As Earl was convincing people to lend their borgs, and Caz was trying to figure out what an unlocked gotcha box could do, Bee was explaining to the teachers exactly what the plan was. It took some convincing, as they were essentially letting kids fight a galactic threat, but Bee did her best to calm them down with facts.
"First off, the Death Force isn't a galactic threat anymore, they were wiped out soon after their defeat on Earth, thirty-two years ago. Against children younger than we are, if my history is correct, and you know how much I research outside of class, let alone what was taught to us in order to even take the Gotcha Borg classes.
"Secondly, We have the means to return here almost instantly if something goes wrong, and if Earl's managed to convince people, we might have at least one ninja for the each of us, meaning we'll each have a way back, in case we somehow get separated. We know what we're doing getting into this, and I think this is actually Caz's fantasy, as he's such a diehard fanboy of Commander G Red.
"Thirdly, Ms. Umihara entrusted us with this, not you. Your job here is to protect the other students. Someone has to do this, and if you're not here to back Ms. Umihara up if and when the death force attack, then you fail to guarantee the safety of all these students here, rather than the few people you can trust to do this. We're competent, able, and willing. There's no better option than us.
"And lastly, you can still help. We can only hold ten borgs each, but we only have one each at the moment. The more you think you can spare to help, the better our chances are in succeeding, but at the same time, you need to decide what you keep for the rest of the students, should you need to help Ms. Umihara with defending the academy. If this place isn't safe, then we have nowhere to recall to."
Bee took a deep breath, settled it, and looked up for the teacher's reactions, having closed her eyes and ratted off her points without stopping.
The teachers mumbled back and forth among eachother in whispers - and considering the murmur of the crowds of students, Bee couldn't quite hear them - before one of the teachers broke off and said, "Well, Bee, you have my faith. I cannot speak for all of us, but I offer you my Ring Valkyrie."
Ms. Aswini added, "And one of my Angel Nurse Borgs. I'm sorry I cannot give you more."
"I can offer a scope borg, but it might be too expensive for you at the moment, and it has no combat capabilities. It's meant to see the stars, but it can just as easily allow you to see into the distance with the right settings."
"I'm just the janitor, but a construction borg is good, too, right?"
Bee's smile was already wide with a wing borg, but the rest only served to grow them.
"We'll make the most use of them, I assure you!" she bowed.
Ms. Aswini knelt down so her sight was lower than Bee's and held her hand. "Just-... please. Be safe, okay?"
Bee's smile calmed, but her eyes still sparkled, she knew. "There's no doubt in my mind that we'll be more than enough to face them. And thank you, Ms. Aswini. A Nurse Borg will help many people we'll meet along the way. Does she have a name?"
"No, none of ours do. If they did, you'd see it when selecting them to take a part of your squad."
"Oh," Bee said, eyeing her gotcha box.
Nina had a name.
It appeared as Nina in her gotcha box.
She thought she set that name as a nickname, but... was it just her imagination?
"Say... Ms. Umihara has a named borg, right? Nao? What makes Nao different from a normal Angel nurse?" Bee asked.
"Well, a named borg learns faster," one teacher offered.
A bit of silence followed.
"Sorry. I'm not the gotcha borg expert. I teach math. I don't even have a borg."
Bee conceded that these weren't exactly the best people to ask. But on the other hand, accessing the net via computer or phone isn't really viable either. The lines were cut, and satellites likely taken offline, so no internet or phone service. Radio still worked, which is one of the methods that Gotcha Boxes could use to communicate with one another, but it was obviously limited in range and quality without relays and larger pieces of equipment.
What did she know about named borgs? They were famous for having a name, as gotcha borgs didn't really have names to begin with, just designations and IDs. Every GF Commander had a named borg, if not multiple named borgs. Those who were named, but didn't have a commander, were mostly on New Megaborg, and didn't exactly have a comparison to the normal borgs that lived there, as they tended to try to blend in among others when not playing it up on the stage.
She also knew that... well, Earl knew a lot more about borg culture than she did.
He said something about that earlier, that merely giving a borg a nickname wasn't enough to give that borg a name. But... it worked, didn't it? On the other hand, weren't named borgs more likely to appear differently than normal borgs? She supposed that this wasn't a normal ninja, either. It was an Academy Ninja. And she was a studious person.
Maybe it was a match made in the heavens.
Or maybe Earl was wrong about just being able to name borgs.
Their starter borgs were larger than hers, though. She wondered why.
"Bee?" Ms. Aswini asked.
"Hm? What?"
"You blanked out a bit there. Something... happen?"
"Uh... I'll get back to you on that. You know what they say, a bit of misinformation can do more harm than no information at all."
"Rrrright. Okay. Sure. You should probably get going, though. It looks like the others are ready."
Looking over towards the area they agreed to meet up in, she could see Earl and Caz talking, their boxes engaged in trading borgs.
"Right. Thank you, all of you. We won't disappoint you!" she said, and ran off, waving goodbye.
----------------------------------------
While Bee was talking to the teachers, Earl managed to snag a few starter borgs from the other students. While they couldn't join - their gotcha boxes weren't even unlocked, let alone granted a squad commander status - they were able to accept trade requests, and Earl was good enough with diplomacy to convince them to give up their borgs, even if temporarily.
Caz, meanwhile, was off tinkering with his gotcha box, as the fanboy he was, and even managed to change its color from the academy white and blue to a familiar red and white with black detailing, mimicking his hero.
However, he didn't quite manage to change his knight borg in any way. He found the way to organize what borgs were in his box, allowing him to better find specific kinds of borgs as well as look for ways to view their stats - something he believed Bee would love to confirm - but not how to edit the borg itself, which is something he knew could be done.
How it was done was eluding him.
There wasn't even a pop-up saying that he couldn't do it, either, like when trying to promote someone else to a squad leader. That one had a message saying insufficient authority. So it led him to believe that he could somehow edit the data of a borg.
Frustrated with that, but also running out of time before the others were ready, he moved on to explore what he was meant to explore; communications. He found he could send text messages, but surely there was a better way to communicate. It was received via radio, so audio-radio communication must be possible.
Searching through the gotcha box's functions, it took him four minutes of exploring the UI to find what he was looking for... and it also somehow came with a video option as well. Which mean that it could also act as a camera. Why didn't Ms. Umihara use camera? Why didn't the teachers?
Actually, maybe he should talk to them to see the effective range of the box's communication. Maybe it was short-range, or couldn't work through walls. It would be important to test-
"Caz," Earl interrupted. "I'm back. What'cha got?"
"Oh, uh... here, in the battle tab, there's a loading sign looking thing..." he explained, pointing and guiding him to the same options he saw. "Apparently visual information is an option, so I was thinking it could be a camera to see through. Do you think you could...?"
