Revenge Fantasy

"Oh, shit, Pops...!"

Gazing upon the light of John's attack, Yumi knows what happened. A cold sweat trails down her face as she expects the worst, knowing John had to go all out.

The look on Yumi's face tells stories. Yumi needs to get back to him. Yumi needs to save him.

Chouko sees these stories and sees worse. She's discovered Yumi's ability and what it's capable of, and the sweat on Yumi's face does not give Chouko confidence.

There's a limit to Yumi's ability; a limit to this "teleportation". Chouko sees the physical strain when Yumi uses it, indicating a limited pool of energy for such a quick and powerful ability. If she goes now, then the situation will be left worse.

"Don't," Chouko immediately tells Yumi. The only word she tells Yumi.

There's no use in saying anything else to someone who isn't here, after all.

Yumi is already gone. She has disappeared and is now running back into the diner as fast as she can. A full sprint, a beeline to the front door itself, putting her all into reuniting and regrouping with John.

"... bloody hell," Chouko mumbles, already expecting this.

Back inside the diner, standing in the very hallway that winds to several back doors, John continues to writhe and struggle long after his attack's ending. The sleeves of his shirt are burned to piles of ash, exposing his pure metal arms in their overheated, glowing glory.

Clouds of humid steam fill the hallway, entirely coming from the man's shoulders. The cooling systems in his arms are on overdrive, putting their all into making sure his artificial muscles do not turn to melted slop. By the simple fact that he still has his arms, John is still perfectly intact after the vicious attack.

Quite unlike the remains of the androids around him.

John's brutal, all-or-nothing attack inflicted heavy damage on the surrounding enemy androids, leaving behind the melted and fried remains of what once was artificial life. The layers of silicone skin, as well as the metal machinery underneath, were and are no match for the searing light his arms fired out.

By some miracle, the building is still standing. The attack is most effective on smaller targets rather than entire structures. While the walls of the building itself remain sturdy, every single android in his attack range is melted to bits.

In this very moment, surrounded by mechanical carnage, the man proves he lives up to the name of the Serbian Flashbang... albeit less a flashbang, more a grenade made with the condensed light of the Sun itself.

The one survivor of this... is Shortcake. Shortcake keeps her hands over her eyes, shaking after the attack. "Is it safe to look yet...?!"

John doesn't respond. Any inch of movement, any word from his mouth, any slight second may cause him to fall apart. Dismay is on his face as he is out of it, as the two are surrounded by android remains.

After a short few seconds, Yumi appears, a tense look on her face as she sees the state John is in. "Oh, holy shit, Pops!"

"Y... Yumi!" Shortcake exclaims, hearing her voice. "Is Diane alright?!"

Yumi doesn't even pay attention to Shortcake, immediately focusing on John. She walks over the melted androids with ease, making slow and mysterious hand motions with each step.

Curiously, Yumi's hands are noticeably sweaty and drenched. The liquid coats the palms of her hands, rippling with each shifting motion. Contrasting her earlier haste, Yumi moves with the grace of a tranquil river, a calm look in her eyes as balls of liquid form in her hands, and...

... she splashes them onto John's arms.

John's eyes widen as this happens, losing all tension in his body. The glow of his arms fades away as Yumi splashes them, a rejuvenating feeling that heals his pain. No longer are his arms suffering from the aftermath of the searing attack.

A curious sight...

Yumi stands before John, takes a deep breath as the light in her blue eyes fades. Following this process, Yumi then exclaims:

"Pops! I need your brain to figure out the sniper, quick!"

John grits his teeth and glares forward, staring at Yumi as urgency returns to his face. "Right. What happened so far, Yumi?"

"Basically, guy's using windows to shoot bullets," Yumi begins to speak. "Stay away from windows, and prepare for whenever a... a window ends up breaking."

After relaying this information, Yumi wipes her forehead with the back of her wrist. Her eyes twitch, and her hand shakes.

John stares at Yumi when this happens. A cautious look is in his eyes, but he continues for now. "... that's a new one. A window shooter...?" John groans, his eye twitching as he looks around. "I suppose I'll keep an eye on that. You have placed Ashford in a safe place, yes?"

"Yep, she's away from the windows. What's the plan now?" Yumi urgently asks, joining John in looking around.

