“And we are back. Another week, another samurai to highlight on Magenta’s Sparkling Samurai show! Today, we have Myriad and company, and to help me we have our guest host of this week: You might love her but are more likely to hate her, please welcome Maniac!”

“Really, that is the introduction you are going with? Well, whatever…”

“You can’t tell me that statement is wrong.”

“Oh, shut up… Okay, before we get distracted by your tangents again, let’s talk Myriad. She is… well…”

“Ooh, what is it? Use your words; I know you have plenty.”

“Well, she definitely has that gacha thirst trap look to her, so if any of you watching would like to see something nice for a change, definitely take a look at her. Anyway, on to powers: Maniac is a Hive-Mind. Maniac? For fuck sake, Glowstick, fix your handwriting.”

“You know that we are not talking about you, right?”

“Not my fault you write like a five-year old on a sugar rush. Moving on, being a Hive-Mind, huh? That sounds… well, complicated. The only people I know that are Hive-Minds are either insanely lonely or so full of themself they want an army of mindless followers.”

“That is not so nice. We are supposed to talk about their good points. If you don’t know any of those, why are you even on the show?”

“Because without me, you would not have camera footage from the American security network to show off her assets.”

“What do you mean by that then?”

“Well, this is definitely the fanservice episode of your stream."

- Start of the Sparkling Samurai show episode 152: The Benefits of Being Hot

Fighting in close quarters, especially inside a building, was a fucking nightmare. We were used to small gang shootouts, not people with actual gear trying to mow Us down with fully automatic rifles. Rifles, we would like to add, that punched straight through the interior walls of most of the offices.

Whoever decided to reinforce this building, obviously didn’t care even a lick about the lives of their workers. But hey, at least it was bomb proof! Okay, it really wasn’t, not if you were determined enough.

Or had a giant scorpion tearing through the front of the building. But we digress.

Making a small opening in the Hard-Light dome we had projected around Chloe, Jenna, and ourselves, we sent a lance down the hallway to kill off the idiot trying to murder Us. Snuffles had postulated that they were most likely on some form of drug, and now, seeing them up close, we were pretty sure that was the case. No way in hell would anyone not high on something potent be able to take one of Chloe’s shotgun shells, lose an entire arm, and just continue functioning as if nothing happened.

Jenna’s Sentinels moved across the hallway, acting as a sort of formation breaker. She could only use her smaller Sentinels, the larger being too tall to be of use in the confined space of the building.

We were nearly at the top of the building by now, only one floor down from where the leaders had barricaded themselves in the head honchos office. A few of Us had secured the parking garage first, to ensure nobody would be able to leave without our say-so.

We didn’t block all of them from leaving, the poor office workers that had nothing to do with this mess could go. We weren’t here to murder innocents, only to fuck up the life of those who decided it was a smart idea to mess with Us. And according to Kaysa, not all of them were involved, which wasn’t too much of a surprise, truth be told.

Really, most of them were more victims than anything else, folk who did a dead end job to pay their bills. You couldn’t even argue that they were doing anything too bad, most of what they did was legally questionable, but didn’t actively harm anyone other than other corporations, which we could totally get behind.

While the three of us made our way up, the rest of Us was busy clearing out the floors below. Any soldier was killed, with those that were involved but not actively harming Us or anyone else, being taken prisoner.

Rounding a corner, with Chloe going first, of course, we cleared the hallway towards the last set of stairs. Having her here was a godsend. While we had some experience fighting people, that was all in the context of small gang shootouts, not proper urban warfare.

Arriving on the top most floor, we were almost immediately fired upon.

“Fuck!” Chloe cursed, taking cover behind the corner of the stairwell and returning fire with her shotgun.

When it clicked empty, she threw it to one side, where it vanished. Another weapon appeared, this time a rifle of sorts. Not wasting any time, she hefted it and laid down covering fire, while two of Jenna’s Sentinels rushed forwards, taking the hits of the enemy rifles on their massive tower shields, before cutting down our adversaries.

Once the way was clear, we continued upward, carefully keeping our eyes open. A sudden movement to our left alerted Us, and with a single motion our Hard-Light polearm appeared, cutting through the weapon of the attacker. We had aimed for the attacker themselves, but our skill with the weapon was mediocre at best. It did give Chloe enough time to react, however, and a moment later the woman’s head exploded when Chloe put a rather large round through it that detonated upon contact.