"I'll give it a shot, I guess."
Caz received a call from his gotcha box, and answering it, showed Earl's face. Earl tried moving the box to see if the camera shifted, but the boxes only showed the face of the person on the other side of the call.
Experimenting a bit further, though, Caz managed to work with Earl to have the perspective change from looking at the person's expression and instead what the person was looking at. By that time, Bee returned as well, saying, "So what'd you find?"
Earl answered first, "Well, I managed to scrounge up two ninjas, three knights, and a gunman. I do owe Russel some money, but I think I can ask Ms. Umihara for some in exchange for all this... work. This counts as work, right?"
"Well you know what they say," Caz smirked. "Do what you love and you never work a day in your life."
"Only you would enjoy facing the death force, fanboy," Earl responded, before turning back to Bee. "You?"
"An Angel Nurse, a Ring Valkyrie, a Build Robot, and a Stargazer."
"What's a Stargazer?" Caz asked. The Build Robots were common enough, as the colony was under construction, and the Angel Nurse was a common sight anywhere, for safety's sake. The Valkyries were Bee's favorite, so he knew about those as well, but the Stargazer was new to him.
"A more modern borg dedicated to seeing things in space. It technically counts as a Machine Borg, though it's probably closer to a Tank-like borg."
"Huh. So does it shoot lasers of light from its telescope?"
"Uh... no. It's not really meant for combat, but its something I want to give to Earl because he has the best eyes of all of us."
"Thank you for the compliment, I guess."
"It's just fact. Your glasses are flat, meant to look good. I need glasses because I actually have short-sightedness-"
"-in more ways than one-" Caz could hear Earl mock-whisper, then pretend to cough.
"-that I- hey!" Bee shouted, smacking him on the shoulder.
Caz was surprised to see a little bit of heat in that attack.
Earl laughed it off anyway, but Caz asked, "Is something wrong?"
"What do you mean?" Bee asked. Earl backed Caz up with a nod.
"You seem... well, I can't say stressed because it's a stressful situation, but... well, stressed. Something on your mind?" Earl asked.
Bee looked between the two. "...Am I really that easy to read?"
"No," Earl admitted, "but it would be weird if I didn't know how to read you, considering I spend nearly half of my time with you. Caz is on another level, so while I can read him easily enough, I'll never understand him."
Bee giggled, and the mood became a bit less serious, so Caz asked, "So what's up?"
"Well, I wanted to ask about named borgs. W-well, first, could you see the name of your own borgs?"
"Uh... sure. Normal Knight, and in parentheses, Academy. Why?"
"Are you able to see Earl's gun borg?"
"Uh... sure, let's start trading things around. What's our total amount of borgs?" Caz asked, sparking a discussion on that.
After some hashing out, they decided to split it so that each person had at least one ninja and knight borg, with Caz having two due to having more experience with it, while Bee took the gun borg. Earl, meanwhile, got both the Nurse Borg and the Telescope borg, while Bee got dibs on the Ring Valkyrie - obviously - and Caz got the remaining Builder Robot. He wasn't a fan of it, but it could still be useful. Probably.
There was an issue in being able to actually assign the borgs to the squad, as they had to ration out their piddly GF Energy to allow them to have more than two in their squad at a time. Everyone had to have at least one ninja in their party, after all, and the special borgs were expensive to field.
Then came talk about the order of them, but that was where Bee changed the subject.
"So. You can see the names of the borgs when trading them right?"
"Yyyyeeeessss?" Caz asked in return, looking for confirmation from Earl, as he was scolded earlier for speaking for him. At Earls nod, he repeated. "Yes. Yes we can."
"So what's the name of Nina, to you guys?"
"Uh... says Nina," Caz said without hesitation.
"Wait what-" Earl asked, looking to his own box to confirm. "Well, what do you know. It- she... really is named. That's interesting."
"Is... that not a thing?"
"No. For a gotcha borg, to gain a name is to gain a personality. To gain an identity beyond one's birthright. A named borg is... specialized, let's say."
"Specialized how?"
"Well, depends on Nina's Origin."
"Origin?"
"It's... complicated. I'll explain later, but for now, I believe she won't be much different than other normal ninjas. It won't be until Nina can either find her true path or is artificially unlocked that she'll be able to enhance her abilities, but in short, she'll eventually be able to fire more shuriken than normal ninjas, take more hits, move a little faster. She'll gain additional growth when doing an action related to her desired path, so be sure to check on her stats often, even outside of combat."
Caz jumped in, "Storage box tab, select the borg, and select examine. You can make notes with the pencil tab on the right."
"Oh, neat. I didn't realize gotcha boxes were so advanced these days."
"That makes it seem like you had experience with them beforehand."
"Well, back on my homeland, it was called a Tome of Mediums, and-... well, it was still a box, but it opened like a book. I could never see the insides of those pages, however, so I was not aware of what it did. Only that it summoned borgs."
"That's pretty cool."
"There are other cultures that use different methods as well, on other planets, but as they say in the Galactic Alliance, 'when in Rome'..."
Caz finished the phrase, "Do as the Romans do. But hey, we're rebels, right? Do you think you could make yours into a Tome like those in your homeworld?"
"Now's probably not the best time for that, but I'll give it a shot once we're on the way," Earl said, looking down at the ground, reminiscing. He looked up and asked, "Are we all set to leave the Academy?"
"Sounds like it. Plan?"
"Well, we'll make our way through to the borders of the colony, see if and where the Death Force breached the atmospheric... dome. Thing."
"The Co-Habitational Atmospheric Dome, yes. The CHAD," Bee explained.
"Woah, it's called the CHAD? That's pretty sick."
"Invented by Akio Koyama himself," she nodded.
Caz appreciated that for a moment, then shook his head, returning to the subject at hand. "Sounds good to me, then. Let's get going - the sooner we finish this fight, the better."
----------------------------------------
Earl hummed noncommitally, staring at the deadness of the city around them. It was both odd, yet also beautiful, in its own way, that a place meant to see so much foot traffic be so utterly liminal and desolate. There weren't any fires raging in the skyline, nor were there signs of violence beyond maybe a few bullet holes fired from death borgs, so it was really just evacuated.
No real harm was done, as far as Earl could discern, and he was quite discerning of the facts. He expected far worse, in all honesty. Dead bodies piling the streets, blood sprays coating the walls or droplets of it leading away from a scene of a battle at the very least. But... nothing.
The few fights they had coming out of the academy were thin enough that any one of them could have taken it on with a single borg, but they took no risks and had all three use their borgs with some stocked up should something go wrong. The victories were so disappointing that even Bee agreed with Caz's remarks.
