Aida generally enjoyed her job as a pharmacist at Denver Citadel. The pay was great, the benefits were nice, and Donald Holloway was a good boss. If there was one thing about her job she could do without, it was having to listen to her coworker Joanne gripe about her seemingly endless body image issues.
Joanne was still going when the two were on their way back to the pharmacy from their lunch break.
"But seriously, Aida, why are all the female Hoplites here so… hot?" Aida said, a hint of envy in her voice.
Emma sighed while looking through some things on her tablet. "They're attractive, sure, but it's not like they're goddesses or anything. Most of their good looks come from staying in shape, Joanne."
There's no way you believe that. Sonia is a literal model with the most beautiful face I've ever seen. And Renée? She's tall and has curves I would kill for! Oh, and Ellie! She's adorable, she's flexible, she's 'petite.' Ah, it's so unfair… Makes me want to go and get some more 'work' down."
Aida rolled her eyes as they entered the pharmacy's back room. "Maybe you should spend less time moaning about not having the perfect body you want and should spend more time at the citadel's gy—"
Aida couldn't finish her sentence. The moment she flicked on the lights, a horrific scene was illuminated. Joseph Jefferson, the ex-syndicate informant, lay on the backroom floor with his throat slit and his blood pooling around him as well as staining part of the wall and some of the medicine.
Aida and Joanne immediately drew their firearms and took a quick survey of the area. Once they were sure it was clear, Aida approached Jefferson's body while Joanne rushed to the nearest emergency switch and slammed it, setting off an alarm that echoed throughout all of Denver Citadel. While it blared, she opened up the pharmacy's channel to the PA system.
"This is Staffer Carmichael of the Citadel Pharmacy. The informant, Joseph Jefferson has been killed in the pharmacy. His killer is nowhere to be seen and still on the loose. Repeat: the killer is still on the loose!"
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"Dad, if you cancel the reservation for tonight, Mom is gonna be super mad," Joey told her father. "Mr. Shimada is probably going to be upset too. Leon said his granddad has been looking forward to serving us a big meal on the house ever since ARES rescued him."
Donald shifted so as to not put too much weight on his still recovering leg. injury. His daughter had ambushed him while he and Shives were on the citadel's fenced-in roof discussing something. Whatever urgency that matter may have had was completely supplanted by the overseer having to defend his honor from his daughter's workaholic accusations. In Joey's defense, she had heard 'Sorry, sweetie, but I'm just really busy,' one too many times before.
"I know, Jojo. I know…" Donald said, trying to cut his daughter's lecture short. "I won't forget. I promised you and your mom we'd be there, and we will."
Shives found himself amused by the overseer's predicament. "Daughter's are a handful aren't they, overseer? Just wait until she's a teenager. That's when the real fun starts."
Donald shot him a wry look. "Thanks for the support."
"So, we're still on for family night tonight, Dad?" Joey pressed once more.
"Of course. Dad won't back out of this one. I swear."
Josephine smiled and gave her dad one of her signature bear hugs. "Thanks, Dad!"
"I-it's fine, Jojo. …You can let go now."
Joey did so, much to the relief of her father's spine.
"Alright, that's enough for me. Sorry for interrupting for you guys were talking about earlier, Hoplite Shives."
"It's no problem at all," Shives replied, exchanging a parting wave with the girl.
Joey finally started for the rooftop's exit. She only took a few steps when a sudden, searing pain lanced through her head, causing her to yelp.
Jo… Josephine… You must…
The cryptic words echoed through her mind as she stumbled to the floor, clutching at her temple.
"Joey!" Donald exclaimed as he rushed to her side. "What's wrong? Is it another migraine?"
"What type of bloody migraine gives you headaches like that?" Shives asked concerningly.
Before Joey could respond, the citadel's alarm blared, echoing from the speaker on the rooftop as it did on all of the floors below. The overseer and the Hoplite both exchanged the same shocked look. That alarm was only triggered when a grave emergency was going on within the citadel. The emergency in question was announced immediately after.
"This is Staffer Carmichael of the Citadel Pharmacy. The informant, Joseph Jefferson has been killed in the pharmacy. His killer is nowhere to be seen and still on the loose. Repeat: the killer is still on the loose!"
"What?!" Donald exclaimed.
"We just saw him not even an hour ago… He's been killed?" Shives asked in disbelief.