"Well, I have no recollection of any snipers that can remotely fire bullets... but it doesn't matter," John explains, wiggling and flexing his prosthetic fingers. "Trojan knows my identity and can use it, and the sniper is capable of killing us in any car we take. No matter what, we must take both threats down in the next five to eight minutes, and counting."

Five to eight minutes...

"Worst case scenario," John continues, "we take only Trojan down and escape to a car, breaking every window and finding quiet roads with no other vehicles. No matter what, Trojan must be taken down."

"Right... five to eight minutes. I got this," Yumi tells John, grinning proudly and pointing right over John's shoulder. "To the stairs we go."

John nods to Yumi, then lightly taps Shortcake's ankle with the side of his foot. "You understand, Roxie? To the stairs we go."

Shortcake takes this as a cue to begin walking...

... but before the first step, she is suddenly in Yumi's arms, carried the exact same way Yumi previously held Chouko. One arm around the waist, keeping Shortcake's feet off the ground.

Obviously, Yumi's not going to let Shortcake go. She's the one bargaining chip they have for Ashford to come quietly. Yumi's keeping the android close, and John is following behind to keep watch.

With Shortcake held this way, her hands are no longer covering her eyes. Just barely looking over Yumi's shoulder, she sees John and... the remains of the androids. Her pink eyes nervously stare out at the sight, her entire body shaking and fidgeting in fear.

However, Shortcake also sees something else: a butterfly.

A red butterfly rests under Yumi's hair, on the side of her neck. It is secure with wings spread and flattened, sneakily and stealthily hiding. Neither Yumi nor John notices it yet.

Shortcake has a full view of the mysterious creature. It comforts her and alleviates the fear in her system. As she's staring out at the piles of destroyed androids, Shortcake comforts herself by knowing she's safe, that she's okay. A single butterfly is enough to register keywords of protection.

By it being here, Shortcake knows it means one thing:

Chouko is hearing everything.

Chouko's ability is in play. The butterfly is hers.

She anticipated Yumi would disappear and teleport, and preemptively hid another butterfly on her neck. The urgency and tension Yumi felt when John's attack occurred gave Chouko enough distraction, and it became the most crucial advantage to this entire encounter.

The red-eyed girl, currently still lying low underneath the Mercedes-Benz, has a devious look in her eyes as she holds her flip phone in her left hand. Already, Chouko can see everything in the hallway and can hear everything Yumi and John are saying.

There is a lot that Chouko still needs to understand about abilities, and she is cautious of both Yumi's ability and the ability of this mysterious sniper.

However, "knowing yourself is the beginning of all wisdom." Aristotle.

With Yumi in the building, Chouko was left to defend herself. She asked herself during this time: What is the strength of her ability? What is the strength of her butterfly?

The answer lay in the countless times she's followed and obeyed Charon's instructions.

Every tactic that involved him, in some way, was something Chouko had access to. The times when she needed to infiltrate a building with a controllable android. The times when she had to listen in and record secret conversations between two individuals. The times when she chose to unlock doors, disable security cameras, and interfere with various technologies... even her own photographic memory had to be part of an ability.

Constantly, Chouko has been thinking of her abilities. Chouko has the ability deeply ingrained into her very being and understands its limitations.

"... the time limit is a few minutes..."

Chouko's ability has a time limit of a few minutes until Chouko suffers immensely from the pain. Depending on what's done, this time limit will shrink, and probably already shrunk from her previous illusory camouflage. Yet, if all Chouko does is look through the butterfly on Yumi's neck, this time limit can be stretched.

"... the three of them are taking the stairs..."

Chouko's ability has a range of "being in the same area", approximately the same distance as an entire building from bushes and forest. In theory, more than enough to still have access to Yumi wherever she goes in this entire diner, even if she goes up to the rest of the ten stories.

"... and the objective is to kill a hacker..."

Chouko's ability has a scope of senses and technology. This takes the form of the butterflies, which respond well to her use of a phone. The senses of humans and androids are at her disposal, which are at their strongest in direct contact with their bodies (such as Yumi's neck). This "Trojan" is the main target.

Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.

The puzzle pieces of her ability are falling into place, with just one last piece: How is Chouko surviving the sniper?

Yumi's ability, saving Chouko numerous times from the bullets, is what gives those metaphorical pieces.

Chouko has figured out the nature of the sniper's shots, that the sniper can only shoot in straight lines from glass windows. Every shot, while it can be angled any degree from the windows themselves, must travel in a straight line from the moment of impact to the target itself.