Though, her disappointment was mostly due to her inability to actually fly her wing borg very high up, due to threats from death borgs atop buildings taking pot shots at her if she showed the valkyrie's face above the second floors. Sometimes, she couldn't even do that.
It did easily show where the death borg were hiding, so those around the academy were easily dispatched afterward, but it was a good warning for later that she wouldn't be able to use that borg much outside of combat. At least, not while the death borg were still here.
And she'd promised to give the borgs back once this was all over, so... Bee's disappointment was understandable.
Earl, on the other hand, took in the beauty of the liminal space, soaking in the ennui as if it were a sunshine's ray upon a cold morning's tea-time.
Earl favored coffee, of course, but this felt like a peaceful drink, rather than a preparation drink.
Alas, Earl drank his metaphorical coffee as he stared off to the north, where they decided to go, reasoning that it was the shortest path to the colony walls that they could go on foot. Not quite yet trusting to give the kids keys to cars or anything - a retroactively good idea even without the obvious problems, considering that cars piled up the main roads already - they had to either find bikes to ride or leg it all the way.
Mentally prepared, Earl recalled his gun borg and threw his telescope borg to Bee, whose ring valkyrie lifted into the skies to get a better look. With Caz's help in displaying what that borg saw to the others' gotcha boxes, and Earl being able to see through the scope naturally, they could keep an eye out to their general vicinity while also scouting out things from a great distance.
Earl had the borg zoom into all the death borgs he could see, and Bee marked them in her mental map, using that same map and her memorization of the city's map to think up the best path they could take.
After a few minutes, Bee offered three options.
"Well, we could take the straight path through the business centers, which has the least amount of death force... or we can detour left to the residential areas, see if people need help. To the right is more open, park areas, meaning we have less cover, but we can also better find enemy death force and not have to sneak up on them. From what I know, each have four or so shelters we can visit along the way, but the sooner we get rid of the death force, the sooner the rest of the city can be safe."
Caz immediately voted for the second option, saying, "The business areas likely already have security, and the park wouldn't have anyone out in the open. But the elderly and young might not have made it to the shelters in time, and might have gotten stuck somewhere."
Earl nodded in agreement. "I do think that should be the first place to look, yes, but I also think we should clear all of those areas as best we can. We don't know for sure that the breach would even be on the surface of the planet, as opposed to on the higher parts of the CHAD that we can't quite reach without some form of flight or wall-climbing ability. Clearing a larger area would allow Bee to take flight higher into the dome to check that for clues instead of just the perimeter of the area. An eye in the sky, especially with our scope, would also help a lot in mapping out the colony and the death force."
"That's... actually really smart. What the heck, Earl, where was that planning back in the shelter?" Caz asked, impressed.
"I was preoccupied with thinking about how to set up my squad, and what borg would be best to lead with as well as how to better set it up against other opponents, should we meet them," Earl shrugged. "I was too preoccupied with my own team, that it had not occurred to me to use the borgs of others. In fact, we might need to change plans again if we find others who join us in this endeavor to cleanse the colony of death force. We may be students, but there are surely police officers who aren't needed to defend their own shelters. Perhaps if we meet up with them, we can get allies as well as more information."
"Or a stern lecture about safety and an assurance that everything's under control," Bee countered.
"I'm too charismatic for that," Earl bragged dramatically. "And we'll just run away and do what we want anyway, should that happen," he said, more realistically. "That being said, it's still a good idea to help who we can."
The group nodded to eachother and started off on a light jog. Caz could have gone faster, being the athlete of the group, but stuck merely to the frontlines. Bee was already starting to breathe harder, usually cooping up in her room in her off-time, while Earl was forced to keep up with Caz as he dragged Earl along to various events.
Earl was appreciative of the stamina it gave him, but he knew he would also get short of breath before the next fight, so he had Caz slow it down to a more careful walk about two blocks down.
A block later, there was a group of Death Force that they engaged and took out.
A block after that, the first of the shelters of the area, which they also cleared out of death force, and took up what Earl called side quests to check on certain houses for items or to see if someone made it out, or to check the other shelters for them in case they didn't think to go to that shelter.
It was... time consuming, Earl thought. It took them nearly an hour just to get through the first area. At this rate, it would take them days to cover the entire colony, and by then, areas they'd cleared might be reinvaded by the death force.
It was not a good idea to take too much time... but it was so very difficult to know where to go, as they'd learned pretty much nothing just trying to get to the borders of the city.
And then Caz said something oddly smart for him, which Earl would eventually realize was just his uncanny sense of direction and a lust for battle, calling him a battle junkie in the privacy of his own mind.
----------------------------------------
"I think there are more death borgs in that direction," Caz said, looking off into the distance.
He's had the feeling for a while. Whenever battling the death force, he'd... hear whispers. Begging for his help. Silent screams.
He'd feel things. Emotions that weren't his. Despair and hurt that were distantly mute, yet so closely personal.
They were all around, of course, but... in that direction, he felt more.
Recalling the map Bee showed him, he figured it was in the mall sections of the town, where the residential area met a recreational area, viewing the stars on the few opaque walls that separated them from the cold emptiness of space on the little asteroid they settled on.
"What makes you say that?" came the inevitable question. Earl's tone was dismissive, but willing to hear him out.
"Just... a feeling," he answered. "Although... doesn't it kind of look like the death fog is kind of... deeper in that direction?"
He didn't realize it until he saw it just then, but the death mists that covered the areas where death force existed seemed... well, not darker, as it was darker all around, but... deeper. The mists weren't more dense, it was just that the mists themselves seemed more... deep. If the death mists they'd seen at the academy was like staring at the porous holes of concrete, then the death mists that covered the area above those ugly feelings were like the soft side of a sponge.
Bee looked, but was skeptic. She was about to say something but then Earl noticed the same thing Caz did, "Oh, I see what you mean. Deeper, not darker or denser... just... deeper. How curious."
At Earl's remark, Bee took another look. "Hm. I don't really... see it... but maybe? Oh! Oh, I see what you mean. Good eyes, Caz!"
"Hah! That's usually Earl's thing!" Caz joked, to Bee's nodding agreement.
"I claim no sovereignty over having good eyesight, you know," Earl said, a bit of humble snide in his tone.
"Well, that's a shame, because you definitely have big, anime eyes," Caz said, referencing a movie.
Earl, to his credit, made wide eyes and stared straight at Caz with faux anger, and all three laughed.
The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.
"Anyway, I think we have to head that way. Call it a hunch, but I think what we're looking for is over there."
"Well... hunch is the best we got so far. Sorry about your plan, Earl," Bee said, casting her vote.
