It was an hour later, and with an appointment for the near future, that the pair left the tattoo parlor. Ideas abounded and Nicole felt almost lost for choice. The Ranger was currently torn between a sprawling black rose vine, and some Gaelic poetry. She was certainly leaning towards honoring her heritage, even as far removed as it was. Her grandmother spoke the language, and had tried to teach her before she passed. Nicole understood some of it, and the language was beautiful in motion, but it was hell to learn as someone who grew up speaking modern English primarily.
“I sort of want to get that pirate girl they had in the catalog,” Grace said, looking at her right arm. “Add some red accents and it would be a pretty fun hint at my night job.”
Nicole giggled, imagining how that might look, only to get distracted staring at Grace’s flexing muscles. Sure, Nicole’s own were more defined, her figure was born of pushing her body to the absolute limit in her bid for the Olympics, but Grace’s figure was that of practical strength earned through working a forge.
“I’m thinking of getting something in Gaelic myself,” Nicole said.
Grace hummed. “You looked at those rose vines for a while too.”
“Yeah, but I can only pick one for my first with you,” Nicole said with a sigh. “Decisions and all that.”
“Why not both?” Grace asked. “Replace the vines with whatever Gaelic you want.”
Nicole paused in her steps as she considered that, the idea sitting really well the longer she thought about it. Their appointment was almost two months out so it wouldn’t be a decision to make right away, but she wasn’t opposed to it.
The sun was casting the clouds in an orange and purple glow, a near rainbow unto itself that was absolutely fitting to end the day on. Nicole couldn’t help wrapping her arm around Grace’s waist and pulling close. She couldn’t rest her head on Grace’s shoulder due to the height difference, but she could rest it against her muscular arm as a consolation.
In all practicality, she was about as safe as a person could be, even without Grace there with her, but that didn’t change how Grace made her feel. She hadn’t felt that kind of security since her parents died.
It was almost enough to bring her to tears, but she wasn’t going to cry, not when she was so damn happy. Sure, they would be tears of joy, but Nicole didn’t want to ruin the moment explaining that to Grace. That warmth that she felt from having people in her life again that cared, especially the growing camaraderie with her fellow Rangers, was something she never experienced with her fellow gymnasts. All those lonely years spent going through high school, and now…
“Nicole, what’s wrong?”
A gentle thumb rubbed under her eye, and Nicole wanted to curse her own weakness for breaking down. The concern in her girlfriend’s eyes were almost enough to set her off all over again. She needed to play it off, keep Grace from asking too many questions that might sour the evening.
“Tears of joy,” Nicole said with a soft smile. “Sorry, I’m just, really damn happy right now.”
Grace didn’t even hesitate to pull her into a hug, fingers trailing up and down Nicole’s back in soothing patterns. She just held on tighter, holding onto her girlfriend for everything she could. She just wanted to be closer, hold her into the night.
Shit, she was totally going to end up getting a u-haul at this rate, probably before the week was even out if things continued at the pace they had been. Nicole let out a choked laugh at the thought, fingers digging into Grace’s shirt as she did. Fuck, she was falling so damn hard, and she was all for it.
Thunder rumbled in the distance, but Nicole didn’t care, it could start pouring rain and she would still consider this moment one of the best of her life. More thunder followed, and she knew the storm was about to open up, so she gingerly pulled away from her girlfriend, smiling up with what was no doubt red and splotchy eyes. Nicole didn’t care, even if there was snot running down her nose, she wasn’t about to sour things.
A flash of lightning lit up the evening sky, and she knew they needed to call an end to the outdoor portion of their date. Grace too had looked up at that reminder, a frown on her face as she attempted to glare mother nature into submission for daring to bring an end to the shared moment.
“I guess we should get back to the dorms,” Grace said.
“Unfortunately,” Nicole muttered. “Both our roomies are gonna be there tonight, aren’t they?”
“Yeah,” Grace grumbled. “I mean, we could always go rent a room somewhere, but that takes money neither of us can really spare.”