The only straight-line shots that can hit Chouko are from the diner building itself, as the windows of the few remaining cars are too oddly angled to lethally hit her.

Furthermore, Chouko has perfected the timing of the sniper's attempted shots. There's one bullet every 33 seconds, at the very least, and the sniper is specifically targeting her head with each shot. An entire half minute, with three additional seconds on top of that.

The results of knowing this information, of figuring this all out, take the form...

... of two bullets.

Two bullets rest on the ground under her chin. Each is covered in faint traces of black and red dust, buried in piles. Neither one successfully hits Chouko's head in the slightest.

With Chouko's predicted timing, there's one more shot incoming in three... two...

... there it is.

A shot from a window on the second floor. Two seconds before it reaches Chouko.

Immediately, Chouko tenses her entire body, turning her head and letting out a vicious cough. Suddenly, one butterfly comes flying out of her mouth, flying straight at the incoming bullet. It's precise, and it's agonizingly risky, but the butterfly meets the bullet's trajectory and braces itself.

Now, the thing is, Chouko knows the butterflies are not strong enough to completely stop the bullets. However, rather than go completely through, the bullet only goes halfway. It becomes stuck in the butterfly itself as it pierces through, indicating that its momentum is at least slightly affected when it hits the butterfly.

So, in the second after impact, Chouko twists a finger and focuses heavily, leading to the butterfly turning in the air and changing the bullet's angle. The bullet goes down into the ground, hitting the ground right beneath Chouko's chin.

This is Chouko's version of catching the bullets, albeit only possible due to the limited and risky angle of the sniper's straight shots. In any other situation, where gunmen have more angles to shoot any part of her body, Chouko is unable to use this tactic. It's a motion that requires precise timing and full concentration, and using this exposes the rest of her body to any sudden shots or attacks. Completely situational.

Regardless, three bullets are now under Chouko's chin. She has survived these three without Yumi's help. Her ability is strong, whether far or close...

With all the pieces in play, the found and the missing, Chouko's true wisdom is out. She's untouchable. She's the victor. She can get out of this alive.

A slow, methodical breath sighs out of Chouko's... of... of Kuroiwa's mouth.

The cold look of pure determination, that flare of ferocity. The look manifests over the woman's face, and Kuroiwa comes out in this decision.

The feeling of pure confidence crawls up Kuroiwa's spine, coming out as a sigh of calmness and focus. Kuroiwa thinks of the avenues she can take, of every path that lies in front of her. She can see herself. She can see through the butterflies. She knows the situation to follow. She sees everything that can lead to victory.

Kuroiwa thinks all of these, as she can see it all.

"Alright! Stairs, stairs, stairs...!" Chouko hears Yumi exclaim, the brown-haired woman running to the end of the hallway and opening the door. A flight of stairs.

"Uhm... not to be disruptive," Shortcake interrupts and calls out to John, wanting to relay information to Chouko, "but do we know where either one can be?"

John looks at Shortcake, following behind Yumi and climbing up the stairs at a slower pace. "For Trojan, we do. A power room, any place where he can access the network the androids are connected to."

Kuroiwa begins thinking. A power room...?

"... meaning he has to be on the fifth floor, Yumi," Kuroiwa quietly whispers.

"Fifth floor? If you're sure!" Yumi exclaims, running up the stairs in a sprint. "Getting right on it, Pops!"

John watches as Yumi sprints up the stairs, raising an eyebrow. "... sure of what...?" he mutters under his breath.

Kuroiwa's eyes stare deviously. She thinks to herself: "So I can do an okay impression at mimicking John's voice, huh? Wonderful."

It isn't a blind goose chase. Kuroiwa confidently guesses that it's at least past the middle of the building itself, given that this diner operates with android staff handling trucks and food delivery. It's far more efficient for the routers to have a closer and wider reach over every inch of this lot, as well as giving additional distance between any ground-floor hackers.

So, the fifth floor is the best floor to begin searching. It's all primarily parking garages to store trucks, granted, but...

"I-I see, and the sniper?" Shortcake calls out, watching John get farther and farther away with Yumi's running.

John blinks a couple of times at this sight before he continues. "No clue. Trojan's words are that he isn't working with the sniper, so it has to be a different location..."

... hm.

