Lividiea

  "Luna, would you be down to answer a question from Chat?"

  "Of course! What is it?"

  'Ilovefoxgirls42 said: 'Miss Foxfire, how exactly does all of your time-stuff work?' A very interesting question for sure. If you're willing to disclose that of course."

  "Well I won't be going into too much detail, because I assume you'll want to talk about other stuff ter on, but in short, time is influenced by a curvature of spacetime, or gravity in simpler terms. We don't know for sure why mass has this effect, but it's simir to this."

  "So your technology bends time?"

  "Exactly. Time is like cy. You can bend it, shape it, wibble and wobble it, all the fun stuff."

  – excerpt of a Sparkling Magenta Explosion stream.

  Chaos is the only way to describe the scene before me. A hundred and fifty samurai suddenly under attack without any clear enemy. Everyone is on edge as they have their weapons drawn, ready to fight whoever gets close.

  “Alright, everyone, stay calm!” I yell over all the noise. “We need to figure out if this alert is real, and if it is, we should work together. Tier 4, you should tackle the big threats, if any show up. Tiers 1 to 3 get out there and get some points and I can’t really tell you what to do, but I think it would be best if Tier 5s would focus on evacuating civvies.”

  And of course, the pn I discussed with Lyona since the hum of the force-field down below stopped that finally got her approval, was ignored by everyone immediately, as they were all too busy panicking and pointing accusing fingers at each other.

  This is the worst reenactment of the pointing spidermen meme I have seen to date.

  Normally, I would whip out a big gun and fire a few bnks to get people’s attention, but the crowd here is probably significantly harder to impress than panicking civilians and budget mall-cops. If only the city council had listened to my insistence to evacuate the city before this conference, this exact situation wouldn’t have happened. Well, not this exact situation, but any situation where 400 Samurai are fighting in close proximity to civilians.

  “Everyone, calm you bitch ass down!” Alie suddenly says in an icy tone, as her hand crackles with a dangerous amount of energy. “The enemy is most likely not among us, but there are xenos out there currently attacking a city that got rattled for no reason whatsoever, so you can stay here and fight each other, or you can go out there and save some lives.”

  “These are not our people!” some idiot says.

  ‘Lyona, remind me to pay that person in particur a visit when this is all over!’

  Certainly.

  “Then go run on home with you fucking cowardly tail between your legs! I don’t give a shit, piss ant! Just get out of this bitch ass room!” she snaps out.

  I would have probably phrased it more tactfully, but I absolutely agree with her assessment. Maybe I need to start being rude. She was far more effective in grabbing everyone’s attention than me. I decide trying to control the chaos at this point would be indulging in the sunk cost falcy, and just grab Magenta and get out.

  “What do you think happened?” she asks, once we make it out of the room.

  I frown, my fox ears going ft. “I am not sure. Satellite images show that more than half of the city has colpsed. So most likely someone took out the support pilrs underneath the hexptes simultaneously. At least that is what it looks like.“

  Magenta’s eyes go wide “Did someone do that because of the meeting?”

  “Not sure. This isn’t something you do all that fast. It had to have been pnned way in advance, so you shouldn't worry yourself. Call your girlfriend and tell them you’re okay.” I pat her head, which elicits a blush from her, as she does call her girlfriend.

  “Yes, Cire, I am fine. I am currently with Foxfire. How about you?”

  Something Cire said makes her smile.

  “Thank you, but that won’t be necessary. Focus on getting the people out of the city first. Most shelters are probably compromised, and we don’t know why the other city ptes didn't drop, so getting everyone out safely should take priority.”

  “Yes, I know. Thank you. Love you. See you soon.”

  She turns back to me. I, for my part, had stepped a few paces away and deliberately did not listen in to their conversation, because even though I could have easily done that, I am not the type to spy on my friends.

  “Ready to head out?”

  She nods. “What’s the pn?”

  “Improvise, adapt, overcome.”

  I think for a second about walking to where my car is parked, but decide it will be faster to have the car come here instead. It’s not like there are any buildings in the way anymore. Magenta climbs onto the roof and we fly back up to the city to check what is going on up there. For no other reason than it being the complete opposite direction as Liam, according to my Liam-tracker.

  It doesn’t take long for us to find the first signs of life. Sadly, there are no people, but these pale twisted antitheses that are snacking on the corpses of people caught outside when the city colpsed. Magenta immediately starts shooting at the aliens in the far back while I jump out of my car and rush the front-most pnt, Kindness ripping it apart like everything else.

  Once we have cleaned up the pnts, Magenta asks, “What kind of Antithesis are those? I’ve never seen anything like them.”

  They’re not in any database I have access to. You’re dealing with entirely new variants with unknown abilities. Please keep this in mind and don’t be too reckless.

  I ponder Lyona’s assessment. “Whatever they are, they’re not normal. Did you do corpse-disposal, or should I?”

  “My bullets will crystallise the glucose and turn it into a lens that focuses down light to burn the body.”

  I nod. Good enough.

  My ears twitch as something big makes its presence known behind me. Before I can react, however, Magenta activates her jump-jets and starts firing at it. I turn around, but it’s definitely dead before I can think about attacking it. I jump over to where Magenta will nd and look around.

  “Well, this is something else. Luckily, a lot of the citizens had already evacuated on account of every samurai in existence being here. " I sarcastically remark.

  Magenta spots something else that apparently makes her mad, because she attacks it with a spear. Ah, that’s a Maniac-cospyer. Standing over the dead body of a child. Yeah fair enough. The spear zings forward at a rapid pace hitting the cospyer in their lower back and sinking in a good meter. Magenta turns back to me with satisfaction, but something doesn’t make sense.