Once more sweeping our surroundings, we made sure we were in the clear, before we moved over to the corner leading towards the last hallway. Chloe peeked around, then immediately retreated, when a barrage of bullets came flying down the hallway.

“Shit, they’ve got turrets.”

“Hold on,” we muttered, quickly pulling up our virtual realm, “We’ll try and disable them. Kaysa, some pointers?”

With the help of Kaysa we hacked into the building’s network, and from there into the security network. The security on that network was shoddy at best, it seemed the folk responsible didn’t bother to come up with better security measures. Sucks for them, but good for Us, and we wouldn’t complain.

After around a minute we finally had what we wanted. The only reason we even got it this fast was Kaysa’s tremendous help. Tiny had already asked for a more dedicated training course for this kind of thing, and we had to agree that it would be helpful. Once we got some points to spend on dream learning, we’d definitely add it to our list.

With the turrets dealt with, Chloe moved into the hallway, weapon raised. No further surprises were waiting for us, and soon we stood in front of the door, leading to the office that the leaders had barricaded themselves in.

Chloe didn’t try any fancy tricks to get it open, simply purchasing a small explosive and sticking it onto the door. One explosion later, the door flew inwards, incapacitating the guards already waiting. Guards we made quick work of, before they could recover.

It left us standing in a rather large office, a long, faux-wooden table decorating it. Six people were sitting around it, with one in a rather large office chair at one end. The rest had cheaper looking chairs, probably less important members of their little organisation.

They were all male, roughly between thirty and forty if we’d have to guess, and all wore suits. The cheap kind that was trying to look expensive, but failed fantastically at it. The way they held themselves, together with their shoddy suits, made it obvious that they wanted to appear as wealthy and powerful, but really, with how pale they all were, that fell flat entirely.

That said, we weren’t sure if it was an act or genuine arrogant attitude, they did seem inclined to try and bluster their way through this mess.

“Well, well, what do we have here? Seems like Sebastian was a bit off on the number of fucks in charge,” we said with an evil smile.

“You have no right to be here,” the man in the big office chair said. To his credit, his voice was only a little shaky. “We’ve already called for the police, this intrusion will not stand. This is a krass invasion of privacy, destruction of company property, and harm to personnel.”

We laughed at that, “Are you honestly this daft to think that the police will come anywhere near Us, once they learn that Samurai are involved? Three Samurai, we might add. Not something most folk would dare to go against.”

“Samurai or not, we have done nothing to elicit this kind of response. The moment you touch us, our lawyers and media teams will crush you like a bug. I would advise you to turn around and leave this office right now. Wait outside for the police to take you in. If you do, we might even drop some of the charges we could levy against you.”

“You’ve done nothing?” we asked, raising our eyebrows. The gall of this guy. “You sent an attack force into the redlight district with the distinct goal of dealing with Us, and our turf. You’ve hired up all the gangs in the surrounding area and turned them into your own Private Army. A shit army, sure, but an army nonetheless. Are you honestly saying that you had nothing to do with all of that?”

“Nothing more than a simple misunderstanding, I assure you,” another of the men said. His tone was even more self-indulgent than the first, if that was even possible. “We sent word to a few contacts that they should clean up the gangs, since they were threatening our businesses. It is a common procedure and nothing out of the ordinary. One of them must have misunderstood the orders. We can find out who it was and deliver them to you, of course. Such reckless action, especially going against company policy, must be punished.”

We stared in disbelief. Then we sighed, rubbing our face.

“Tell me again why we have rules against eating idiots?” we asked Chloe and Jenna absently.

“Because you don’t want to end up like the Devourer of Worlds,” Chloe said with a bit of humour in her voice.

“That said,” Jenna continued, overplaying a thoughtful expression and tapping her chin lightly. “If I remember this correctly, I am pretty certain you said you didn’t want to eat people. You never specified that you would never eat idiots. And considering the verbal diarrhoea coming out of these guys' mouths, I’m pretty sure they would fall quite firmly into that category.”

“True enough, we suppose. Regardless,” we turned back to the idiots in question, expression serious. We were done playing games.