While Donald steadied his daughter on her feet with one hand, he used the other to activate his com and start urgently asking questions to whomever the equally confused ARES staffer on the opposite end of the line was. Between this and the continuous wailing of citadel siren, Joey's already throbbing head remained in turmoil. And yet, she could still hear that voice crisply.
Jo… sephine… Josephine… You… You must get off that roof, Josephine!
Joey's eyes snapped alive. Tugging on Donald's sleeve, she started at a mad dash with him for the rooftop door.
"J-Jojo? What are you doing?" her bewildered father asked.
Joey didn't know why she was doing what she was. All she knew was that something deep in her mind desperately wanted her off this roof. The why came just as soon as she and Donald were reaching the door.
The rooftop door slammed shut behind Joey and Donald just as a small squadron of sleek, military-grade drones ascended and homed in on the citadel's roof. With cold precision and amazing firepower, the drones took aim and fired a barrage of missiles at the roof. Shives, the only individual still on it, was engulfed in a maelstrom of fire and debris. Joey and Donald hit the floor as they made it inside just in time, and shielded their heads as the entire citadel shook from the impact.
Smoke billowed from the roof as the drones hovered, observing their work and checking for their target's body. Suddenly, the smoke began to shift and rise, seemingly of its own accord. With a gesture, Shives blew it clear, he and his channelers now orbiting around him had endured all the blasts without a single injury. The Void Knight's signature Void had rendered the drones' robust firepower useless.
The drones themselves, after quickly accessing known data about Sir Henry Shives, his abilities, and his formidable CL-A4 status, promptly turned and flew off like a flock of metallic birds.
Shives narrowed his eyes at the machines' impertinence.
"I'll be right back, overseer," he shouted at Donald and Joey before soaring in pursuit of them.
Donald stared at his daughter peculiarly. "Joey, did you... Did you know that was going to happen?"
Joey was unsure how to respond. She hadn't known herself. "There was something... A voice, I think... It told me to—"
He appeared right in front of them before Joey could finish — a hooded figure, wearing a psytech mask, and wielding a bloody blade. Immediately, father and daughter both knew who this person had to be, but the former was still not swift enough to stop the latter from being snatched up by the masked assailant before he bolted out onto the rooftop.
"No!" Donald cried out while drawing his gun.
The overseer took quick shots at the masked man's legs, but he evaded every shot with ease. While Donald was reloading, an AV swiftly arrived and swooped down, hovering just low enough for the masked man to launch himself up and into the vehicle with Joey in tow.
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Donald fired more shots at the AV as it flew off, but the vehicle still sped away, undeterred and undamaged.
"Jojo!" Donald exclaimed as he watched it soar away. "…Shit!"
He activated his com. "This is Overseer Holloway. An eleven-year-old girl has just been abducted by the intruder who murdered Joseph Jefferson. He fled away with her in a black AV, heading east from the citadel. I need all Hoplites available to pursue it to do so, immediately!"
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"Is there a reason we're bringing the brat along?" Murdock asked from where he sat in the AV.
"Insurance," Doyle answered while skimming a projected message from Dorothy on his phone. "If we take a hostage with us, they won't be able to just shoot us down. Especially not when that hostage is the overseer's daughter."
Joey was sitting up and trying her hardest to put on her steeliest expression. She was obviously scared, as indicated by how her bottom lip trembled. Still, her eyes shone with defiance against her own fear in a way that Murdock couldn't help but find amusing.
"Spunky brat, ain't she?" he muttered to the masked man.
While Murdock, Doyle, and the other two Emerald members scared Joey, none intimidated her more than the hooded masked figure who had just kidnapped her. Underneath the shadow of his hood, she could occasionally notice his psytech mask gleaming ever so slightly. His black dagger was messy with blood, and even an eleven-year-old could put two and two together about where that blood had come from.
"…You were the one who killed that informant guy?" Joey asked.
The masked killer stayed silent as he pulled a cloth from his pocket and calmly wiped his knife clean. He dropped the cloth as the AV suddenly lurched. Joey yelped as she was tossed forward, but the masked man caught her, a gesture the girl wouldn't have expected from anyone in the AV, least of all him.
Murdock cocked a brow. "What the hell was that?"
Doyle checked the external cameras, then began strapping himself in. "Looks like they finally caught up with us. I would suggest you all buckle up and hold onto something."
On the AV's roof, Sonia and Kris stood against the rushing wind. Sonia had cloaked her body in her Virtu's psy-energy aura. Kris, who had mimicked her powers, followed her lead and did the same. Focusing on her Shaping, Sonia converted a portion of her aura into a glowing trident.
