Motoko glared at Armsmaster for a moment, wanting nothing more than to engage him right then and there, but she had more pressing things to deal with. Namely, making sure the Nine made a convincing retreat. Jacob and Riley were giving ground to Chrissie who was backed up by Rachel and her dogs. Amy was treating Rachel’s injuries, so all was well there.
Assault and Battery however weren’t faring as well. Motoko was starting to regret not bringing them on board with the conspiracy, but there was nothing she could do about it. Melissa would be okay on her own, she had faced worse odds in the past.
Motoko came to a decision and moved to help Chrissie when she froze. Her ears picked up a distant roar, quickly triangulating the source of the noise and looked into the distant sky. It was barely a glint against the morning sun, but her enhanced vision could see them clearly. Zoomed in, software isolating each flying Dragon suit one by one, a dozen in total.
The Major swallowed, because while it would look like they were there to assist against the Nine to the public, she couldn’t let him secure that kind of PR win. Her connection with Taylor was wide open, and not a word needed to be spared on her end before her other half was relaying that to Kurt.
Kurt’s eyes narrowed, and with a short nod he departed through a separate golden iris, his wording obviously deliberate, leaving Cyber by herself in one of the abandoned apartments she had bought months prior while she set off at a run to make it back to her lab. Motoko needed to get the word out and fast. Only Riley had a cyber brain, so she forwarded all the information to her.
“Riley, full retreat, Dragon suits inbound.”
Riley looked up in the indicated direction, her eyes going wide at the sight. She pulled some vial from her pouch and tossed it, a green fog exploding from it as she did. Amy ran forward into the fog, the color shifting to white as she made contact. Melissa got the memo and began to teleport away, Assault chasing for another block before giving up.
Motoko hated that they couldn’t do more, but there was a way to spin it.
“Armsmaster,” she said. “It seems your arrival was a bit late to truly assist.”
The Dragon suits arrived, setting down across the parking lot where the battle had taken place. The suits weren’t standing down either, but were instead readying weapons. She didn’t like the feel of the situation one bit.
“I think I am perfectly on time,” Armsmaster said, drawing his Halberd before he leveled it upon her, ready for battle. “Killing a member of the Nine is certainly a worthy use of my time.”
Motoko blinked, because such a statement was absurd, but also more than a bit accurate. How had he managed to figure that out without any supporting evidence?
“Okay, you’re clearly off the deep end here,” Lisa said, stepping up beside her. Lisa’s face was twisted into a tight snarl. “Cyber was just snatched by Harbinger, we rescued Miss Militia, we FOUGHT the fucking Nine today.”
“Well put,” the Major said. “Don’t forget, we took down Hookwolf who was clearly violating the Truce against this threat. Now, if you’re done blowing smoke out your ass, we have a teammate to save.”
“Cyber will be fine,” Dragon said, one of her suits stepping forward, large and rather intimidating up close. “Oracle, a new Ward, was asked the likelihood that the Cape known as the Major working with the Nine in the future. The odds were given as above eighty percent. When asked the follow-up if you were already working with them, the odds were given as one hundred percent.”
“We then asked further questions and the answers were damning,” Armsmaster continued. “It quickly became clear that your entire group was supporting the Nine’s attack on Brockton Bay. Surrender is your only option at this point while we investigate.”
Dinah, she was the one that Coil was after, suspected to have a Thinker power that was extremely powerful. A percentage based precog would certainly qualify. Motoko knew she needed to pivot, and quickly before the situation was allowed to spiral out of control.
“Jacob, Armsmaster has used a precog to link the Nine with the rest of us,” she sent, trying to think of a solution. “This is going to come to a fight very quickly if we don’t surrender.”
“Do we all need to surrender, or just me?” Motoko asked. “I firmly believe this is complete bullshit, but I’m not about to start a fight like this when the Nine are running around causing chaos and killing people.”
She was stalling, she knew it and no doubt Armsmaster knew it, but there was no way her team could face a dozen Dragon suits without more support, and the only way they could get that would be if they acknowledged the link between them and the Nine.
