[ARC 8: LOCK EYES WITH A GORGON]
In early November, Serena frequently retreaded something that had happened to her in early highschool. Just beginning to come out as transgender, she had befriended a bisexual girl in her classes who often defended her or corrected anyone who misgendered her. Serena eventually develope a crush on her, and though she had difficulty working up the nerve to ask her out, felt reassured when this girl told Serena that she loved her.
Serena decided to ask her if she would like to go out & see a movie sometime, and she received something worse than a rejection: an acceptance, but just as friends. Serena was obviously flabbergasted, so the girl explained that expressions of love among women did not always mean romantic attraction -- there were several friends she would say she loved. Though they eventually went to see the movie anyway, as friends, Serena despised this memory; not only for the rejection, but in needing to be explained to what women were like & how they acted around each other. She worried that growing up male had given her a different way of thinking that other women could detect & instinctually repel. The word 'objectification' may have come to Serena's mind, but she had no good grasp of feminist terms, only that she hoped to cultivate away any residue of male in herself.
This ironically made her less sexist than Yuruko, who had no issue calling any woman she didn't like a 'dumb bitch.' This sometimes reminded Serena of a man who had approached her & Mia a week ago, with a theory that hosts & their desensitization to violence was more honest to humanity's true urges. When Mia blankly asked how she was 'more human' by virtue of radiation-induced bacteria growing on her heart, he mumbled a little and moved away.
Serena was aware of the difference between herself & Yuruko, but she knew it wasn't due to one being more honest than the other: it was simply how life had conditioned them.
But she was still anxious at not receiving any updates. She hadn't told Mia more on the matter, but the mentor kept her busy.
Mia set her blindfold on, standing over the kitchen counter. "Matoi told me there was a gameshow like this in Japan." Two glasses were in front of her; one filled with chocolate milk, one empty. "Go ahead."
Serena swapped them like a shell game, Blackburn's fog filling the second with chocolate milk. "Okay. Try it." She handed Mia one, and the mentor took a sip.
"…hm. The other?" said Mia, and Serena handed her the second. She took another sip - " - ah, this is Blackburn."
"Shit." laughed Serena, and Mia took the blindfold off. "How do you always get it?"
"It's always a bit lighter." laughed Mia, pouring both in to the sink. "My turn."
Serena nodded, taking her blindfold on. To her side, Mia filled one glass with tap water, one with scarab water, and as she handed them to Serena -
- a knock came at the door. Mia gave it a glance. "Are you expecting someone?"
Serena shook her head, taking her blindfold off. "Uh, no one that I can think of?" She went to the door and opened it.
Yuruko looked a little nervous. "So, about us dating, um. Do you want to go out somewhere?"
Serena smiled and nodded. "Definitely."
Yuruko grinned. "Coolio."
Serena looked back at a perplexed Mia. "…um, I'll explain later."
+++
Grant felt it was fortunate winter would end soon, as he despised the type of fuzzy boots this woman was wearing, who he was watching from across the nightclub and from the table he was sitting at. The brown-haired fourth year student he had been assigned with, Henry, interjected with some sexual comment on her figure, and Grant sighed as he turned to him across the table. They had been here in Combanee for a few weeks investigating a female gang known as the Gorgons, and he had quickly figured Henry for a talker rather than a doer when it came to women.
"You think she'd be impressed if I, uh, went over there?" Henry tapped his badge: a three-star design.
"…uh, you never know." said Grant. "There's some chicks who'll go with you as soon as they see any badge, but…"
"Yeah, but I'm rank #6. I mean, that's gotta count for something, right?"
"Didn't you retake a year?"
Henry's expression soured. "Well, yeah, if you want to put it that way. I was going through a lot of stress that year, you know. They don't just give out retakes so you can dodge the real world." When Grant said nothing, he continued: "I mean, first I have to deal with having such a crappy Revenant, my girlfriend breaks up with me over text because she doesn't want to even see me, and then I've gotta deal with…"
"I was just asking, man."
"Well, and I answered." He sighed as he looked off to the other patrons. "I don't know. I just always get frustrated when I look at pretty women. It's gotta be so easy for them, you know? How do you…?"
Grant knew what he was asking. Cliched as the advice was, he had considered telling Henry to just be himself: but with Henry, well, it was probably best he lie. "I've just never had a problem with that, man. I can't put me in to your head."