She then waited as Kris flew down towards the AV door, forced it open to the shock of the syndicate members within, and then formed his aura into a giant reacher grabber. Swiftly, he snatched Joey from inside with it, reeled her to safety into his arms, and flew off right before Sonia lanced her trident through where the AV's engine was.
The engine was destroyed on impact, causing the AV to careen out of control. Together, Kris and Sonia flew up and watched as the damaged AV plummeted into a vacant construction site below. Kris then landed on a nearby rooftop so he could finally set Josephine down.
"Whoo… Glad we were able to catch up so quickly," he said, catching his breath. "Your dad would have had an aneurysm over you being kidnapped by Rogues twice."
Josephine let out a deep exhale. Her heart was beating like a tribal drum. The headache she had endured earlier seemed insignificant compared to what she had just experienced. Those men in the AV, especially the hooded figure with the bloody knife, had chilled her to the core, far more than the street Rogue gangsters who had taken her before did.
"Kris, we've still got to go and check on those guys in the AV," Sonia said, still levitating. "See how many of them are still alive, and arrest the ones that are."
Kris nodded before rising into the air. "Sorry, Jojo, but we've got to leave you here for a sec."
"It's fine. I can wait right here," Joey replied. "Thanks for saving me, guys."
Kris threw her a thumps up before they flew off toward where the smoke was billowing in the construction site. Joey walked over to the edge of the roof to watch from a distance. As Kris and Sonia neared the cloud of dirt, smoke, and debris, gunshots rang out. Kris reflexively dodged in mid-air with a swerve while Sonia allowed the shots to harmlessly bounce off.
"Kris, what are you dodging for? You know my Virtu can tank gunfire," she said.
Kris gave her a look. "Getting out of the way when getting shot at is a better habit to have than just staying still, Sonia; Virtu or no Virtu."
As the dust settled, two suited men with rifles in hand became visible. They continued firing at the Hoplites but to no avail. Titaness, far more annoyed by being shot at than injured, flew straight down at them to take them both out simultaneously. As she closed in, a muscular suited man wearing aviators blitzed between the gunmen and swung at Sonia.
She instinctively blocked, but the sleeves of her uniform were still sliced. Sonia backed off near to where Kris had landed then stared in disbelief along with him at her injuries. Minor as the cuts were, Titaness's psychic aura should have completely protected her, but that man had somehow casually done what gunfire and explosives were unable to.
The suited man shook his head as he removed his aviators, revealing a pair of dangerous eyes "Can't believe it… That swipe should have cleaved off her arms but she's barely bleeding over there."
"What's there not to believe?" Doyle asked while casually strolling from the crashed AV. "That's not an ordinary woman standing in front of you, Murdock. She's a Hoplite."
"It's been a while since I fought a Hopper, Doyle, but I don't remember 'em being built that tough."
"That woman, Sonia Banerjee, is famous for her toughness. It's why they call her Titaness," Doyle said while projecting a display of both the Hoplites. "She's a CL-A1, and that aura of hers is her Virtu manifesting her ORB into pure psy-energy. You could set out a grenade in her face while she's got that psychic veil on, and it wouldn't even make her flinch. The one next to her has a lower CL, but might actually be more dangerous. He's Kristopher "Dead Ringer" Krohn, a CL-B3 Adept. His Virtu lets him copy anyone else's PEC… including Virtu."
Murdock whistled. "Shitting me... And people say we've got some monsters working for us in Emerald. ARES is goddamn stacked these days."
"Did he just say 'Emerald'?" Sonia asked Kris.
"Well, that explains why they killed Jefferson. This was all to kill a rat. Still, we… Wait… I saw a hooded masked dude inside that AV when I rescued Jojo. Where—"
The masked man in question abruptly made his presence known when he appeared between the Hoplites, taking a swipe at both their necks with the two black blades he wielded. The pair avoided severe injury thanks to Sonia's Virtu, but he still managed to draw even more blood than Murdock had and forced them both to put distance between them and himself.
The Hoplites eyed him anxiously while Shaping new weapons into their hands. A myriad of questions cascaded through their minds. Why had their ESP hadn't noticed him even while he was making himself invisible? How had he managed to cut them through Sonia's Virtu so easily? And why was it suddenly chilly and they were both able to see their own breath?
"What the hell was that?! You had a perfect opportunity to take them both out and you just graze their necks a little?" Murdock barked in annoyance. "You know how much Torrez is paying you?"
