Chapter 7.2 - Non-Portal-ble Ops

Non-Portal-ble Ops
"I hope you have a reason. And a plan," commented Sora, her head turned to stare blankly at Solace. Solace took her hand off Sora's shoulder in surprise. Sora was back in the bridge's chair and had been controlling the Thunder Child until Solace had forcefully brought her hand down on Sora's shoulder, accompanied with a cry to stop, apparently by instinct.

"Ah- I know the person that Cirno was carrying!" explained Solace, unable to control her anxiety, "Alice Raymour! She was my housemate in Arcania City!"

"Hmm?" hummed Sora, looking back out the Thunder Child's windows, the white ice holding the ship in place only just visible below from their relatively high altitude. "Well, they didn't emit a heat signature. Cirno's cold temperature probably negated Alice's. I lost visual after they got caught in the cyclone and I can't get visual again with with the cyclone gone," Sora turned back to Solace, "My guess is that they were thrown into Yamaha."

"What?!" shouted Solace, panicking, "Won't the Sonic Barrier kill them?"

"Actually," noted Sora, her voice showing concern, "I haven't detected any replacement Sonic Amp drop-pods after we destroyed five of them. For some reason, Yamaha had Atlas block the gap instead. Miku's clearly up to something, especially if she's leaving the Sonic Barrier open."

"Quick then, we need to turn round and smash back through the Barrier," insisted Solace, becoming more and more impatient.

Sora frowned at the suggestion, "Two problems with that. Firstly, Reimu is now unconscious. If we break through the Barrier again, most likely the entire Hakurei Barrier will collapse allowing a complete absorption of Gensokyo by Haruhi." Solace was about to protest against this reason when Sora raised a hand to allow her to continue. "Secondly, and most importantly, we're now stuck in ice. We need the hyperdrive shafts at the back of the Thunder Child unblocked before it's safe to get moving."

"Can't we use the portal technology to help us?" suggested Lynette, "Like fire a shell through a portal to smash the ice?"

"The portal are limited to the surface of a sphere around the Thunder Child. And inward facing portals point directly at the Thunder Child. Any shells fired will smash through the Thunder Child as well. Unless..." Sora's face lit up with realisation. "We can use White Noise to block the shell! Hold tight-" There was a sudden impact, the entire vessel shaking violently, toppling both Solace and Lynette.

"What was that?" called Solace, scrambling onto all fours.

It was Sora's time to panic, "I don't know! There something outside but it's stealthed." There was another collision, the groaning of metal flooding the innards of the Thunder Child. Sora got up quickly and headed for the room's entrance, "We need that ice smashed now!" she relayed, "With that thing outside, the White Noise barrier will be broken immediately. Stay here, I've got an idea." She ran out of the bridge leaving both Solace and Lynette behind. The two of them watched her go in silence when a third crash hit the Thunder Child.

"Like hell I'm staying here," gritted Solace, taking her backpack off. Before Lynette could respond, Solace unzipped the bag. Before she could see what was inside, the bag jumped at her chest, throwing straps over her shoulders. The backpack turned itself inside-out and underwent an unbelievable transformation, trailing grey cords down the back of her limbs and the back of her neck. Cuffs were formed around her lower and upper arms and legs. As the cords crept up the back of her head, under her hair, and reached her temples, Solace felt her mind clear of any fear she had.

"Super Driver systems activated!" spoke an overly happy Haruhi from Solace's back, "You've completely a step of your mission! If you've found a way to break down either barrier, just walk outside in clear weather and we'll do the rest." It was obvious at this point that it was a recording.

Solace took a quick look at herself. The cords covered the back of her body, feet and hands. In addition to the feet and hands, only the cuffs, the temple cords and a single large piece of carbon fibre resembling a breastplate was visible from the front. Oddly, the breastplate was flashing many lights of differing colours. Despite Solace not know the purpose of the object, she noted that she felt stronger. "Feels like a nanosuit," she mumbled as she ran out the bridge.

Behind her, Lynette frowned and picked up her rifle before following, leaving her Striker Units behind.

Solace ran down the corridor towards the exit door. The door was in sight when there was a sudden high pitched screeching from outside. This was immediately followed by a small light blue beam shooting straight through the metal wall ahead of her from outside, blocking her path. As the beam circled around, cutting through the walls of the Thunder Child like butter, Solace noticed a clear liquid flowing down the corridor past her feet. "... A water jet cutter?" exclaimed Solace as the jet died away. Then without warning, a metal appendage smashed through the cut section, digging far into the vessel's insides. As the appendage retracted, Solace ran up to the enormous hole ripped in the side of the Thunder Child. Blocking her view of the night sky was a towering machine resembling a bipedal animal. "Metal Gear RAY..." gritted Solace. The operator of RAY ignored Solace, inserting both arms of RAY into the hole and attempting to pull the hole wider. Full of determination, Solace took hold of the end of RAY's right arm and successfully resisted RAY's outwards push, the Super Driver enhancing her physical power and the grip of her shoes to match the Metal Gear's strength.