“All your running around the point is useless. The idiots you sent into Black Lotus territory cracked like an egg, spilled all your dirty little secrets. As much as they knew, of course. We have to admit, that group you were working with was a lot better at covering their tracks, but they didn’t do jack shit to help cover for your asses. Obsidian Gaze had a field day of cracking and entering your servers… Uhm, allegedly? We think. That’s lawyer speak, right? Anyways, we have all the details that you hosted online, or on your buildings network. No amount of moaning and bluffing and complaining can pull you out of this one. And thanks to our little helpful AI, we also know that at least two of you are connected to XetaCorp. We’re thinking that Bahamut would love to know all about it.”

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Kaysa had perused all the information available on the network while we were talking, and the small little tit bits of information she managed to pull were equal parts disgusting, and illuminating.

We smiled, “So this is how it’s going to go. We’ll notify Bahamut about you two specifically. The rest will die and become biomass to replenish our forces. Maybe you’d actually be useful then.”

One of the men sighed, looking… resigned? We weren’t sure if that was the right descriptor, but whatever the word for his expression was, it was clear that he had already accepted his fate. He was the only one who seemed genuinely resentful of the whole mess, even if that was very likely not because of any remorse about the damage he caused, but simply because of the fact that he couldn’t escape the consequences.

“I told you from the get go that this was a bad idea, Sam,” he muttered, glaring at the man seated at the end of the table.

“Shut it, Peter,” Sam shot back, sounding agitated.

“No, I won’t. If we’re going to die anyways, I at least want to be able to tell you that I told you so. Well, Sam, I fucking told you so. Your ‘security measures’,” he actually made air quotes around the term, “are worth fuck all. Like I told you from the beginning!”

We gave Peter a smile. “You seem talkative. We know most of what we care about already, but if you’d indulge Us, why don’t you tell Us the details about your little operation? Who knows, prove useful enough and we might actually let you live.”

He sighed, shaking his head. “Doesn’t matter much anyways, now does it? Very well, might as well set some things strai-”

Sam moved, pulling his hands from under the table. He held a pistol, levelling it at Peter, finger already on the trigger, but Chloe was Chloe, and Chloe was awesome, so she was faster. Her rifle moved, then a shot rang out. Sam’s head disintegrated, red mist covered his, no doubt, expensive chair, and the window behind him shattered as the bullet passed through.

People screamed, of course. After a moment we returned our attention back to Peter.

“Pardon. You were saying?”

Rounding up everyone left in the building took a while. Time we used by questioning Peter, who turned out to be rather helpful.

From what he told Us, they had been trying to build up a company that dealt in Samurai tech. Most of the shit they got was obtained illegally, some was bought up, some was given to them by the Samurai they had in their employ. As Sebastian had postulated, she had no clue what was going on, thinking that they were using the tech to distribute it around the district.

While all of them were involved in various ways, the main culprit was Sam, to nobody’s surprise. He was one of the survivors of the XetaCorp disaster, which did suck a bit, considering that we wanted to hand them both over to Bahamut, and had gotten it into his head to stamp out any Samurai that might become a threat in the future, which would explain his idiotic plan of attacking the redlight district.

Peter also revealed that Sam was behind the lures under the gate. He wanted to use it to pull all the xenos together and kill them with some super weapon, using that as marketing to sell some of their tech to some of the bigger companies in the Inner City. Something went sideways, though, the people who were tasked with using the weapon at the gate did a runner, leaving the lures on. And since Sam and his lackeys were about as smart as a drug addict on the verge of overdosing, they hadn’t thought about implementing a secondary way to shut the lures off. Wonderful.

The entire thing reeked of sheer incompetence. Not that we were surprised.

After all was said and done, it was a massive waste of time and money on Sam’s part, one setback after another leading to more debt and the feeling of inadequacy, which just spurred him on to make more and more stupid decisions. Peter was an investor as it turned out, lured in by Sam’s promises, but he eventually learned just how much of a dimwit Sam was.

We were sure that he left out a good bit about his own involvement, not that we cared much. We kept our promise and let him live, instead handing him over to the authorities. The rest we killed. They were much less cooperative, trying to sell Us whatever they could to keep them alive. One even had the absolute gall of insinuating that he could get Us as many people as we wanted to serve as our ‘servants’. The word slave wasn’t used, but we were pretty sure that was what he meant, considering his use of the term 'indentured servants’.