“Too true,” Nicole grumbled. “Doesn’t mean it isn’t tempting though—”
A piercing scream cut her off, Nicole’s attention snapping down the road. Lightning was still flashing through the clouds as green light faded from the street where a dozen automatons had just appeared. Ice filled her veins and her mind crashed to a halt.
No, not now, how dare they!
Nicole snarled, her hand moving to her wrist without a second thought, not even bothering to say the words as she morphed in a void of black. Someone might have seen them, maybe even taken video, but she didn’t care about that, not when there were people in danger.
The lingering tinge of red in the air told her that Grace had the same idea. Neither waited on the other, bursting into motion to intercept the machines before they could begin to slaughter the civilians so desperate to scramble away from the impending specters of death.
The crashing thunder in the distance, however, suggested it had already begun.
Nicole sent her blades tumbling forward, swirling through the air and into the oncoming Sylan foot soldiers before they could reach the screaming crowd. People were running, falling over one another, and there was nothing she could do to help them, not if she wanted to actually save them.
One person tripped, only to almost vanished in a spray of red, the automatons tearing into them like a pack of ravenous predators. Nicole fell upon the machines with all the fury she felt boiling within, for the people who no doubt were being slaughtered by whatever machines were attacking elsewhere.
Blades sheared through the gray banded machines without effort, yet for each she cut down thrice more appeared to replace them. It was becoming abundantly clear that this wasn’t going to be a minor incursion, this was a statement to their team that they would never get a moment of peace now that they were Rangers.
Nicole tried not to spend too much time thinking about how many people might be losing family all around her. She had to focus on stopping the enemy in front of her, save those she could. That was all she could do, even with the power she had.
She could dwell on those she failed in the days to come, as she no doubt would.
“Clear the area!” she shouted, kicking one machine away even as she caught the blade of another with her own. “Spread the word, barricade yourselves indoors!”
She pushed the drone back, then flicked her wrists to send her blades forward, embedding themselves deep within the metal of the disposable automaton. Limbs lashed out, crumpling the metal of the machines as if it were aluminum foil. Green light flared all around her and Nicole only had a moment for her eyes to widen at the golden bands on the newest arrivals even as their limbs were already in motion.
Sparks shot from her side as she winced, the pain minor but still enough to distract her, even momentarily. She resummoned her blades, bringing them to bear and threw herself into the masses she found herself in the thick of. Nicole knew she wasn’t a front line fighter, she was meant for battlefield control, keeping the enemy from straying far.
Mobility was her greatest strength, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t fight. She could keep the enemy focused on her, save lives by making herself a more tempting target. The new machines were far more capable than even the blue banded machines they fought outside Avant Garden. They still weren’t a full match for her, but the numbers were making up the difference.
Regardless of that, Nicole fought on even as the sky opened up and rain began to fall.
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She phased through the group, summoning blades of inverted light that she sent flying through the air and into a group of machines attempting to break into a building that people were attempting to barricade themselves within. The blades made short work of the drones, yet Nicole was forced to phase once more to avoid reprisal from the gold banded machines.
Grace was working in the distance, guiding the people away, keeping other machines from cornering them. The problem was, she wasn’t nearly as fast as Nicole was at getting around. Sure, Grace wasn’t slow by any means, but the difference showed. She also had no way of fighting from a distance save for throwing her primary weapon away.
She wasn’t quite sure what was wrong, at least not at first, but watching Grace work from the few moments she could steal a glance, it suddenly clicked. They weren’t working within their roles in the team. In her eagerness to get started, they had inadvertently fallen into the role that the other should be performing.
She’d berate herself later for letting her anger get the better of her.
“Corsair! Switch out!” Nicole yelled, phasing through yet another blade.
A red blur slammed into one of the gold banded automatons, instantly scrapping the machine in a shower of sparks and metal. With axe in hand, Grace cleaved through two others with barely a flick of the wrist. She was a true beast on the battlefield, and Nicole had to admit that sometimes she made it difficult to focus on the fight, but there were dozens of the damn things and there were still civilians that needed to be evacuated.
