Chapter Text
"Draw. Now, charge and draw." Blue smirked, revealing the card she had just added to her hand. "You opened with Hyper Energy, so here's one of mine," she said, her gauge increasing until she had a daunting total of five. "I'll pay some of that and a lifepoint to cast Evil Esthetics, pulling The Scar and my Darkness Fist Gwen back to my hand, and I'll call them both."
Silhouettes of ominous figures appeared around her, the combined lineup of the sinister antiheroes and outright supervillains who called themselves Darkheroes in all their strange variety. Two of the shadowy figures took on more defined features - the emaciated figure of The Scar familiar as he jumped to Blue's right. A somewhat androgynous figure clad in a costume that was partway between armor and a martial arts uniform took up position in the center, her long purple hair flowing behind her impassive mask as her fists hummed with energy.
"And joining these old friends is Sacrifice, Iron Moon Slash." On her right now stood a veteran Darkhero, graying hair behind his almost insect-like mask. He wore tight-fitting body armor in black with glowing green lines across it, and a bulkier jacket in a similar fashion. Blue leveled her shovel towards Sue. "Scar, attack the other one this time."
"Trying to focus me down now, huh?" Sue grimaced a little. These two had a plan to take out both fighters at once with their set spell, but weren't above ganging up on one fighter if it made their job easier. "Cast - Cosmo Charge Protection!" A field of glowing hexagons barred the way, The Scar hissing in frustration as he slashed over and over to no avail before dropping dead once more. "I get one card to my gauge out of the top two on my deck!"
"And I get to draw a card thanks to my Sneak Judgement. Everyone's a winner," teased Blue, her cards shuffling themselves to hide the new addition. "Gwen, follow up."
Darkness Fist Gwen bounced side to side, advancing on Sue in a flurry of afterimages and feints. But she found herself intercepted by a surprising opponent - Liana's Ironing Man!
"Cast - I Won't Let That Happen! You have to fight my monster instead, and my guy's too tough for Gwen's fists!"
"I am Ironing Man!" declared the hero, battering back the brawler with a barrage of beams.
"Has he lost his mind? Who becomes an ironing-themed superhero?" Blue seemed more than a little upset by the interruption.
"You needed that attack to hit, didn't you?" taunted Liana. "Because your monsters all go away after they attack, but Gwen's still blocking your center so you can't use half your best cards!" She laughed, sounding more than a little odd through the filter of Gaigrander's mask. "Your deck really is just like mine!"
For the first time, Blue seemed more than just mildly inconvenienced. She scowled in anger for a moment, clutching her Sneak Judgement tight despite knowing she couldn't fire it with Gwen still in place, before breathing deeply for a few seconds and returning to her calm demeanour from before.
"Sorry boss, I tried my best," rasped Gwen from behind her mask.
"A general goes to war with the army she has, not the army she wants," mused Blue, seemingly centering herself with her strange proverbs. She gestured to Sue once more. "Iron Moon Slash, attack the fighter!"
"I will not fail you, my commander." The older Darkhero's style was impressive - where Gwen darted around at high speed and The Scar went for an all-out reckless attack, his long coat and careful moves disguised the angles of his techniques, leaving no openings as he struck Sue with a fist that briefly shot out a gout of flame. "Mission complete," he said, before falling away and fading into the shadows.
"Electron Impulse, my buddy's ability, allows me to call him in the middle of the battle phase for one gauge," said Blue, her buddy monster rising up in the center once more, smashing through the monster already in place. "I have to drop Gwen, but she's outlived her usefulness."
"Huh. Really. The center?" Sue closed her eyes, giving a wide shrug as she went for what she hoped would be a gap in Blue's otherwise very strategic plays. "I'd have called him to the side, and actually used the Sneak Judgement for once. You're leaving money on the table there."
Blue gave her a withering glare. If Sue had been paying attention to her teammate, she would have noticed Larc was baring her teeth in a silent snarl. "Braiden, blow away that Ironing Man," commanded Blue. CHAOS Braiden offhandedly annihilated the ironclad hero with his cannon blast. A card from her deck shot into her set spell - Corrupted One, Erational - and the countdown reached two. Two more Darkheroes and the fight would end immediately.