"Yeah, so the rest of us losers just have to fend for leftovers." muttered Henry.
Grant watched as a red-haired woman entered the club, and in the next instant -
- the crack of three gunshots rose in the air; the club was plunged in to darkness -
- and the two shot blindly to their feet, hearing but not seeing the screams of male civilians around, women's footsteps rushing blind to the exits.
"You know the drill!" shouted a feminine voice from the other end of the room. "Here for the men - and the Urasaria dipshits!"
Another dozen gunshots rose in the air, and the men crouched low, Grant putting his hand to the ground.
"Not feeling any metal." he muttered. "If she's - lights are off. If she shot the bulbs, should be metal around here, but -"
- and he winced as he felt a bullet whiz by him. With no time to waste, the two men ran blindly to the back, feeling their way left as they rushed along the wall -
" - here." said Henry, and the two men swept in to the backroom, bathrooms open at the right, only light still visible in the club -
- and the main room's lights flashed on again; they glanced back and saw their foe with her handgun at the other end, tables & chairs separating them & she. Her aim rose again, and as the gunshot screamed direct for them -
" - Crosslink!" shouted Henry, throwing his right hand out - his arm extended like rubber, reaching a nearby table and yanking at it; the table extended like rubber and formed a shield for the two, and in to the elastic barrier smashed the bullet.
But the men sighed as the lights flashed off, main room dark again as they stepped in to the bathroom, line of stalls left, lights still on overhead. They rushed across the room against the right wall, and as they heard their foe's footsteps behind -
" - Crosslink. "
- a swift sweep of Henry's hands against the right wall, and the barrier turned brittle; a smash of his shoulder against it shattered it, and in to the hole swept the men, back in to the main room again. They rushed around the corner, readying to flank their foe at the bathroom door -
- but with the speed of light she turned and fired; three bullets entered Grant's arms, and as the metal man leaped towards her -
- that caught only air as she swept aside&away -
- and the club was plunged in to darkness again, the men spinning wildly as they heard her footsteps, stepping back careful against the back wall again.
"Christ." muttered Grant, and in the next instant -
- he gasped as he felt something burrowing in his arms; a colony of maggots, digging and biting ferociously at the steel -
" - Ferrous!"
- but out of his arms burst steel knives, piercing and stabbing through the maggots; but they were fired to disgusting durability. The maggots leaped off of his arms, seeking his shoulders -
" - Crosslink."
- but a tap of Grant's shoulders turned them rubbery, and off the suddenly elastic-boulders bounced the maggots, falling rigid to the ground as the men rushed to the center of the main room, wide and circular, tables around as their eyes started to adjust.
"She's got - limited uses, close range." muttered Henry, eyes glancing around the dark. "She wouldn't bother still being here if she wasn't."
"She's relying on - go up! Now!" shouted Grant, the sudden whip in his voice; with no time to waste, the men leaped up on to a table, snuffed lightbulb above. "Rubber - this."
Comprehending none of it, Henry nodded, and the table turned elastic. The steel man leaped above, and as he fell -
- he was launched up if by a trampoline to the ceiling - and the next scene was instant.
His metal thumb flew off of his hand, forming to a sharp point and stabbing in to the ceiling; the sharp steel sliced the wires within in half, copper wires drooping with electricity out of the ceiling -
- and the metal man fell again; hitting the table back-first, he was launched again -
- and his metal thumb formed to a solid wire, connecting the wire to the still-snuffed bulb -
- and filling the club with light as he fell again, the table solidifying as he landed, and as the two leaped to the ground -
- there, at the other end, their foe, fifty feet separating she and them -
- but Henry's blood froze as a colony of maggots fell out of the hole, landing on his neck, and starting to burrow ferociously within -
" - a wonderful try!" laughed the woman. "It does sap electricity - limited uses - close-range - but -"
- but the next scene was instant. The men yanked the table to its side; a sweep of Henry's hands turned the table elastic again, and as if it were a rubberband, Grant ran directly in to it -
- and was launched with the speed of a catapult across the room; the woman threw her hand out -
- just in time for his right fist to burst through her chest and out her back, still-beating heart in metal grip as he fell atop her -
- and as a true hero might, he crushed the organ between his fingers. The maggots disappeared, and Grant sighed as he stood, prosthetic arms scarred, wounds on Henry's shoulders.