With Grace now front and center, Nicole could move to the outskirts and start hemming the machines in. She vaulted over a car and allowed herself a few moments to breathe as she closed the distance with another group of rampaging drones. The adrenaline was keeping the worst of the pain away, but she knew she’d be feeling it tomorrow after taking those hits from the gold banded machines.
A half dozen blades manifested in her hands and she flung them along, impaling several of the Sylan drones. A barely audible crunch behind her had Nicole shifting, her form phasing out of reality just as the clawed blade passed through where she had been standing.
Too damn close, not that it was likely to actually damage her with her kinetic shields still remaining relatively fresh. She’d taken several blows throughout the fight, and none of those had done much damage overall. The Ranger suits truly were a marvel and she could only shudder to consider what it would mean if she ever had to fight another Ranger.
Nicole summoned her main blades to her hands and blocked the follow up blow before cleaving through the machine from shoulder to hip. She’d loved the blades that Grace had crafted for her, and even if the ones in her hand weren’t technically them, they were still based off of them in some way.
She adored them.
Even when Grace wasn’t there fighting at her side she would feel like she was present in some way. There was a joke about sword lesbians, or presenting a partner with a blade, that she couldn’t get out of her mind each and every time she took up one of her girlfriend’s blades.
The machines were continuing to appear in numbers that vastly exceeded the prior attack, a clear escalation that had Nicole almost in a cold sweat as she dreaded what the hoards meant for what the coming mutant might represent. She didn’t have time to dwell upon the coming terror as the one right in front of her continued to swell by the moment.
There was rarely rhyme or reason behind the attacks from what she had seen from Carlos’ presentation, yet she knew there was a proper intelligence behind the Sylan’s plans. That they understood exactly what they were doing and did have an end goal in mind.
So how did the current attack fit into that model?
Unfortunately, Nicole couldn’t take much time to ponder that as she jumped across the street, kicked off a storefront, and came down feet first on another automaton that was trying to rip open a car door where a child had taken shelter. The machine folded upon impact, the snarl on Nicole’s lips invisible behind her helm.
The door had been shredded completely, any shelter the car might have offered was long since lost. The little girl within stared up at Nicole with wide eyes and a trembling lip. Much as she wanted to be gentle with the clearly traumatized girl, she didn’t have the luxury of time.
“Sorry about this,” Nicole said.
The girl barely had a moment to blink before being pulled from the vehicle, hoisted over Nicole’s shoulder, and the pair were airborne just as a half dozen machines converged upon the vehicle. She landed atop one of the stores and set the girl down. The little girl let out a piercing wail but Nicole had already flipped backwards off the rooftop.
She fell into the mass that had come for them, blades flashing out as she rendered the machines down to scrap. Sparing the pile of parts a parting glance, Nicole flung herself towards the next group of machines breaking away from the main melee where Grace continued to fight the mass of advanced automatons.
Grace was holding down the street, keeping the bulk of the bastards busy with a swirling axe of murder and death that was so very reminiscent of her favorite Tank class from an old MMO she played as a kid. Perhaps Grace had played it too, something to ask her when they weren’t dealing with dozens of murderous machines.
Nicole’s heart clenched as she thought of her girlfriend alone in the struggle, but she had to trust that she could handle the threat. She was a Ranger just as Nicole was, and that meant having faith that she would see the battle through.
At least the machines weren’t intelligent enough to hide perfectly functional automatons within the fallen scrap for surprise attacks. Small mercies. Nicole made a note to herself to never even make a joke about it when she next encountered Maraline, because there was no doubt that there would be a next time.
The Sylan general had an odd fixation on her, had ever since their conversation at the Renfaire. Nicole didn’t doubt that Maraline was speaking the truth as she understood it, but that didn’t make her right. Just looking around, seeing the handful of people that they hadn’t been quick enough to protect, the pools of blood beneath them…
A piercing scream rang out and Nicole was already moving towards it. Her incorporeal form allowed her to tear through the distance, unheeding of any obstacle. A child was running, and two machines pursued their prey with ruthless efficiency.