She smiled sweetly. leaning on her shovel. "Now, same target as the rest."
"Such arrogance! Such annoyance! I must swat this fly!" buzzed the Darkhero. Braiden raised his sword high in the air, ready to fall on Sue and take her last lifepoint. "Cyber Razor Cut!"
"Cast! 100,000 Years Too Early!" called out Liana, the giant metal fist of a super robot catching the blade before it struck Sue. "Not like I really need the extra defense when you're attacking my friend, but I'll gladly protect her lifepoints!"
"Thanks, Liana," said Sue. "That's the second time you've saved me."
"Only the second?" Her friend raised a hand in a peace sign. "Hah, who's counting? Friendship isn't some thing you can add up like prices for rare merch! Every moment of friendship is priceless!"
"Braiden, return." Blue retracted her buddy monster into his card form, shuffling him together with the two other cards in her hand. "Our opponents are more skilled than I had assumed. No match for us, but I suppose they're holding their own," she observed.
"Duh! Why else would our bosses send us to beat them down?" Larc lowered her head, letting her wild mane of hair hang down as she flashed a grin. "The others might be as strong as either of us alone, but together? We're a billion times tougher!"
Blue smirked, her eyes briefly turning to the other girl. "Many hands make light work."
"So there're more of you?" asked Liana.
"Nobody you need to concern yourself with," said Blue, waving a hand dismissively. "Just a sleeping giant, and the devil in disguise."
"And a pair of hot babes!" yelled Larc, clenching her fist as she roared with laughter.
"The four of us don't work in tandem too often." continued Blue, smiling at her partner's ridiculous outburst. "It's not often that prey might escape the Manticore."
"But even if you get away from us, there's a Cockatrice and a Basilisk waiting for you!"
"Normally I wouldn't ask, but there are buddy monsters involved," started Sue. "So, metaphorically, or... an actual chicken and a snake?"
Blue smirked wordlessly, putting a metal finger to her own lips in a gesture of silence for a moment.
"Only Skid knows our full lineup. She's the one who armed us, and sent us looking for..." Blue eyed up her two foes, her mouth briefly becoming a curve of uncertainty. "Well, I can't say for sure it's you, but needs must as the devil drives."
"Plus you're kind of annoying!" added Larc, towards Sue in particular. "So Skid'd understand if we thought you were the same irritating brat who went looking for her!"
"So you're, like, kaijin that this Skid person built?" asked Liana.
Larc looked puzzled, breaking out of her all-consuming bluster as she asked for clarification. "Kaijin?"
"Oh, like an enhanced human! Someone with cybernetics or crossed with like buddy monster DNA!" answered Liana, hitting her armored palm with the opposite gauntlet curled into a fist as she spoke earnestly. "Usually created by an evil organization! You know, like Shocker, or Panther Claw!"
Sue quirked an eyebrow. "Are those names supposed to mean anything to us? Not everyone's that much of a nerd."
"We need to watch some sentai shows together!" Liana grinned at her teammate, though Sue couldn't see it behind her mask. "But yeah, pair of girls with cool robot arms? Absolutely a kind of kaijin!"
"Is that Japanese?" asked Larc, frowning a little at the unfamiliar phrases.
"More like otaku-speak," her partner replied. "Don't worry if you miss anything they say, they've yet to say anything of worth."
"Hey! We've said lots of things!" protested Liana.
Blue giggled, wagging a finger at her fellow Hero World fighter. "It is better to remain silent and be thought a fool, than to speak and remove all doubt."
"[End Of Move]. [Your Move]"
Sue | Liana | Larc | Blue
L G H | L G H | L G H | L G H
1 2 4 | 8 5 2 | 9 1 2 | 10 3 3
"Draw!" said Sue. "Charge, and draw!"
"Team Manticore are in a commanding lead! With only one lifepoint left, Sue's fallen far behind the other fighters, all largely unharmed!" Eris gripped her microphone in both hands, looking genuinely concerned. "Do your best, darling!"