"Torrez isn't paying him," corrected Doyle.
"Wait, seriously? …He might actually be working too hard in that case."
The masked man stood between the Hoplites, his twin blades at the ready. The first Hoplite to make a move, however, was not Titaness or Dead Ringer. Renée appeared without warning behind the masked man and thrust her channeler saber at his back. The masked man dodged with his back still to her, causing Renée to click her tongue in annoyance.
Raiju engaged the masked man in a fierce exchange of blades, her saber clashing against his daggers in a dance of sparks and the occasional electric volt. They moved so quickly, that Kris and Sonia were unsure of how to join in and assist, fearful they would either miss or hit Renée by mistake.
After a final clash, the masked man and Renée jumped back from each other. Raiju then pointed her saber at him and fired a streak of electricity from its tip. To Hoplites' shock, especially Renée's, the electric volts dissipated just before hitting their target.
Kris and Sonia blinked in disbelief. What kind of psychic abilities did this masked man possess? The enigmatic Rogue was about to reengage with Renée, when another challenger joined the fray. Ellie's surprise dive kick narrowly missed him, but the rookie wasted no time with her follow-up. Within a few seconds, Ellie transformed herself and took her humanoid rabbit form.
She began blitzing from one spot to the next, bounding up and off of steel beams like a furry pinball as she tried to confuse her target. While none of her strikes against the masked man landed cleanly, she was gradually piling on the pressure against him.
But then, Ellie noticed something was wrong. Her first signs were the chills and her breath becoming visible. Her second was noticing frost start to form under the masked man's feet. She narrowly evaded the ice stalagmites that erupted from the ground all around the masked man. She flipped and bounced back to safety near Renée while the masked man retreated to join the Emerald members.
"That guy's no joke," Kris muttered as he landed next to Ellie. "Cryokinesis, invisibility, whatever he did to negate Renée's psychokinesis, and the way he's able to just bypass Sonia's Virtu."
"H's strong in close quarters too," Renée added. "McDowell and I are close-combat specialists and the best we can do is fight him to a stalemate."
"And isn't he the guy who killed the informant? I've never heard of someone sneaking into a citadel that easily," Ellie said "Just who is this guy?"
None of their eyes left the blade-wielding masked assassin.
"You really got those Hoppers spooked," Murdock said to the masked man.
"Hoplites aren't used to fighting people on their level. ARES employs a quality over quantity approach when it comes to recruiting Hoplites," Doyle explained. "Ideally, they want their weakest Hoplite to be able to take down at least twenty Rogues with average CLs by themselves with no assistance."
"Ah, so the Hoppers are just scared that they're outnumbered and outgunned for once."
"I don't know about that last part," a man said from behind them.
Woodrow materialized behind the two gun-toting Emeralds, stabbing one and shooting the other before they could react. Woodrow then teleported away just as Murdock turned around to attack him, three giant claw-like gashes being made in the AV instead. He snarled over at Woodrow who was grinning back from where he had rematerialized beside Ellie.
"Woodie!" Ellie exclaimed while patting his arm.
"Ellie... I've, uh... haven't seen you in this form in a while," Woodrow said. "Still gonna take some getting used to for me."
"I know, right? She's almost too cute to fight when she looks like that," Sonia remarked.
"Not where I was going with it, but sure."
"Good job taking out the two with automatic weapons, Piccinini," Renée complimented.
"No prob. I wanted to take out one more, but that big guy would've cleaved me into chunks if I didn't teleport away in time."
"It's fine. Two's enough," Krohn said. "It's plenty, actually. That masked guy might still be a problem, otherwise, a 3-on-5 is gonna be nothing."
Doyle snickered, the most emotion he had shown since the altercation began. "I'm sorry, Hoplite Krohn, but I think you need to recount. This is not a 3-on-5."
The syndicate member held up his hand and the Hoplites reflexively prepared themselves. They were left confused when Doyle only snapped his fingers at them.
And then Ellie cried out in pain like none of them had ever heard before. The others looked and saw that Woodrow's pulse blade was sticking out of Ellie's back as she lay on the floor in agony, unable to move anything from the waist down. The others were horrified, but none more so than Woodrow himself, who kept twitching erratically.
"W-what… the hell's going on?! My body's moving on it's own!" he snapped.
Doyle smirked. "Like I said, this isn't a 3-on-5. It's a 4-on-4. Well... I guess it's a 4-on-3 now."