"As they say, 'The best laid plans of mice and men go oft awry'. Be glad that our plan to survive this whole ordeal is still in motion!"
"That's... ominous, dude," Caz remarked, taking point and moving forward anyway. "Or are you saying our plan isn't very well laid?" he added as an afterthought.
"The latter. It's the height of foolishness to run into enemy territory, after all, is it not?"
"We can over power them," Caz objected. "That's totally a great plan!"
"Quantity has a quality all its own. They can eventually outpower us. It's not like we can fight forever, unlike them. We need breaks. Food. Sleep."
"Hm. I see what you mean by this not being a good plan," Bee commented.
"Yeah," Caz said, leaning in her direction with a cheeky smile. "It's a great plan."
Bee snorted.
"Alas, when we die," Earl smiled, pausing for dramatic effect, "I will be glad to have spent my last moments joking about it. Life is short. I might as well make fun of it as we go."
"Cheers to that," Caz said, raising an imaginary mug.
The other two raised their mugs and silently cheered, and then silently marched onward as the death mists started to surround them, marking their entrance into enemy territory once more.
----------------------------------------
Bee wasn't the first to see it, but her borg was the first to step into the area. Her ninja, Nina, was getting far better at sneaking around, and could instantly retreat from a fight should she be detected.
The area was a mall that was built into the ground. It had a spacious top area off in the back of the mall that had half a dozen tables with bench seats to lounge on, with a few bushes to sort of section off some areas of the benches as if it were a floor plan for a grand hall in the shape of a moon, but it was all open air. Coming closer to the front of the mall, there was a large hole that could see from the top floor to the bottom, with stairs on the side to allow the people to move from the top floor to the bottom floor. Well, if they didn't want to use the elevators, which seemed like a bad idea at the moment due to all the death force patrolling the area.
The front-most part of the mall that met the streets where cars would usually be passing by, or parking temporarily to quickly get a delivery from the mall, were a few kiosks where one might find a map and a large tower of a sign that would have several signs slotted into it to show what stores were actually there. There were a few in place, but the mall was yet to be opened, as there were only a few stores even furnished, let alone stocked.
Coming from the streets from a car, or just walking by, one might be inclined to head down the large set of stairs that would better showcase what stores were really there, as the mall seemed to be built into the walls of the hole. In Bee's mind, the store fronts would be lit up even at night, but hidden ever so cleverly from above as the floor above would cover the sign if not staring from that main stairway's angle. It was very beautiful, and she'd like to visit this mall later on when it was finished.
The main thing that convinced Bee that it wasn't finished was the work for a fountain was being done in the center, with ground being dug up and pipelines being placed. While no construction borgs were here, only death force, there were several caution signs and traffic cones littered around the area. The hole for the fountain didn't seem too deep, but she also couldn't actually get much deeper than one floor down from surface without risking discovery.
Having Nina recall to her marker, Bee started to explain what she saw, then going on to say, "I saw in the ballpark of four hundred of them in there. If we attract one, we'll attract them all. Maybe I could take out a dozen of them on the higher floors before they realize I'm there, but that's a drop in the ocean. They're too jam packed. And yes, I'm considering placing bombs everywhere, but I don't know if they'll notice the bombs or just leave them there. They theoretically contain GF Energy, so they might just shoot it out of principle, meaning I don't get any of them."
"The alternative," Caz inevitably offers, "is to just take them all on at a chokepoint, like always. Rush to a store, find a door, and take them out dozen by dozen."
Earl considered it, and offered yet another plan, "Perhaps we could combine the might of a ninja and our eye in the sky, and drop bombs from above from a safe distance?"
"That's... That feels bad just thinking about doing. I wanna fight them head on!" Caz whines.
Bee rolls her eyes, but secretly agrees. Her actual words come out as, "It's not an invalid tactic, though we'll have to backtrack to clear a place enough for us to fly over this area. Again, hundreds of borgs here. Another issue is if I'll break something important by blindly tossing bombs down."
"It's already covered by the death force, we can just blame it on them," Caz offers.
Earl and Bee shake their head, but it's Earl who points out that, "The Death Force don't break anything unless it's in the way. As you can see, not even the doors are broken here, showing that they aren't inclined to destroy unless necessary. They're not the destruction force, but the Death Force. Not to mention the damage of bombs is distinctly different than the laser projectiles the Death Force uses."
"Okay, okay, I get it! So what plan are we settling on?"
"Plan Bee, Plan Caz, then my plan," Earl decides. "We'll set a marker with a ninja in a store, teleport there, then set up a barricade. If undetected, we'll send out ninjas to take out as much as we can before we pull their attention to us. If the defense point fails, we recall to the academy and use my plan tomorrow."
"So... mostly my plan," Caz says, smug.
"Yes, mostly your plan," Earl agrees.
Bee's eyes remain on the mall, wondering why they're so interested in the area to patrol it, rather than seek and snuff out life as they usually do.
The three did their best to enact the plan. Nina was able to find a defendable, unfurnished store that had a sturdy back door. There were a few dozen death borgs inside, but setting a marker and locking the door was enough for them to teleport in as a group and ambush them. The fight took minutes, but the room was sturdy enough to not have other death borgs pounding at the door in alert.
Bee took that as an interesting thing to note. That they communicate with sound, and don't communicate via some weird death force communications, like gotcha boxes might.
As Earl and Caz set up a defendable area, Bee focused on Nina quietly taking down as many as she could. She got pretty far just camping one spot and taking out single- or double-borg patrols, but eventually was spotted when she attempted a group of three. Taking them down and one more from the oncoming horde before teleporting back, Bee shouted, "I've been found! Get ready!"
----------------------------------------
Caz wasn't the best when it came to strategy or tactics, and he would readily admit that. However, he was good at knowing how someone would fight. The way the shoulders would set back to show a punch, the way they'd set their stance to prepare a shot, the way they'd even twitch their eyes and feet to show which way they'd dodge.
In a game, it was more complicated. You couldn't look at their thumbs and trigger fingers on a controller while also paying attention to where you are on the screen. You'd have to recognize how they usually move, and move around it. Memorize the pattern, predict what they would do. Read their actions and inputs like one would an instruction manual.
Fighting against the Death Force was... less like playing a fighting game and more like playing a rhythm game. They were emotionless, acting with pre-made inputs, not even variations of the inputs. Sure, it got more complicated when there were more of them, but it was more or less the same pattern for all of them.
Move. Block two shots. When in range, there's a pause, an attack, and an opening - slash twice. Move. Block. Pause. Slash-slash.
The rhythm was so routine at this point, having fought hundreds of them on the way over, another hundred of these bulky death force borgs was so easy that Caz had his mind wander.