Nicole kicked off as hard as she could, her eyes widening when she caught sight of orange bars along the machine’s arms. The machines seemed to pick up on her awareness of how dangerous they were as they accelerated into a blur, running down the child right as she arrived. Wide eyes were the last thing Nicole saw as the machine flung the limp form away.
Color bled from the world as she watched the child hit a brick wall, red splattering from their wound before the crumpled form fell to the cold concrete. The unfeeling machine stood stoic as if it hadn’t just ended an innocent life, waiting for Nicole to process what had just happened.
Twin blades pierced into the automaton an instant later before she tore them free with a guttural roar and brought them down upon the second machine. Blades rose to catch her own, yet she sheared through them through force of will. The machine didn’t have even a moment to process what had happened before she was kneeling over the child and Nicole realized how small the girl was.
Her laurel eyes were open, darting all about. Her breaths were shallow and rapid, high pitched wheezing coming with each one as one hand grasped at her wound and the other reached towards Nicole’s helmet. Fingers grasped at Nicole’s visor leaving a bloody streak across her vision as her tiny hand fell away. Nicole blinked, her mind hitching as she attempted to come to terms with the fact that a little girl who couldn’t be older than eight, had died in her arms.
Ice ran down Nicole’s spine and into her veins as she stood, cold fury roiling under her skin. Her blades were already back in hand, then buried within another automaton before she consciously realized she had moved to attack it. Nicole grabbed the still glowing eyes of the orange banded machine and pointed it right at the dead child.
“Is this what you wanted, Maraline? Dead children? Well, IS IT!?”
She tossed the lump of scrap aside and MOVED, her mind detached from reality, instinct guiding her as she cut a swathe through the machines all the way back to Grace’s side.
Her girlfriend did a double take at her arrival, but there were too many enemies for her to stop and talk about why there was fresh blood dripping from her uniform alongside the falling rain. That was one of the good things about their colors, they both hid blood well even if the uniforms repelled liquid.
Their friends still hadn’t arrived, but that was fine by Nicole. She had plenty of anger to work through and the mindless machines would do nicely until they decided to throw something bigger at them. Then she could truly let her frustrations out. She wasn’t sure how long the battle had dragged on at that point, nor did she really care.
With a passing glance at her girlfriend the pair fell upon the masses of machines as they pressed in upon them. Blades crashed and whirled and Nicole let her mind drift away as instincts guided her motions. They needed to make themselves so much of a threat that the machines couldn’t risk rushing after civilians. That was what Nicole told herself as images of that girl flashed before her with each blink.
Their actions seemed to be having an impact, yet there was still the odd scream. A reminder of her failure to contain the monsters from hurting others. She burned each one into her memory, directed her rage back at the machines ten fold. Lightning continued to split the sky, only she caught sight of something distinctly different from the white bolts.
A purple streak seemingly danced around the arching patterns before it crashed into the mass of automatons, announcing the arrival of her teammates. Green vines tore into the masses, crushing the machines in droves. The remaining machines seemed to rally, only to find themselves entrapped within a silver dome. Without a spoken word, they fell in together. Their group of five Rangers against the alien invaders, ready to fight back in the war for the fate of humanity.
So of course that was when the mutant manifested.
It hadn’t appeared nearby, yet it still towered over the buildings between them. It was best described as a centipede, easily one hundred feet long, if not more, with razor sharp claws and pincers. A creature bred for killing humans, no doubt. The beast let out a cry and tore straight for their glowing dome, crashing through the buildings as if they weren’t even there.
Nicole watched with mounting horror as it came closer and she realized her size estimates were off by far more than she realized. Worse, the monster was already covered in blood, bits of dripping cloth hanging from those pincers by its mouth as it crashed into the shield and brought Devon to a single knee even as the defensive field wavered.
That fury that had driven her all this time crystallized in that single moment of iron resolve. Nicole’s grip tightened on her blades as she stared the monster down, taking a measured step forward, ready to confront the beast that may as well have been death incarnate.
“Rangers, hold the line,” Nicole said, steel in her voice as her grip tightened on the blades in her hands. “This bastard is mine.”