Armsmaster’s posture shifted slightly, but remained battle ready. She could tell he was consulting with someone based on facial twitches, likely an eye based interface. Inefficient as hell, but usable all the same.
“That changes things,” Jacob replied. “We will need to deal with the cape sooner than later. I’ll consult Legend about the precog, see about getting her somewhere she can’t interfere in the future.”
“Motoko, your cyber brain is within this shell,” Lisa interjected. “You surrender to him and he WILL dissect you for the tech.”
“You are communicating with someone,” Dragon said. “Your brain is registering similar activity to what I recorded from Cyber’s.”
“Her tech is useful,” the Major said, then held up the arm she had previously lost. “Cybernetic neural interface along with limbs. Her specialty is fairly robust, and she’s in the hands of the Nine, of Bonesaw. That should scare the shit out of you.”
“Not if she’s been working with them all along,” Armsmaster said. “The same goes for you, the Nine have already accomplished two of the three objectives they supposedly gave you. Surrender. This is your last warning.”
Motoko passed her rifle to Lisa, then pulled off her tactical vest, doing the same with it. Lisa stared at her, tears prickling at her eyes despite the cybernetic systems she could use to control the response. Motoko shared a mind with Taylor, she knew that. It was to be expected. Worse, she could tell Sophia was gearing up to do something stupid. Funny enough, that sent a spike of warmth through her, knowing her own girlfriend was being protective.
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“Get ready,” Motoko sent over the shared coms. “He’s not going to honor this. Chrissie, razor wall between us. Rachel, dog on each of the closest mechs. Brian, blanket us to try and kill Dragon’s connection to her suits.”
“Want me to wake up Hannah?” Amy whispered into her mic. “She could help.”
“Do it,” Motoko said without hesitation.
Hannah groaned, sitting up while gripping her head. Amy had two devices in hand that Riley designed. They both did exactly what was expected of them, allowed her to puppet a person and were entirely based off her old tech, nothing current that could conclusively be linked to Toybox directly.
“Why do I feel hungover?” Hannah grumbled, gripping her head. In her ear, Lisa whispered a short update on what happened. Hannah turned, eyes fluttering open where she saw Armsmaster standing there, ready to fight. “You.”
“Militia,” he said without missing a beat. “Please step away and surrender, you’ve been under the influence of the Nine. Submit yourself to the nearest Dragoncraft for Master Stranger verification.”
“How about no,” she growled. “I seem to recall you shooting me.”
“Master effect or implanted memory from Bonesaw,” he answered. “Submit or be treated as a hostile.”
That… She should have expected such an answer, and that was how he was going to escape responsibility, wasn’t it? Claim it was all delusion or power influenced lies and force her into therapy for it all, likely across the country. If the Nine hadn’t been a black book operation, he might have actually gotten away with it too.
“Why not ask your little soothsayer if that’s true?” Lisa demanded. “You seem to be taking her at her word on everything else, seems simple enough.”
“Protocols exist for a reason, but your suggestion will be taken under advisement,” Armsmaster said. “Major, submit to Brute restraints.”
“Oh no,” Lisa interjected. “Get the little brat on the phone right now where we can all hear her answer or the deal’s off. We didn’t save Militia from you just to hand her back over to be executed.”
“Taylor, Motoko, we’re grabbing the Clements girl now, and are going to be loud about it,” Jacob said, and sure enough, there was a brilliant prismal explosion visible across the city that could only be caused by a Bakuda bomb. “If this doesn’t work, fight your way out. Legend consulted the Think Tank and they don’t like the shape of the situation. Your safety is the priority, damage control can come later.”
“Interesting timing,” Armsmaster said. “I assume this is meant to be for Shadow Stalker’s supposed tests. The Clements girl was effective bait after all.”
“Contact!” Jacob yelled.
Motoko immediately tapped into Riley’s cyber brain feed, Taylor doing the same. There was too much bleed between them, she would need to spend some time away, hopefully with Sophia, while recentering herself.
