the ba-" Suddenly, the bag burst open, spreading popcorn all over the wooden platform and ground.

"Aww..." groaned Yuyuko, with sadness, "That reminds though, we haven't played soccer for a while. I wonder why Reimu hasn't help organise another tournament."

Youmu took another bag from the pile she had prepared beside her and opened it herself, "She's spends most of her time in Hawaii. Sunbathing, I think. And Yuyuko-sama, please don't eat food off the floor."

Yuyuko swallowed what she had in her mouth, taking the second bag from Youmu, "Hmm... Speaking of which, we haven't been outside Florida for a while. I've heard good stuff about the Grand Canyon."

"Wasn't Reimu going to name it something else after she had it filled with sand and had that Chinese temple built on it? It's not a canyon anymore."

"Hmm... well, the natives still call it the Grand Canyon. It's probably easier just to call it that. Huh? Where's the moon gone?" blinked Yuyuko.

"It went over the horizon," pointed out Youmu, "Were you not watching? Hey! Why's there no popcorn on the floor?"

"I dion't kneow," answered Yuyuko, her response hindered by her chewing.

Solace had just realised the amount of knowledge that Haruhi had given to her about her mission. Despite originally knowing very little about the Earth's geography outside North High, she suddenly found herself knowing the geography of Yamaha and Gensokyo to the smallest detail. Haruhi had also given the information about Solace's creator. As Solace sifted the knowledge, she couldn't help thinking how boring her creator seemed.

Haruhi was standing next to the circular holodesk situated in the middle of the bridge of the Normandy SR-2, a starship stationed beyond the moon, keeping its distance above London. The holodesk had a three dimensional map of the Home Counties on the surface with an imposing Atlas in the centre towering over the City of London. The image was completed with the descending moon and the scattering fragments, their likely impact locations marked on the surface. All five members of the SOS Brigade were stationed round the desk.

"The moon is continuing its path towards Atlas," explained Itsuki Koizumi, "Many Yamaha officials in the area appear to be making a way to intercept incoming segments that Deviluke had shot off. They seem to be concentrating their efforts on industrial districts."

"And Solace?"

"Her segment is going to land considerably far from London and no Yamaha officials are enroute to intercept it. At least, not in time from London."

"Haruhi," injected Kyon. Despite being one of the members of the SOS Brigade, his official rank was 'Chore Boy'. Kyon was noticeably wearing very casual clothes such as a flimsy white shirt compared with the others' school uniforms. "Are you sure this is a good idea?" he asked, with a subtle rhetorical tone, "This will just cause us all trouble."

"For the Kyoto Alliance, Kyon," noted Haruhi, "You want Kyoto back too, right?"

"Kyoto's in Gensokyo," pointed out Kyon, "Why are we declaring war against Yamaha?"

"The whole point of Majora's Mask was that Yamaha will declare war with Gensokyo," frowned Haruhi, "Were you paying attention in the meeting?"

"I said that Gensokyo had no access to the moon and Yamaha know that. They won't fall for this."

"And I said that we can just take over Yamaha. Then we can focus on Gensokyo."

"You couldn't beat either during Doomsday. Why is now any different?"

"I wasn't ready at the time," argued Haruhi, clearly getting more agitated by the second, "I know what I'm up against this time. Once Solace finds a way to break down their barriers, it'll be over."

"You're putting a lot of faith in a relatively normal character to get your dirty work done." The other three members, Asahina Mikuru, Koizumi and Yuki kept silent. It was not a good idea to interfere with arguments between the God and her slave.

"She's been a faithful follower of my cause from the start," shouted Haruhi with great force, "She'll do what she can for her own benefit, which will be our own benefit. And I have given her aid to help her achieve want she wants. She will get this done and she will get this done right."

"Suzumiya-san," interrupted Koizumi with urgency, "There's a Yamaha official stationed close to Solace's landing site."

"What?!" cried Haruhi, scrambling next to Koizumi to look at the map from his view.

Koizumi pointed to Solace's land site, "Here. There is an inbound official who is not normally stationed in this area. They had arrived here just before the falling of the moon. Running recognition programs."

"... How did they know?" mouthed Haruhi with panic.

Solace suddenly fell on her feet, the hovering capsule deactivating. Before she had time to gain some footing, the capsule split into two and she fell backwards into one half of the cylinder capsule. Blinking, Solace's eyes adjusted to the darkness. She could make out searchlights in the far distance illuminating the huge Atlas who was holding up the moon, much smaller than it used to be, with his four arms. Getting up, Solace brushed herself off, only to be pushed forward onto the ground face first. Someone knelt one knee on her neck, close to choking her. And then she felt the barrel of a gun at the back of her head.

"This is the Black Squad," said a female voice, "You're under arrest."

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