Sue gave a nod towards the camera, before turning her focus back to the fight. "I'll call SAC17 Clarke, to the right!" The scowling Cosmo Dragoon appeared once more, his white hair with red streaks as distinctive as ever. A card from Sue's deck flew into his soul. "And when I cast my Fifth Focus, I get to rearrange my top five cards before drawing once!" Sue carefully stacked her deck in what she hoped was an ideal order.
"Alright, here goes!" She drew a card from her spell's effect, and flicked it into her hand to shuffle those cards. "Clarke's effect checks the top card of my deck, and since it's a Cosmo Dragoon he gets Double Attack this turn!"
Clarke gave a mildly impressed noise, looking back at her. "Hmm. Alright, working double time."
"And since that card was a Cosmo Dragoon, it's added to my hand! So here comes AA12 Norton, on the left!"
Sue's new Cosmo Dragoon was a far cry from the standoffish Clarke. Norton's outfit was skintight, some futuristic pilot's uniform that felt more like something from some super robot anime than the fairly well-armored outfits of her comrades. The girl seemed peppy and cheerful, her helmet bearing the cute affectation of a pair of cat ears sculpted on top. Her hair was blonde with green streaks, and a little robot cat sat on her shoulder.
"Hey Clarke~!" Norton's hands were clasped behind her back. "Ready to fight?"
"As long as you don't get in my way," huffed her fellow Dragoon.
Norton shot him a cheerful wink in return. "You know I can handle myself!"
"I'll call RF15 Young to the center." Hopefully neither of the other Dragoons would take issue with this one. Or did they even have any quarrel behind Clarke's usual arrogance? With no buddy monster it was hard to judge the internal politics of some worlds.
Young was shorter than the other Cosmo Dragoons, a brunette with pointed ears and big soulful eyes under an oddly oversized hat. They wore long robes that reached to just above the floor, yellow holograms of cards slowly orbiting them.
"Young." Clarke at least gave this one a respectful nod.
"Norton and Young! Link attack her Billion Knuckle!" Sue smiled. "Of course, you're going to draw a card with your Man's Tears when I do."
Larc gave an amused snort, staring down at her opponent as she drew from the core gadget hanging around her neck. "You know me too well already!"
"Norton's got an effect that happens now as well - the top card of my deck is my Stardust Maneuver impact, so I get to put it in my gauge and get a lifepoint back!" Not that having two gauge or two life total was particularly impressive, but it was better than nothing.
"Catseye Blast!" Norton called her attack, pulling down her helmet's visor over her eyes. She linked a laser pistol with her robot cat, using it as a targeting system to pepper Billion Knuckle with blasts that mostly just irritated him.
"Last Yggdrasill!" added Young, flinging a set of their cards at the Raging Spirit, sprouting into great trees of energy that caused him to recoil as if burned.
"Nice try, but I'll just call Braiden again and destroy Norton!" Blue giggled as her monster made light work of the catgirl, rendering the link attack completely ineffective. "All that planning, counting five cards ahead, and you still blundered into a minefield! Hmm, imagine that - another Darkness Fist Gwen, straight into the soul of my set spell!" She fed the card to the ever-present specter of Anson, the countdown fell to one.
"Billion Knuckle, Counterattack!" shouted Larc, punching along in the air in a frenzy as her monster destroyed the shy-looking Dragoon.
The card revealed from Blue's deck for her Ruler of Terror was called First Darkhero Hideout, and for one terrifying moment Sue thought she had miscalculated. But despite its name the card was merely a set spell without the Darkhero attribute, and didn't cause the countdown to continue to zero. She released a breath she hadn't realized she was holding in a deep sigh of relief.
"Well, aren't you lucky! Your dumb move didn't cost you the game right away," taunted Blue, giving Sue a condescending smile. "But you know what they say -"
"You know, I don't care what they say, because my turn isn't over." Sue tossed a card of her own at Billion Knuckle. "Cast - Crystallization Phenomenon!"