A bit more of a mystery, but Kuroiwa doesn't need to think about it. She's already invincible against anything the sniper can do. The simple fact that the sniper is continuing to fire shots, even though Kuroiwa keeps catching the bullets, means that the sniper is a non-threat.

For now, the main threat is Trojan.

Yumi makes it to the 5th floor, opening the door to the parking garage present. A garage filled with several trucks and everything. Nothing is out of the ordinary.

"Alright, let's get to searching!" Yumi exclaims.

"No, Yumi... sixth floor!" Kuroiwa whispers, pretending to be an exclaiming John. There are only trucks on the fifth floor. Nothing else.

Yumi raises an eyebrow, stopping in place as these words are said. "... huh, okay, sixth floor it is!" Yumi exclaims, backing away from the door and running up the stairs to the 6th floor.

Kuroiwa stares forward after this, exclaiming in John's voice for a reason. Yumi's fast pace has her on the fifth floor while John is still climbing the fourth floor.

Kuroiwa's whisper should not be working right now. Yet, it is. Yumi belives that it's John speaking right now.

For now, best to roll with this...

As suspected, the 6th floor is the one to search. Waiting for Yumi, quite a few staff androids are present. Their white eyes as bright as ever, slowly turning towards Yumi.

"No time to deal with you guys..." Yumi mumbles in mild frustration, taking a deep breath...

... as she takes a step forward, and is now right in front of the server room door.

Yumi's completely passed the android threats, skipping past all of that with another flash of her ability. There's no time to take them down. Yumi needs to fight and take down a proper enemy.

"A... Are you okay?" Shortcake quietly whispers to Yumi, checking up on her.

Yumi ignores Shortcake's question, continuing to breathe heavily. She doesn't acknowledge the question in the slightest. All she needs to do is open this door and beat up whoever's on the other side.

So... Yumi kicks the door down. One single kick, with another flash of her blue eyes, and Yumi kicks the door off its hinges.

Boldly, Yumi takes a step forward and looks around. It's a relatively large room with hundreds of computer boxes stored away. A server room, a database. Each box serves as the foundation of how androids operate in this building, giving extensive data to carry out their duties. Even as the building is suffering a power outage, this room continues to run in the meantime.

Yumi walks further into the room, walking forward to the end of the room...

... and is now staring forward at the large line of glass windows.

With only a pillar as a wall, there are several large wall-sized windows. All of them block out the sunlight to protect the room itself, yet remain transparent from the other side for security and convenience.

This sight is intimidating to Yumi, but... she carries on, looking left and right.

Immediately, when she looks to her right, Yumi sees someone sitting at a desk. There are 9 whole TV monitors attached to the walls, with only one screen displaying camera footage. The rest are flashing red warnings, indicative that those screens are looking through destroyed androids.

"..."

Quietly, the person at the desk turns around, revealing themselves to Yumi.

This person is a woman wearing a black cloak, one that covers most of her body besides her tactical combat boots. Over her face, a pair of black goggles covers her eyes.

In her hands, a pistol and a silver pocket mirror. One with a chain hooked to her wrist, a round one that opens up like a clam.

"Hah! Gotcha, Trojan!" Yumi boldly exclaims, putting Shortcake down onto the ground. The wear and tear of her ability is catching up with her, as she uncontrollably pants each breath out.

Shortcake notices it better than anyone. Yumi is absolutely exhausted, and her body isn't even sweating anymore. It's just dry skin covered in her own sweat, and she's running out of energy. "Yumi..."

"... you're here."

"You're ding dang RIGHT I'm here! Let's go!" Yumi calls out, putting her fists up with a bold grin. "One on one, you and me!"

"If you insist..." the cloaked woman tells Yumi, standing up from the chair.

Kuroiwa is staring forward, sharing Yumi's determination. The threat is right in front of her. If the hacker is defeated here, that leaves only one more enemy to take down.

"Take her out, Yumi... take her out!"

Yumi cracks a bold grin as she begins to run, as she breaks into a sprint at Trojan.

Shortcake, however, has some information cross her mind, and urgently screams out: "Wait, that's not Trojan!"

Kuroiwa's eyes widen, as does Yumi's. Both women pause completely as Shortcake exclaims this.

"What...?!" Yumi exclaims, defensively staring at the woman. "How do you know for sure?!"

"W... Well, unless it's a voice changer, T... Trojan's voice belongs to a man!" Shortcake exclaims. "That can't be Trojan! The voice doesn't match!"