"We all good?" he said, turning to Henry, and the bowl-cut man nodded.
Grant turned to the civilians still remaining and told them they were safe, but that they should leave before the corpse began to stink. Few listened: most grumbled as they went back to their drinks, mumbling about how the two students had ruined their night out. It bothered Grant little; he knew plenty of civilians took pleasure in disobeying any recommendation from a figure of authority, and the ones with an IQ above room temperature would've already left.
It still seemed to irk Henry, however, who made an aggravated comment about it after they left. "God, you know, that reminds me of my ex-girlfriend. She would always act like that if something bad happened to her. Just completely shut you off." He sighed and scratched his neck. "I feel bad saying that, too, because she really was… I mean, she was adorable. She was someone you really wanted to protect."
Surprising as it might sound, Grant sometimes wondered if he was sexist: it was fortunate there were men like Henry to measure himself against. He had spent most of this trip listening to Henry complain like this, usually about his ex or lack of sex. He despised that Henry simply allowed life to shit him out, for while initiative *can* endear empathy for even pitiful people, to use Grant's type of phrase: a whiny pussy is just a whiny pussy.
He figured even Matoi had more testosterone than Henry, even as she had told him that if he brought a woman back to their hotel, he had better enjoy it, as it would be the last time he 'ever used it.' That she would likely be president next year had him think he should stay on respectful terms.
She was currently walking down another street in this city, when she stopped and saw a woman come out from the street corner sixty feet away & stop to view her. She felt the missiles she had been planting in to the sidewalk behind her sink; she had hoped they would have killed this woman trailing her, but no matter.
Wedding's armor formed as Matoi leaned against the wall, watching her. "Is this another attempt at recruitment?"
"If you haven't listened to anything else we've been telling you, then no, it isn't. I just hope you know that men won't ever think of you as anything but a cunt or bitch no matter how much you suck up to them. Ever thought about that? Doesn't make you hesitate when you're out killing your own sex?"
These rants never bothered Matoi: that the Gorgons never targeted politicians or anyone with more power than a university quarterback told her they were not feminist crusaders, but a group of bulldogs pissing in their own corner. "Killing criminals is something I enjoy, and something I am very, very good at."
The woman grunted, then looked away, seeming to think whether to engage further, and grunted again as she started walking towards Matoi. Sixty feet separated them.
Matoi leaned against the wall and snapped her fingers, and in the next instant -
- the woman flinched & glanced behind -
- but nothing happened, and Matoi laughed as she saw fear glint her expression before she began walking again; her fingers snapped again as she came fifty feet within -
- and a chunk of concrete slammed in to the woman from behind; she shouted "Robot Rolecall!" as she staggered forward, and as the second chunk flew at her from behind -
- an enormous robot appeared in midair, and in to the automaton went the projectile -
- sticking to its metal with no damage done. Another few explosions blasted more concrete in to the woman's Revenant, and Matoi watched her carefully as it grew in size like a katamari. Almost annoyed, Matoi drew away from her wall and stood her ground as it came forty feet within; a constant line of missiles burst from Wedding's shoulders and constantly smashed in to the robot as it & host staggered forward, explosions setting it off-balance but casings only growing its size.
'…invincible from the outside. Mm.'
Wedding's explosive volley continued its barrage as 30ft separated them; Matoi adjusted her aim slightly to the left to force it to block offset from its hostess. 20ft separated them, and in the next instant -
- one missile hit its metallic right arm and shattered, sending shards of its casing flying over the woman -
" - Wedding - Beam."
- a laser hit the midair shard -
- and refracted to another shard -
- and another, and another, laser ricocheting another dozen times as the shards continued to fly; the woman turned her eyes back -
- just in time for the scorching ray to refract in to 2 and blast through her eyes; all Matoi saw was two wisps of white smoke and when the woman turned back her sockets were empty.
Matoi stepped back slightly, watching the woman stagger and groan, clutching her gone-eyes. Another missile flew behind her; Wedding's beam reflected off of it and swallowed the woman's head, leaving a bloody stump where her neck used to be when it faded.
Matoi laughed as she crouched down to scan, taking in the waft of another good corpse. Though she knew no kill was worth more than another in terms of rankings, she felt that exterminating Medusa & this gang would be another step to take in becoming the woman & presidency she desired. She still hadn't shedded her penchant for mythicizing herself.