It did not wander away from the death force, but it was distracting all the same. That feeling of... pain. Despair. Emptiness.
It wasn't anger. It wasn't sadness. It wasn't entirely without hope, but the hope was that their suffering would end. These borgs did not want to exist.
Against so many, Caz sent his prayers to these few, hoping to grant them what they wished. Reaching out, seeing if he could save even one of them.
But how can he reach out?
Caz did not know. He only felt a longing to wade into their numbers and find the one that dared to hope.
Suddenly, something changed. The death borgs... moved with purpose. Their minds no longer empty, but not lacking in pain. No, there was more pain. More... anger. Inferiority. Urge to destroy.
Urge to preserve themselves.
"Something's wrong-" Caz made out before all of the borgs fired at once against his knight's shield. The shield deflected or absorbed them all, but pushed the knight a few inches back. Bombs went off to knock the death force who would try to breach the chokepoint back, while Caz's knight dashed forward to re-take his place to hold the checkpoint.
A voice echoed through the mall, toned to be ever so malicious.
"WHAT IS THE MEANING OF THIS?!"
It sounded like the passive aggressive sass that a school bully would have in movies. Caz suddenly wondered if such bullies even existed outside of fiction, and if this, too, was an act. Caz... felt like this person was not sincere in the anger. No, this person was afraid.
It felt afraid, rather than sounded afraid. Not something in the inflection of the voice, but rather, the same feeling he got when communicating with his borg.
Nevertheless, he looked to the other two and said, "Well, looks like we found the enemy Death Commander."
"The same one as from the Academy," Earl agreed.
"Retreat, or push forward?" Bee asked.
"...I want to keep going," Caz decided, just as Earl was about to say something. Looking at his frown, he added, "I feel like something's off. The borgs have stopped attacking, see?"
As Caz said, the borgs had stopped, though their hand cannons were still pointed at the chokepoint.
"CHILDREN FROM THE ACADEMY? HOW BRAVE OF YOU TO COME THIS FAR, BUT YOU SHALL GO NO FURTHER!"
Caz shouted back, "We'll stop you and take back Rial!"
"FOOLISHNESS! YOU BARELY UNDERSTAND YOUR OWN POWER, LET ALONE THE POWER OF THE DEATH FORCE!"
Caz paused, smirked, and cheekily shouted back, "Oh yeah? All I see here are mindless death borgs! Why don't you come out here and face me yourself!"
Bee and Earl both would have done a spit-take if they were drinking something, staring at Caz with worry in their eyes.
"A FOOL YOU ARE, THEN. BEHOLD! THE MIGHT OF ISAAC!"
"Isaac?" Caz and Bee asked - the former out of confusion, the latter out of recognition.
The death force all flew away, sucked from the grounds on each of the mall's floors, and into the hole where the fountain was supposed to go.
And from the hole came a metal claw.
A claw larger than Caz's entire torso.
And then a second.
And the hole widened.
Out from the hole came a machine borg, colored purple, and with yellow boxes for shoulders. It was iconic, but... different. Instead of the Champion of Kitsune, it appeared differently. Its mechanical legs were now treads, its missiles grappling hooks, and its claws were wicked and sharp, meant more to rend flesh than to flatten the earth.
Though Caz doubted it could not achieve the same, even with differently designed claws, for it then grew to a gargantuan size, towering over the mall. Its treads were still on the lowest floor, but its head almost peeking out through the top floor, nearly three floors high, and its face... it's eye was the branded Eye of the Death Force.
It bent down and started to scan the mall for the kids, and Caz made the quick decision to shout, "Get out of the stores!" as he dashed out with his Knight Borg. With another burst of thinking, he moved to the top floor as he yeeted his knight at the giant borg.
A crack in the air told Caz that Earl wasn't too far behind, and his gun borg was doing work.
Running around the mall, hoping to outrun the massive borg, Caz had his knight begin attacking the large machine borg. The death eye... was teal. It spoke to Caz that it was fighting back against whatever was happening. He noticed how slowly the borg moved - something the others might attribute to it being larger, but Caz knew the others knew that borgs still moved quickly regardless of their size.
Caz got a headache as he got the feeling of.... down. Down? Down.
Below.
Caz looked beneath Isaac and at the hole it came from before enlargening. It was large enough, now, for the kids to slip into. It was just a matter of getting down into there.
"Nina! Get into the hole Isaac came from! The rest of us will hold Isaac off!" he yelled, stopping and taking a stance against the yellow and purple boss mob.
"USELESS! YOU CANNOT DEFEAT ME!"
Caz almost smiled as he felt the feelings of relief from Isaac and the enemy death commander itself. Ignore the words, listen to their feelings.
The way their shoulders stiffened when planning to attack, the way the eye moved to look at Caz, and not wherever Bee's Nina went.
Caz put on a brave face to show Isaac, and presumably whoever was controlling them in turn. "Wanna bet?"
----------------------------------------
Bee was hiding outside of the mall, though Nina was still in range to be controlled directly. Through Nina, she heard Caz's order and was understandably freaking out. How was she supposed to get past Isaac? What was inside the fountain that Caz was so sure that they needed to get in there?
Bee hesitated a few moments, but even in her fight-or-flight response, she could see Isaac moving away, almost purposefully creating several paths for her to sneak through and into the hole. Hesitation gripped her until a message from Earl saying he'd cover her told her that she couldn't just run away.
It did not occur to her to just tell Earl she was running away instead, so she had Nina sneak into the hole.
The hole went down. Way down. Several floors down kind of deep.
Nina fell all the way down, as Borgs didn't really suffer from fall damage. Down and down it went, until it opened up into a cavernous area, almost mimicking the shape of the mall, but instead of a modern look, it was made of black blocks with red data lines every which way, and it was nearly three times as large.
It was a Death Force Base.
Here.
On Rial.
While Nina fell on the topmost floor, the center of the mall - the place where the fountain would have a clear look into the sky - there was a crystal so black that she wasn't sure it was a three dimensional object until she saw it spin. It was covered in red death force energy, which radiated upward like a slow flame. Even Bee could feel the hatred imbued in that crystal.
In front of it, one man, standing there with hands in his sweatshirt, angled face and slicked back hair. In his mouth was a single stalk of wheat. Staring at Nina as she fell into his domain, as if he expected her all along.
Akio Koyama. The Machine Borg GF Commander.
Kitsune, the Builder.
When he spoke, his voice reverberated throughout the chambers, even more so than the echoing of the death force.
"ITS MEANINGLESS! YOU CAN DO NOTHING HERE!"
Bee frowned from safety, and threw a few experimental bombs and shuriken at the crystal, as well as at Kitsune.