Riley was looking at several capes that were not locals, having arrived through Strider, a mass teleporter who helped with Endbringers and other high level threats. Her recognition software went to work, picking out several capes from Haven of all groups, as well as all the adults of New Wave. Armsmaster had set an ambush of his own, doing so without involving the Protectorate at large. It was clear that he intended to lock down her team to avoid them being able to interfere with the executions, because there was no way they planned to take the Nine alive.
Taylor was quick to forward the files to Riley, with summaries of powers flagged as the priority. Motoko grit her teeth, knowing that they had to do something. The Major was locked down, as were the Undersiders and the Nine, but Taylor wasn’t. She could do something, Taylor grabbed a toolkit, clipped it to her belt and grabbed a prototype personal cloaking device for good measure then gathered her nerve.
Motoko couldn’t show a reaction to Taylor’s actions, and only Lisa would be aware of what was going down across town. Armsmaster’s smile had turned smug, for as little as his lip had quirked. He was just looking for an excuse to act against them.
The fighting was fast and brutal, and if it weren’t for Amy and Riley’s enhancements as well as her own tech supplementing the others, they would have been flattened in mere moments. Riley’s spider bots swarmed out, but were being destroyed rapidly.
“Our portals are being jammed,” Vivian said, an explosion could be heard a moment later.
“Doormaker isn’t answering us either,” Kurt said.
“I do have to commend them on a well executed trap,” Jacob said, pulling Riley a step back as he did and out of the way of an explosion. “You’re on your own, kids.”
Taylor screamed into their comms, watching her family in mortal peril while Lisa continued arguing with Armsmaster over the terms of their supposed surrender, that was when an absurd idea came to mind that Motoko almost laughed at the simplicity of it.
“Here goes nothing,” Taylor said. “Door to the Nine!”
Nothing happened.
“Oh come on, you pompous asshole,” Taylor wailed, tears flowing down her cheeks. “Work with me here! I’m trying to help them dammit!”
She grit her teeth and slammed her fist into the wall, watching as the Nine fought for their lives, Jacob barely managing to keep ahead of the blatant kill shots being thrown around. They were going to lose people if someone didn’t manage to do something and soon. They needed proper coordinates to open any portals with Harry’s tech, something the so-called Doormaker could bypass.
“Fine, let’s try a different one,” Taylor muttered. “Door to Armsmaster’s lab.”
This time a golden iris did appear, a meticulously cleaned space waiting beyond all in sleek and modern lines. Taylor huffed, snot trailing from her nose and a smirk coming to her lips as she made sure she had everything in hand, engaged her cloak, and ran through the portal as it closed behind her.
Taylor looked around the lab, unsure of exactly what she could do to disrupt the attack, but she was going to do what she could. The security system hadn’t sounded an alarm, which she wasn’t sure was a good or bad sign, but she didn’t have many options left to her and there wasn’t time for caution. Not with Armsmaster and Dragon still holding the Undersiders while angling for a mass arrest on suspicion of assisting the Nine.
Motoko shut her eyes for a moment, attempting to ground herself. She wasn’t Taylor, and Taylor wasn’t her. They were each their own person. She shuffled Taylor’s visual feed to a smaller monitor, hoping that would help with the contamination she could feel creeping in.
Taylor’s feed saw what looked to be the main console, with multiple screens around it, but what stood out to Motoko was a small box attached to a separate terminal. Taylor approached it, wincing as Riley lost a hand. Motoko felt her heart break as the girl screamed, her hand flash cauterized by a plasma beam shot by Lady Photon.
Taylor arrived at the device, it was clear that it was Tinkertech, with two thick wires running into the much sleeker terminal.
She watched as Taylor ran a hand along the box where she found a release, and opened it. A cannibalized laptop from the nineties, cobbled together with half a dozen desktop processors and other assorted parts greeted them. Atop the screen, in silver letters, was a single word.
Ascalon.