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"Time to rock out with your cock out!" *Uses melody to summon a rooster*
— Mika Fang
So this was it, the big joint operation.
It was unfortunate that Himiko wouldn’t be joining them. Actually, no, that wasn’t what made it unfortunate. Mika was pretty sure that she hadn’t enjoyed a single interaction with that depraved esper. Her nature was what made her unfortunate. Part of Mika wanted to believe that seeing all the factions working together might change her mind about things, but that wasn’t how Himiko operated. She was someone who stole from children and secretly plotted the downfall of the very organizations that paid her. Mika was a fool to try and save her back at the cathedral, but she had felt like enough lives had been lost that day. But empathy was a weakness. Ashley had taken pity on the ‘old hag’ and gave her a position in the organization she wished to destroy. Mika sighed. She had nothing in common with Himiko, but she was a lot more like Ashley than she had originally thought.
Mika considered changing her loadout before going on their next big mission. She considered several options, even reviewed her arcane magic, before deciding that she had exactly what they needed to succeed. She shut the door behind herself as she left the armory.
The day before the operation was scheduled to go off, a certain bikini clad, trench coat clad woman snuck into the Golden Trove. It was a very, very, very high end hotel that catered only to Pax Septimus’s most elite visitors. A single day could cost you millions of dollars if you wanted to rest in the most luxurious of rooms with the fanciest of options. It was the sort of place where people who asked how much something cost were shown the door. Only the most beautiful, busty, and attentive maids were allowed near the rooms, and a chef that had no less than three michelin stars was always available to cook at all hours of the day.
That was to say that the dirty, partially naked woman crawling around the first floor was stopped immediately.
”Excuse me.” The clerk said, not trying to hide his snobbish tone. ”But you do not appear to be a guest here. Might I suggest that you go back outside?” But she didn’t go back outside. She practically jumped over the counter and rammed the USB stick into the computer. ”Hey!” She slung her leg over the counter and kicked him across the face, dropping him instantly. Then she kneeled on the counter and punched in a few numbers on the keyboard. After typing in the activation code and seeing the light flash, she yanked it out. Moments later, security showed up, and they promptly chased her outside.
”...Owwwwwww.” The clerk slowly stood up. Afterwards, he pulled up a phone and called his boss. ”
Some…Bitch just kicked me in the face and installed something on my computer. Can you get the tech guys down here to scrub this thing?”
But it would be too little, too late. An advanced cyber security firm would take weeks, if not months to fully untangle the assortment of redundant and protective systems that had been unloaded onto the computer. Already, the virus had silently spread to every computer on the network, giving Marrie complete access to the system. She could see their billing information and had complete access to the surveillance system. There would not be enough time to remove the virus before the operation.
Among the files of interest that Marrie was able to recover was a guest registry. It all looked fairly normal until she saw the guest staying at room 1408:
XVIII Morning Dragon Fruit.
None of the rooms had surveillance on the inside, but it did look like they had found the location of the target. Since Marrie didn’t gain access to any “magical AI computer,” it did seem like the target was not hooked up to the internet.
&
Finally, the day had come.
Roughly halfway between a police station and an underground parking garage was another Micromart. There was nothing special about it other than the vast parking area was a good place for GEMINI and Maverick Alternative to meet up.
Everyone was in attendance. On one side, Fritzi, Binky, Mika, and the rest of Gemini stood with their backs to some armored transports. On the other side, Billy, Luna, Trixy, Stacy Stitches, Amanda, and the rest of Maverick Alternative stood with their backs to Boteg.
Somewhere between the two were the freelancers. There weren’t a lot. Not just anyone could be trusted with an operation like this, and there was no room for potential traitors. This was big operation that could bring the hand to it’s knees or serve them Pax on a silver platter. The roulette wheel was spinning, and the factions were going all in.
They were still waiting for a few people to show up. There was time to get a word in before the final briefing.
Depraved might have been a severe description for what Himiko was. On the surface, her belief in equality for all was in line with Maverick Alternative’s ambitions. But even they weren't interested in a vision like Himiko’s. She was naive and idealistic at best, or a warmonger at worst. Surely she realized the factions were a result of a divide among espers, rather than constructs made to entrap them in some twisted game.
Himiko’s cell was not exactly comfortable. She was held in what was a slightly more comfortable version of solitary confinement. She had a bed with a metal frame, a small table for eating meals, a sink, and a toilet. Everything was made out of metal and bolted into reinforced concrete. A single fluorescent light lit the space. Perhaps it was mercy for the other inmates that they put her in a cell where she couldn’t talk to anyone else. With the operation at hand, Fritzi had other things to concern herself with than another mad esper.
Himiko’s cell was eerily quiet. The only sound that came into the space was the dull sound of muted talking from the door, and the rumble of the central air unit moving air through a one inch wide vent at the top of the cell.