No clue why he thought that such an offer would be anything but disgusting. Snuffles made short work of him, turning him into another Hatchling, first. The rest followed quickly after, but they were the only ones we decided to devour. Their lackeys might have been bought up by them and followed their orders, but what can you do in the Outer City, when you get an offer to actually make enough money to survive for a change.

We couldn’t begrudge them for that.

That said, the cleanup of the district wasn’t finished. They had a number of the safehouses, all of which we had to check and clear. This would probably take another day or two, although for this we utilised mostly Jenna’s Sentinels. Of course, we did our part, and a few of Us were involved, but considering that her Sentinels didn’t need to eat or sleep, it was more energy efficient.

Watching the police car fly off with Peter in the backseat, we stood at the entrance to the building. Cheryl had left a while ago, after talking to Us about various aspects of the redlight district.

Her superiors had tried to get her to plant some bugs and whatnot around town, but she told them to do it themselves and deal with the fallout themselves as well. Really, we were a bit surprised that she was this open with Us about it, but then again, she had made it clear from the get go that she was taught to never lie to a Samurai. And we had asked her if there was anything we should know about.

We had also, after some discussion, decided to inform the Family about the Samurai girl that these fuckwits had been using to obtain more tech. We weren’t the right people to deal with it, and while we did feel for her, we were really not in the right headspace either. If it was up to Us, we’d go full gungho on the rest of these fucks.

Honestly, we were just glad to hear that they did nothing else to her. Otherwise this part of New Savannah might have needed a complete rebuild. Maybe even more than just this district…

“What a day,” we muttered, and I took the time to emerge from the chorus once more. “I’m so ready to head home.”

“I feel you. Hopefully we won’t have to deal with anything else any time soon,” Chloe agreed, taking off her helmet, and combing through her hair with one hand.

“Don’t forget, we have that expedition in two days time,” Jenna said, stretching lavishly, and I took the time to admire her a little.

“I know. Well, at least that one should be easy. Killing xenos, making points, getting shit done. Not this mess,” Chloe muttered, then sighed.

“Wanna head home then? We can clean up the rest here, no need for us to stand around like this.” I gave her a smile.

“Sure. Let’s. I could use some rest.”

Then Chloe startled me, by pulling me into a hug. She gave me a peck, before she pulled me closer, my head nuzzled in the slightly uncomfortable metal of her chestplate, and her head nestled between my mechanical ears.

“Hey,” I said softly, “What brought this on?”

“I just felt like it,” she replied, “Honestly, I kind of just want to spend the rest of the day cuddling. Call me needy, but after all of that bullshit, it sounds like a pleasant way to spend the day.”

“Oh? Now that is something I can get behind,” I said with a smile, squeezing her gently. “And I don’t mind you being needy. It’s nice.”

“Mhm…”

“Want me to give you some room? The bedroom can be turned soundproof,” Jenna said with a smirk, watching us.

I was about to give her a snide remark in return, teasing her right back, when Chloe surprised me again.

“Honestly, that doesn’t sound like a bad idea.”

I paused, extricating myself slightly to look up at her. “Okay, what’s going on? Not that I don’t appreciate the sentiment, but this seems a bit too forward for you.”

She chuckled, blushing faintly. “Is it? My memories of yesterday are a bit hazy, but I’m pretty sure I had my entire tongue in Junior’s mouth at some point. And I can’t say that I disliked it. Really, even I realise that I might just be dragging my feet a bit at this point. Ever since the simulation and all that… I dunno, it just… doesn’t really feel like all the stuff I was worried about matters much anymore.”

“Oh?” Jenna asked, her smirk widening. “Finally ready to be honest with yourself?”

Chloe gave her a mock glare, making me giggle, before she smiled again. Her blush did deepen quite a bit, of course. “Maybe. I really don’t mind the idea of spending some time with Seraphine behind closed doors. Hell, our shower together already left me… wanting for more. And I think we all could use some relaxation after today.”

“You won’t hear me complaining,” I said, getting on my tippy toes and planting a peck on her cheek. “If you’re up for it, I’m up for it. And I would be lying if I said I haven’t thought extensively about it.”