The shurikens flew closer, then hit a barrier of sorts before it reached either.
"AS I SAID, YOU ARE POWERLESS IN THE FACE OF THE DEATH FORCE!"
As Kitsune summoned another magnet machine borg, one she recognized would attract Nina to it in order to... rip it apart from within, she guessed, Bee decided to signal a full retreat. Messaging to Earl and Caz to use their ninja borgs to retreat back to the Academy, Bee recalled Nina to herself, then to recall entirely back to the Academy.
Within the shelter, Ms. Aswini was waiting for her, and immediately adopted a surprised, then worried face. "Where are the other two?"
Before she could answer, Earl appeared, so Bee changed her answer to, "On the way."
She looked to Earl to confirm Caz was actually on the way, and Earl nodded.
Caz took a few more seconds, worrying all three of them, but eventually, he appeared in place as well, and said, "Wow. I wanna fight that guy when he's not all... corrupted."
"What?" Ms. Aswini asked.
"It's complicated," Bee said. "Could this wait until we have Ms. Umihara with us as well? I have a few recordings I took with my gotcha box through N-... My Ninja Borg."
"Of- of course. Right away- I mean, unless you three need healing?" Ms. Aswini offered, her nurse borg already out.
"Not at all, Ms. Aswini," Earl said. "Your gift of a nurse borg was already helpful, but only among those we'd met along the way. Our worst injuries will be the muscle soreness from running so much."
Bee felt the fatigue hit her as he said it, but pushed it away a moment later and asked, "Where is Ms. Umihara?"
"The Courtyards," Ms. Aswini answered. "Patrolling the Academy for Death Force."
----------------------------------------
Earl felt tired. He wasn't lying when the worst injury would be felt tomorrow, but right now, he could feel the fatigue of the day wracking up. He was barely paying attention when Bee gave her report on things, explaining that it was Kitsune, the builder of Rial, who was corrupted, and merely frowned when Ms. Umihara explained that he was off planet, helping the others.
It was mostly stuff he didn't really need to know.
"So how do we break that crystal?" he asked, tired. It was only a few hours past noon at this point. He wanted to sleep.
"I couldn't damage it with-" Bee began, but Earl interrupted her.
"I did not ask you. I know you don't know. I wanted to ask Ms. Umihara."
Even in his tired state, he could see the look in Ms. Umihara's eyes. Worried about what happened to the other GF Commanders, for sure, but also calculating. As if she was thinking up a plan.
"I'll have to go with you. I think I can get past the barrier with my own borgs, but... I can't stay back to defend the Academy."
"I don't think you have to worry about that anymore," Caz offered. Casually. Earl looked to gauge his emotions to see what gave him such confidence.
The others must have as well, as they were silent, allowing Caz to continue speaking. "Now that we know it's there, that Isaac dude has to stay to defend it, and the mindless death force are easy to deal with. They can't attack as long as they're defending."
Earl considered that, but was too tired to think of a counterpoint.
"I'm not sure I can follow," he said.
"If Isaac is the one who is controlling-"
"No-," Earl interrupted. "I meant I cannot follow you back. I'm... tired. I want to take a nap. I don't think your plan is... wrong, but that might be due to my fatigue hampering my judgement. I'll remain to complete our report, but I must... I have to take a break."
"Oh. Okay, buddy, don't worry. I can handle it myself if I have to!" Caz encouraged.
Bee hopped in, saying, "I wouldn't boast that much, but I'm also... far too pumped up on adrenaline to stop now. I feel the fatigue, but it won't inhibit me, Ms. Umihara."
Ms. Umihara looked worried at Earl, then at Bee and Caz. "Okay. Okay. I've trusted you to know your limits before, and I'll trust you again. Rest well, Mr. Praithe. For you two, here's the plan."
Earl made to leave the room as soon as he was dismissed, and continued back to his dorm room.
He felt... wrong. He felt it. Where Caz had seen more than Earl, Earl had understood more than Caz had merely seen. Earl achieved what Caz could not.
He could reach out and touch the Death Force.
He could pull them to himself.
And it was... painful. Heavy. Wrong, but in the way of holding a fork by its tines. Not as if he were grabbing hold of vomit, or having his innards spill out, as he suspected it should have felt like.
Magic was real, to Earl. He had seen its works. Studied it, back on Talea. Well, if you could call observing the rituals his elders performed daily. The borgs they used were things of status.
The Death Force had a touch of this magic. But... different.
Earl made it to his bed and laid on it, not bothering to cover himself with the comforts of its blanket. He closed his eyes and felt around for the Death Force, at first as if trying to feel in the darkness for something colder than the night.
He did not sense anything at all. There were no Death Force near him.
Yet... Earl was drawn to it. That... emptiness. That void. Drawn to the idea of the Death Force being controlled.
After all, could the death force not control others? That is what had happened with Kitsune, was it not?
Earl went to sleep. He really was tired, after all.
Earl dreamt of magic.
----------------------------------------
Caz took some supplies from the art club, painting his face with red. His war face.
Bee laughed at it as he entered the room where they were to gather. Caz struggled to keep his face stoic as well, but after only a quick snort, he spouted his lines.
"On this day, we face an insurmountable army. Fight and you may die. Run and you'll live, at least a while."
Bee continued to laugh at Caz's snickering attempt to quote the legend.
"W-would you be willing to trade all those days to when- shoot" he couldn't make it much farther before they just kept laughing like the children they were. Ms. Umihara even cracked a smile.
"You'll wash that off, right? I think that paint has lead in it," she said, though the mirth in her voice was obvious.
"But teeeeaaaach!" Caz complained. "It's awesome!"
"Only for a few hours, Mr. Alderman. And don't let it get into your eyes. If you do, see a Nurse."
"Yes, Ms. Umihara," Caz said, using that tone of defeated children. "But that means we have to rush so I can wear it to the final fight! Come on!"
With that, Caz rushed out towards the front gates of the Academy before being stopped by a large borg with wings.
"We'll be there soon enough, but we'll be travelling by air, not foot," Ms. Umihara tittered. "I'll trust you have no objections?"
Caz was, admittedly, a bit distracted at how beautiful the angel borg looked. "Uhuh," was his dumb answer. The angel borg smiled at him, causing him to blush.
In a quick movement, the angel borg swooped, collecting all three of them and curving into the skies. The movement was sudden, but it felt gentle, more like being pulled out into the ocean by a gentle wave than suddenly being launched.
It felt amazing, flying. Caz was almost sad Earl missed it. He was having too much fun actually flying and laughing alongside Bee to think too much on that, but he made a mental note to have Ms. Umihara fly everyone around at least once like this.