  “They’re not dead.” I point out.

  I thought those were all just regur people though. I mean, yes, sure, some of them probably have some cybernetics, those aren’t exactly impossible to come by, but this is still a pretty heavy blow to just shrug off. Especially considering the person’s response is not to bother ripping out the spear and rush Magenta faster than she can probably follow. She barely has time to activate her shield, before the swords of this girl would have smmed into her armour.

  Interesting, one of them is fire, the other ice. That’s not tech you see every day. Also a very bad matchup for Magenta. The person teleports away, my ears picking up on a person’s volume of dispced air elsewhere.

  “I think I’ll handle this one. You focus on evacuating the city.”

  I hear more dispced air, this time behind us, but this time, I’m ready and punch our adversary before they can swing at Magenta. I still was a bit too slow though, as her attack still connects, sending my friend flying.

  That’s interesting. I don’t know the exact specifics of her armour, but I do know that it’s not easy to punch her around like that. While I’m still pondering the impossibilities of this situation, the masked figure appears above Magenta, with a halberd and starts it arcing down towards her.

  Yup, I’m going to decide not to trust Magenta’s shields for that. I pause time and walk over to the two of them, grabbing the halberd, before unpausing time.

  “Let’s be a bit more careful with that, shall we? Someone could get hurt..”

  Interesting. There’s some bent space-fuckery going on there. Her hoodie looks to be about 100 times bigger on the inside than on the outside. This is not a normal person. But the real Maniac wouldn’t have any reason to fight Magenta, would she? I know they're dating the same girl, but still.

  “Any chance we could sit down, have a drink and talk this out?”

  The hooded figure starts ughing madly before letting go of the halberd and teleporting away a few meters. Now, brandishing the two swords from before.

  “So that’s a no on the drinks?” As I was saying that, I sent a message to Magenta, telling her to get out of here. This was very clearly not a fight she could win without causing significant colteral damage.

  The girl crouches lower, seeming to get ready for another strike, but before she can commit to it she bounces slightly to the left as sparks come off her mask.

  The sound of a gunshot can be heard. As the person or girl, judging by the ughter, looks in the direction of the shot, I can already see the mask fixing itself. Suddenly, the girl disappears again. As I keep my ears out, trying to figure out where she went, I hear a faint yelp in the distance.

  Before I can give that the proper attention that it deserves, the girl appears again in front and slightly above me, both swords coming down, I take a small step back, grabbing hold of both bdes and arresting her momentum. She tries her best to shake them free, but I have a steady hold on them.

  ”Now what?”

  The girl lets go of the swords and slumps down for a bit before throwing a punch. I side-step the clumsy thing easily, but as soon as she misses, a new weapon appears in her hand, some kind of giant hammer. It connects with me, making a thunderous sound as I fly into the next building. Well, fuck! She is a lot stronger than she looks.

  This is starting to get annoying. I check for people still alive in the ruin, and upon finding no one, I use a time-bomb to decay the building. I dust myself off and walk back to face her again.

  “Okay, here is how this is going to work. You're going to drop the weapon and talk or I am breaking your arms to make you behave.”

  Instead of answering, the girl just shrugs her arms. I see small objects leave her arms and turn into a multitude of flying bdes blocking out the sky. Then, all at once, they are released and start flying at me.

  I summon my own swords and use them to form a shield above me, before closing the gap between us.

  “Welp, have it your way. Don’t say I didn’t give you an out…”’

  I grab her right arm, and just when I am about to make good on my threat, she does something unexpected: she reaches out with her left hand to her own face. I pause as the person slowly takes off her mask.

  Golden eyes stare back at me, I pause, feeling that that somehow is important information, but I can’t really focus on it because of how the rest of her face looks. She is not injured, no, what throws me off is her expression; there is no emotion in it whatsoever, which feels in contrast with how she had been ughing until now. Just when I am trying to debate its meaning, she flips the mask around and tries to stick it on my face.

  The mask froze before making contact with my head. For a brief moment, the smell of everything around me weakened a little, as if the air carrying the traces had been dispced. I wasn't sure if I was imagining stuff or not, but I figured I'd hold my breath regardless, just in case.

  'Lyona?'

  It's a weak neurotoxin. Nothing that would kill anyone, but it would confuse and slow cognitive processes. It's entirely harmless to you, because of your Snow Pouncer brain, but I'm having your nanites break it down anyways.

  When I make the connection, I tear the girl away, swinging her bodily into a building that I already checked was completely empty. I hear the snapping of bones as the girl crashes into the building. I try to get the mask off, but it's really stuck in there, having sealed itself to my face. Just as I am contempting breaking the mask, the building with the girl in it explodes.

  The girl rushes out of the building, a new weapon in her hand that I have not seen so far, a bck metal cymore that sparks with electricity, is held in her left hand while her right arm hangs limply at her side. I block the sword with my own, having given up on pying nice. a thunder cp releasing as we meet, electricity sparking, raising my hair, and making some of my muscles cmp up.

  Suddenly, a message from Magenta appears: “I think that person might be chipped.”

  Then a second message, “Because that is Maniac!”

  Lividiea

  SynopsisLuna had her life figured out. HAD. She was going to get a PhD in Astronomy and then after some work in science and academia to get a nice postdoc retire to teach astronomy or experimental physics at her university. And then of course aliens had to show up and fuck up everything by being hostile and requiring her to get a PhD in space warfare rather than something interesting like neutron stars, bck holes or other celestial phenomena or even just something useful like orbital mechanics or spectroscopy.