The shuttle landed nearby, and she finally let go of me, taking my hand with a smile. “Then maybe we should just see how it goes, hm?”

I giggled and nodded, “Yeah.”

The idea was already enough to lift my spirits after today’s disasters, and I found myself looking forward to it.

We made our way over to the shuttle, Chloe still holding my hand, which made me all kinds of giddy, something made obvious by Tiny’s happy jiggle. Chloe noticed and chuckled, obviously a bit self-conscious and blushing. But she squeezed my hand more tightly, pulling me closer.

The entire situation left me feeling a bit… confused. After today’s excitement, this sudden development; it clashed in my mind. I wouldn’t complain, of course, I was really giddy, but I also didn’t know how to take it all in. The dichotomy of the two emotions was confusing.

That said, I did claim her lap as my seat for the trip back to the corvette, leaning into her, something she obviously appreciated and reciprocated. I halfway expected Jenna to comment, but she didn’t, simply watching us with a smile for a change.

The trip back was spent in comfortable silence, all the way until we touched down.

“I’m going to have a long shower, probably a bath. Unless you want to?” Jenna said, as she got up.

“I don’t mind either way. Hell, I don’t mind you joining in,” Chloe said with an embarrassed smile.

I giggled at that, “You really are quite bold, all of a sudden.”

“Yeah… I think… I think seeing you today, this terrified and this brought down by… you know, it kind of made me realise where I stood. I want to be closer to you, you know? To be there for you. Really, I wanted to do that for a little while now, but there has always been something holding me back. Today was just that final push, I think. And really, if I’m honest with myself, I feel similar, if not the same, for Jenna. If we wanna see how it goes, why not go all the way?”

“That’s up to Jenna, to be honest,” I said, giving Jenna a glance, “You know how I feel about you both. She’s the one you have to convince.”

Jenna looked at us, much to my surprise seriously considering it. I wasn’t quite sure what exactly held her up until now. She had let some details through during our chat in the simulation, but she also had been reserved.

“I…” she started, then stopped, searching for the right words. “Maybe… Maybe not today. Sorry. There is still some stuff I need to work through first. I… I think I feel the same, somewhere deep down. But it’s a bit of a mess that I need to get through, first. Again, sorry.”

“It’s okay,” Chloe said, “I’m sorry if I’m coming off as a bit pushy. Right now I feel like I gotta give it the juice, while I still have the willpower to actually go through with it. Truth be told, I’m kind of really fucking terrified and anxious about it all, for various reasons.”

“It’s fine. You make yourself a pleasant evening with Seraphine. So, you want that bath?” Jenna asked, obviously trying to change the topic.

“Nah. You go ahead. We’ll probably need one after, more than before,” I told her with a smile.

Then I finally got up, pulling Chloe up behind me. This wasn’t the situation I thought I’d find myself in before spending quality time with Chloe, but I also didn’t mind. The entire day had been a bit of a mess, and ending it on a good note was a nice thought.

Together the three of us made our way out of the shuttle and towards the leisure room. The rest of Us were obviously all just as giddy as I felt. Myra, Joenna, Keity, and Celine greeted Us, Joenna following after Jenna to help with whatever she needed, while the other three prepared snacks for after we were done.

Despite her earlier statement, Jenna couldn’t quite stop herself from blushing faintly when she gave us a couple of comments about enjoying ourselves, even if she overshadowed it well with her trademark teasing smirk.

Chloe was, as was typical for her, blushing, but she didn’t pull away, actually leading me into the bedroom, rather than the other way around. Once inside I made sure to lock the door and engage the sound proofing system.

Turning I found her looking rather awkward, giving me a blushing smile, which was just so insanely adorable. Despite the awkwardness, her body language spoke of someone who was eager to press ahead, even if she couldn’t find the willpower to do so herself.

She didn’t have to.

Ever since I met her, and especially once I got to know her, I had wanted to throw myself at her, tackle her over and just claim her as mine. And for the first time ever since that day, I let myself go, finally stopping to hold back all those urges.

With an eager dash, I tackled her to the bed, locking her into a long, deep, and passionate kiss. One she reciprocated almost immediately with a needy eagerness.

Needless to say, it didn’t take long before we did a whole lot more than just kissing.