By G Red Himself, Caz swore he'd become powerful enough to do this to every child he met when he grew up.
Alas, the flight didn't last very long, as their destination flew into view mere minutes into the flight. As they arrived, Isaac once more clawed his way out of the fountain, then grew into a large size.
"FOOLISH MORTALS! YOU DARE RETURN?! YOU FACE THE MIGHT OF THE DEATH FORCE!"
Caz shouted back, "And boy is it ugly! Straight past it, Ms. Umihara! Go between its treads and into the hole!"
"YOU WILL NOT MAKE IT EVEN THAT FAR, WHELP!"
Isaac shot three grappling hooks into the air, aiming to catch the angel borg carrying them.
Ms. Umihara had no issues dodging them - both because she was experienced in dodging, as well as Caz's suspicion that the giant enemy Isaac was holding back.
In through the legs, down into the hole, and through the darkness it spawned all around him, Ms Umihara's Angel Borg flew them deep into what Bee said was a Death Force Base. Laying his eyes on it for the first time for himself, he was awed.
This place was pretty cool.
It had a certain asymmetry that Bee failed to mention, where it had symmetrical blocks, but the computer-motherboard-looking lines were off-put by just a little bit. The red glow gave it a really sinister look, but like, in a cartoonish way. He doubted most of these things even had a purpose.
It's not like these lines plugged into anything after all. Caz would know. He studied tech because his idol was a mecha borg. Even the lines that lead to the crystal didn't match up.
But speaking of the crystal... it radiated something evil. Where the Death Borgs were radiating pain and despair, this one was actively angry and malevolent. The energy was dark, as opposed to the white of the death force beams and bullets. Opposed to the white of their own projectiles, covered in the blue energy of the gotcha force.
Caz couldn't really see the barrier, but he did notice the several large borgs that the fox-faced Builder summoned, and with the obvious taunting, "MERE ACADEMY STUDENTS! THE WEAKEST OF THE GF COMMANDERS! YOU FACE ME WITH NOTHING!" Caz was allowed to drop and summon his own borg.
Nina took place next to his knight, and everything was at a standstill for a moment. Two legends faced eachother; A Towering, if old, Magnet Machine Borg, and an amazon of an Angel Borg.
These were merely the first borgs in the GF Commanders' arsenals, but the plan wasn't to help fight, but to do damage to the crystal while the titans clashed in the background.
Caz started the battle off, his knight dashing forward, as he shouted, "Then it'll be all the more embarrassing when you lose to us anyway, Death Force Weakling!"
Just like that, the two titans dashed forward, one moving to break the barrier, the other to push her away.
Caz's Knight and Nina were far slower, and would take dozens of seconds to even reach the barrier, let alone the crystal, but the idea was to constantly keep pressure. If the magnet borg was pushing the Angel away, then the knight and Nina could do damage to the barrier. If Kitsune split his borgs' attention for even a moment, then Ms. Umihara could break the barrier altogether.
As Nina moved to set off bombs near and throw shuriken at the barrier, Caz's knight went for the Magnet Borg. Using a flanking path, Caz was blown away by the magnet borg a few times, but after less than a minute, managed to meet up with it, and start slashing.
That moment of surprise on Kitsune's face was-!
Wait... where's Kitsune?
Caz looked around.
He... wasn't here? But where-
He sent a message to Earl, hoping that he wasn't wrong. There's no way that- that doesn't make sense! Why would Kitsune attack the Academy, knowing that the group was about to attack their crystal?
"I don't think Commander Kitsune is here!" Caz shouted. Ms. Umihara glanced around, then widened her eyes. She summoned all of her borgs at once in a rapid rush to take down the barrier. Why she hadn't done that since the beginning was a mystery to solve later, but Caz saw as several nurses with wings, robed witches and wizards with priestly attire and the Gotcha Force emblem emblazoned on their robes, and even a larger angel with three pairs of wings appear in flashes of light, like arrows from the heavens.
Their energy was a bright yellow, almost indistinguishable from white.
It felt... warm. Comforting. Lively.
These borgs had utmost faith in Ms. Umihara.
It felt nice.
Caz refocused on the battle, and the barrier was broken. The crystal started taking heavy damage as nothing remained to protect it.
Maybe that's why Kitsune left. Because he managed to rationalize leaving it vulnerable in favor of doing more damage with what little time they had left to actually cause chaos and destruction. Maybe he managed to fool whoever was controlling him to do so because whoever was controlling him knew Kitsune really wasn't as strong as the words made him out to be.
Caz stared at his Gotcha Box's messaging system, hoping for a response from Earl.
There was nothing.
A shattering sound happened and a piercing ringing pervaded the Death Forfce Base, and Caz looked up. The crystal shattered into pieces, its black shards scattering to the ground. Their energy left them, travelling into the ceiling of the base as if a borg was just defeated, but the shards remained. In fact, the shards shrunk in size, but retained their pitch black color.
The various angel and holy borgs stepped on the shards, to Ms. Umihara's silent command, and the Death Force Base began to lose its power. The red lines became pink, then white, then blue. The area stopped feeling like rage and anger. Soon, even the feeling of pain disappeared.
"Well, it looks like we've saved the day," Caz said. "We should check to see what the damage is back at the Academy. I think the death force commander tried to do damage instead of saving the crystal."
"That's a good idea. Come on, squad leaders," Ms. Umihara said. Her borgs returned, save for her Angel that flew them over. With a similarly swift movement, the angel flew them up into the mall area, where Isaac stood attempting to repair the mall it broke. Its face was normal, with the light blue lightbulbs replacing what was once a Death Eye. It paused to wave at Caz and the group, and Caz waved back.
Isaac felt happy. Relieved. A bit annoyed at all the destruction. Eagerness to build it even better so it didn't happen again.
Caz laughed.
Bee was smiling, being able to fly.
Because there was no hurry, Ms. Umihara flew a little slower.
"Man. I didn't do much of anything, did I?" Caz asked.
"You? I didn't do anything at all. You at least distracted the magnet borg and noticed Kitsune wasn't here," Bee countered. Her voice was a little sour.
"Good point. You're the one who knew it was Kitsune to begin with, as well as thought to make a video recording of all this."
"Hm. Okay, fair. But still..."
"Yeah, I get it," Caz nodded. "Feels like we're weak. So how did you summon so many borgs at the same time, Ms. Umihara? I thought you could only summon one at a time."
"It's an Army Box upgrade," she explained, smiling as she was glad to give a lecture. "Given only to Generals and above, it allows the use of summoning up to three other borgs, but a GF Captain can summon five, while a GF Master Commander can summon all of their borgs at once. I don't have any extras with me, and I don't think you have the GF Energy to summon more than two at a time, even if you were given one. I would recommend talking to... well, the other GF Commanders about that. I have a feeling we'll need to talk to them soon to get answers. Maybe Kitsune has one or two you could use, squirrelled away somewhere."