Yumi looks between Shortcake and the mysterious individual, tensely trying to make sense of the situation. Trojan's supposed to be a guy, apparently... so... Yumi's immediate first thought and reaction is:

"... is Trojan trans, then?!"

The individual lets out a sigh at this, then speaks into her silver pocket mirror. "The brown-haired one is on the sixth floor, sir. Ashford's good to go."

Yumi hears this and immediately understands the situation. "... oh! Oh, crap, you're the sniper!"

"Yes," the cloaked woman says, staring forward at Yumi. She holds the pistol and aims at her pocket mirror, taking a calm breath.

Yumi stares at this, and an idea flashes into her head like a lightbulb. That must be how the sniper's doing her window trick... shooting into that magic mirror or something!

So... Yumi immediately runs forward. If she stops the sniper right in her tracks, she can't fire! Yumi runs forward as her life depends on it, and her eyes flash bright blue once again to clear the distance with another spontaneous teleport forward.

The supposed sniper stares at Yumi as this happens, making no effort to move out of the way. She's a still target, an unmoving one for Yumi to take down.

Yumi is now in range to attack the sniper, and promptly throws a right hook punch at the sniper's head. With all her might, she tries to smash the sniper's head and completely knock her out in one swing.

However, Yumi's fist only punches glass.

Right before Yumi's eyes, a glass wall breaks and shatters into pieces, revealing that the sniper isn't actually standing there. Yumi doesn't punch the head of the sniper, but instead punches an image of the sniper.

This bewilders Yumi, as a soulless look of realization is in her blue eyes...

... and the sniper's finger pulls the trigger.

Every window to the side breaks into pieces. Bullets rain out into the server room, sequentially breaking piece by piece.

Shortcake quickly ducks down to the ground to try and avoid this, the shards of glass from the window landing on her while the bullets fly right over. She tensely whimpers and panics, shaking like a terrified animal.

Yumi doesn't get that same luxury. She doesn't react in time whatsoever, as many of the bullets are aimed at her. She and Kuroiwa were under the impression that the sniper could only shoot one bullet at a time, yet here she is firing from every window in that room.

Most of the bullets and glass graze Yumi's body, inflicting cuts on her entire body.

In a cold sweat, Yumi tensely tries to do anything, but... she's all out of energy. Her ability has run out, and she's helpless to the storm of glass and bullets. A horrified look is on her face, and she's too panicked to see the single bullet that's precisely aimed at her head.

Immediately after this, the sniper is seen dashing out of cover... coming from the opposite side of where Yumi first saw her. Rather than "right", the sniper hid to the left instead.

The cloaked sniper doesn't waste any time, as she runs towards the open window and jumps out. Leaving them to their fate, the sniper gives the pair two simple words of farewell:

"Bye, now."

Then, arms spread out, the cloak opens up and falls off her body, revealing her long, platinum blonde hair with blue highlights. Immediately, she taps the back of her wrist and raises her pocket mirror up...

... starting to gracefully fall down the five stories, curiously using the pocket mirror the same way as some kind of makeshift magic umbrella.

Kuroiwa sees all of this, a tense look in her eyes. Her immediate thought as she watches this:

Mary freaking Poppins.

The sniper's occupied with flight, so Kuroiwa quickly plans out her next...

... damn it.

"So, Stalker..."

A man in a raincoat stands next to the Mercedes-Benz, a full neon LED mask covering his face as he crouches down to stare at Kuroiwa. A pixelated image of a sideways text smiley face, ":)", is lighting up in pure white.

Immediately, he takes a large pump shotgun out of the holster on his back, holding it in one hand and pointing it at the side of Kuroiwa's head. The man is an enemy and is boldly staring at Kuroiwa with an artificial mask.

A violently angry look is on Kuroiwa's face, seeing this second threat. Someone who immediately knows she's under the car, someone who is an immediate threat to her. Every thought crosses Kuroiwa's head at this sight as she tries to figure out who...

...

... Trojan.

This is Trojan.

By process of elimination, Kuroiwa tensely clenches her teeth as she realizes that this is Trojan, the hacker.

Trojan, keeping the gun on Kuroiwa's head, is grinning happily behind that light-up mask of his. Pure glee and joy come out in his voice as he asks Kuroiwa:

"Did I outplay you? Or what~?"