However, Solace could not reach the other arm and it continued to peel apart the armour of the warship, the Thunder Child's cries of pain echoing across the waters. Solace pushed harder against the arm, struggling but successfully moving it slowly towards RAY's left arm in an attempt to take hold of both of them. The operator of RAY noticed this and RAY's mouth opened, revealing the water jet cutter, pointed directly at Solace.

Sora hurried down the floors of the Thunder Child, jumping down stairs and ladders, making her way to the back of the vessel to the hyperdrive room. She stumbled as the ship was hit heavily by another impact, falling through the room's door. Recovering quickly back to her feet, Sora placed her hands flat, palm down, on the back wall and took a deep breath. Making use of her Vocaloid abilities she emitted an extremely loud buzz from her hands, erratically fluctuating the pitch.

But before it could fire, RAY's head was hit by a heavy round from Lynette who was standing by RAY's left arm. RAY recoiled its head, closing its mouth. Lynette quickly fired two more shots, forcing RAY to take a step back, unhooking one of its feet from the ice. In its lapse of concentration, Solace managed to reach the left arm and took hold of both. With one hard push, Solace thrust RAY's arms out of the Thunder Child. With only one leg secured to the ground, RAY toppled backwards, the ice underneath chipping but continuing to hold together. Then came the buzzing.

For a moment, nothing happened, as RAY struggled to rise with the aid of its tail, the disorienting buzzing drowning out all other noise. The tightly packed ice could no longer cope with irregular vibrations coming from the Thunder Child and cracks spread out from the back of the vessel, the entire ship beginning to tilt backwards. Seeing where this was going, Solace looked out the hole at the damage done to the Thunder Child. RAY had managed to rip the shell of the ship many levels down, even below the level of the ice.

"Sora! If you break the ice now, the Thunder Child's going to sink!" Solace screamed at the top of her voice but even she couldn't hear herself. The Thunder Child gave a sudden jolt as the ice finally gave way and fell several feet down into unfrozen water, pushing the surrounding ice away, RAY falling over once more. But a few feet was too much, as water flooded through the crack, the Thunder Child sinking, slowly but surely. Solace, still with buzzing in her ears, ran towards Lynette, grabbed her and her rifle and bolted towards the bridge but the Thunder Child began to tilt further backwards as water weighted down the rear of the ship, causing the two to slide back.

Upon Solace's thoughts, they came to an abrupt halt at the hole as the Super Driver magnetised Solace's feet to the ground but then the entire vessel sank under the water submerging both Solace and Lynette. Holding her breath, with one eye open, Solace attempted to walk upwards towards the bridge. As she struggled to push through the water, she felt as though the hole in the wall was getting smaller. Her vision began to fade as something grabbed onto her hand and pulled her upwards at high speed.

Solace felt herself thrown into an air filled room. As her vision recovered, she saw Sora shut the door to the bridge as Lynette was coughing up water nearby, the three of them soaking wet. The view out the window was pitch black. "Aren't we sinking?" asked Solace, breathing heavily.

"The Thunder Child is capable of underwater travel," explained Sora, calmly. In the tilted room, Sora had one foot on the floor and one on the door "If we let the Thunder Child naturally eject out the water, we'll be fine."

"But there's a huge hole in the Thunder Child!"

"Ah, about that," smiled Sora, "It seems like the patching system works. Looks like Melanie pulled through." As she spoke, the Thunder Child was slowly regaining its horizontal position. "It's a repair system, but only works with the outer walls. It uses mimetic polyalloy technology, basically a form of liquid metal." Sora then frowned, "So... What's with the new getup?" she asked.

Solace was about to answer when she heard the reloading of a rifle behind her.

"Take the Super Driver off," warned Lynette, pointing the rifle at Solace's back, finger on the trigger.

"I'm taking Reimu back to the Ivory Coast," reported Marisa, over communications, "You okay?"

"Yeah, I'm fine," responded Nitori, placing her hat back on her head, having fallen off earlier.

"Will the Thunder Child be a problem?"

"RAY's amphibious. It'll be a piece of cake," grinned Nitori as she tightened a grip on the Metal Gear's controls in the cockpit.

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