"That would be convenient," Bee said, "but I doubt that. Even if he did, he would be giving it to the other construction workers, not to hand around to random kids who proved themselves. I'm more interested in how such boxes are made."
"A good thing to research, Ms. Inui. I haven't the faintest idea."
Caz noticed the lack of Death Force from the city entirely.
He didn't feel the pain anymore... but there was still a sense of emptiness, as the streets were barren of people.
He thought of what it might be like elsewhere, if Ms. Umihara's unspoken implication that the other GF Commanders were also corrupted. Rial was a colony on the border of the space that the humans and borgs inhabited. The other settlements on the various planets - maybe even New Megaborg itself - might be under attack.
Caz let a smile creep onto his face anyway.
Flying was fun, and he'd beat back the death force just like G Red would anyway.
----------------------------------------
Bee ended her glorious flight as Ms. Umihara spotted Kitsune. He wasn't even at the Academy Gates, let alone terrorizing it, so they must have broken the crystal in time to prevent any harm. The lack of messages from Earl was most likely due to him taking a nap, and not being available to answer her texts.
Totally.
She still felt like it was a good idea to check up on him, though.
Before she could, she was in the presence of Kitsune. He stood taller, more broad-shouldered, than when he was corrupted, and his scraggly beard that covered his chin was far more noticeable now that he was close enough and not cast in the shadows of the Death Force Base. If anything, he looked like an apologetic gentle giant, standing head and shoulders above Ms. Umihara, let alone the two students with her.
"Hey," he started off, a bit awkwardly.
"'Sup, man," Caz greeted back, holding out a hand. Kitsune raised an eyebrow but followed up on the offer to dap, as Caz asked, "So what's the sitch? How'd all that happen?"
"Straight to the point, huh?" Kitsune asked. With a sigh he began to explain. "Well, it first started when we found a Death World a few weeks back."
A gasp from Ms. Umihara interrupted the story, and Kitsune grimly nodded.
"Death World?" Bee asked.
"It's what happens to a world when it's fully taken over by the Death Force. Usually, it's pumped for materials and scattered into ash by the Death Force, becoming nothing more than inert cosmic dust, but we suspected that we found it relatively early, as it was still intact. We could even walk on it as we tried to fight off all the Death Force on it. It didn't matter how much we destroyed, though, because they always returned. After two weeks, something happened to Kou."
"Commander Shishido?" Caz asked, worried.
"Yeah. He went dark, and didn't respond to any messages, texts, calls, pings, whatever. We couldn't find him. A few days later, he found us. Corrupted, like I was."
There was a moment where everyone took that in, and Bee was only aware of her own expression.
Worried.
"Sho was off-planet, and Kou wiped the floor with us, capturing us and submitting us to the Death Force Energy Crystals like the one you presumably destroyed. It was... maddening. I only knew how much time actually passed because as soon as I was released, I checked the date. I had no idea who I was, where I was, what I was doing. I wasn't me."
A comforting touch from Ms. Umihara stopped Kitsune from thinking too much on that, and he offered a smile back.
"Sho was off-planet, so I'm hoping he wasn't corrupted. If anyone could be a match to Kou, Sho would be that guy. Everyone else, though..."
"So what's the plan? We go back and check?" Caz asked.
Bee immediately countered, "You should message everyone first. See if they're responding now."
"Sorry, but my box can only transmit to the nearest few planets at best, and that's if I'm amping it up. The planet this all happened on is on the other side of the galaxy."
"Hm. Gathering information is the most important thing right now. Are we capable of sending scouts to the nearby planets?"
"Uh... yeah, sure. Give me an hour and I can cook something up," Kitsune offered. "Though I think I'll need a week to make a ship capable of carrying humans, in case we need to move out ourselves. Not to mention all the work that needs to be done to reinforce a colony like this to fight back against the Death Force in case it comes back in our absence."
"Can you do all that while working on the ship?" Caz asked.
"Who do you think you're talking to? I'm Akio the Builder!"
"I thought your name was Kitsu-" Caz started, but was immediately stopped by a finger to his mouth.
"Please don't. That name was... a gift from a friend, sure, but it's embarrassing, you know? Imagine someone called you Spaz as a nickname."
"Not too bad an idea, Caz," Bee said, stressing his name.
At the face Caz made, Akio laughed. "Your name is Caz, kid?"
"It's a nickname. I like the kah sound, and I already had a zuh sound in my name. Charles."
"An... odd way to do it, but okay. If that's the name you go by, it's been nice to meet you, Caz. Drop by my shop in the city tomorrow, and I'll have something for you. You and your two friends. What was your name?"
Bee had a moment of panic, as one of the GF Commanders was speaking directly to her. She was a bit nervous at first, but then Caz met him as if he were any other person, so Bee took that subtle reminder - intended or not - to think of him as just that, but then he claimed his title as the Builder and the seed of the GF Commander title sprouted in her mind.
Bee was a nickname as well, but she was a lot more official than Caz was, and didn't know whether to follow his example or forge her own path in front of this living legend. If she chose to forge her own path, what path would she want to forge? She was anofficialkindofpersonbutnotsecretarylikejustyetand-
"We call her Bee. I forget what her actual name is, though. I always knew her as Bee," Caz exposited, filling Bee with dread as she thought about what it implied that she couldn't even answer for herself.
Akio gave Caz a pitying smile, then knelt down and stared Bee in the face. "It's alright, take your time. Not everyone's as hard-headed as the brutes like Caz, right? I saw you and that ninja doing your best. There's only one other person I know who would think to use bombs like that, and he's a military nut. You, though, seem like you've got a good head on your shoulders. If it takes you time to think, take all the time you need, okay?"
Bee nodded, then took a deep breath, thoughts racing at the speed of light.
Resolving herself, she stood straight, smiled, and said, "My box name is Bee Bird. I'm a borg nerd who really likes to fly. Earl Praith's the borg sage, and Caz is the borg dork. If you need our help, here's our box names."
She showed her box, which Akio studied for a bit, then sent his own ally request. Presumably to all three, though Bee only accepted for herself. The ID said "Akio Koyama".
"Well, it's been a pleasure, but I ought to get to work. This place might be able to fix itself, but it won't get reinforced by itself."
Ms. Umihara took that time to interrupt as well, "And I'll drop these kids off at the Academy and check on the city."
With a nod, Bee was unable to say a goodbye as Ms. Umihara swept them away with their angel borg.
Bee took a deep breath and said, "Wow. He was pretty hot."