"I'll pay a lifepoint to stop your card destroying Billion Knuckle!" replied Larc, without thinking.
Where the Chaos monster had once been half machine and half dragon, now a third element entered his construction. And rapidly took it over. Crystals spread upwards from his feet, his body creaking and cracking as it steadily became immobile, much to Team Manticore's dread.
"You..." Larc started, almost at a loss for words. "What have you done?"
"You know, I've got to thank you for taking the bait and destroying Young - Guess my deck doesn't want a monster on the center, either." Sue grinned, finding it particularly satisfying that Blue's eye was now twitching in anger. She was quicker on the uptake, realizing Sue's card was never intended to destroy CHAOS Billion Knuckle. "Since you destroyed the monster on my center I can draw a card, rest Billion Knuckle, and take away his effects until this turn is over!"
"No! Then that means..."
While Larc objected, a look of dawning horror on her face, Sue continued her turn. "Clarke, attack her buddy!"
Clarke closed his eyes for a moment. "Guess I need to buy both of them a drink, next time we're at the starport." That moment of commiseration with his fallen comrades quickly passed, with him twirling his laser pistol in his hand and shooting the frozen Billion Knuckle clean through the head like the stationary target he had become.
"Brrr... Brrothers... help..." The monster could barely speak, his jaw covering in crystals again in an instant.
"Well, you get to keep him since you paid a lifepoint for his effect earlier, but Clarke's still got his second attack!" Sue pointed at the helpless Raging Spirit as Clarke lined up his second shot.
"Cast, Surges of Dragons and Life!" shouted Larc, interrupting the attack by wreathing the crystallized monster in searing flames. It did nothing to restore his body, but seemed to protect him from the laser blasts.
Clarke, at least, seemed disappointed in his aim. "Tch, maybe next time."
"But for once, your other monsters aren't protected!" Sue speared Dragon Kid Lesser on her lance, destroying them in an instant. "And your Raging Spirits deal Lifelink damage when they go away!"
"My oh my! Between paying for her buddy's effect and the lifelink damage, Larc's fallen to seven lifepoints!" Eris put a hand over her heart. "Maybe this pair aren't so invincible after all!"
Sue shrugged. "Well, that's all for my turn." She gave Blue a friendly wave. "Take your Braiden back, if you want - he's been a real help."
"[End Of Move]. [Your Move]"
Sue | Liana | Larc | Blue
L G H | L G H | L G H | L G H
1 2 3 | 8 5 2 | 7 0 2 | 10 2 3
"That's all you're ever going to get out of me! The real fight starts now!" Larc was yelling now, full of fury at being beaten back even a little. "Draw! Charge and draw!" She was fuming with rage at Sue's taunting, her eyes rapidly flicking between the cards in her hand as she tried to decide on her move.
"Shh, Larc, it's okay. I'm here." Blue gave her a hug, her arms barely fitting around Larc's waist. "It's not like when we were children. We have each other's backs this time."
Larc planted a hand on her partner's head, carefully patting the top of her beanie. "Anyone who could hurt my billion dollar babe's chances of winning... it just makes me so angry! You deserve the world, Blue!" She breathed in and out as Blue gently sang some tune. "This job is paying way too much for us to give up now!"
"...I'd like to hold it in my arms, and keep it company." sang Blue, barely audible to anyone but Larc. The sweet tone seemed to be soothing Larc down from incandescent fury to merely a gentle simmer of anger. "I'd like to see the world for once..."
"So it's all about the money for you jerks?" asked Sue.
"Heck yeah it is!" Larc replied. "I'm gonna get rich from a life of crime and buy a mansion for Blue! I'll give her makeup, jewels, dresses! Everything to make her life perfect, so we can retire with a billion dollars in the bank!"
Blue stopped her singing, turning her gaze askew to look at her opponents. "We clawed and scratched our way up from nothing."
"And we're never going back to that!" added Larc.
"We saw each other every day when we were children, but could never speak. Our villages were across the river from each other." Blue gave a melancholy smile. "A river that marked a border a war was to be fought over."
"We scrounged for scraps on our sides of the river, until one day I had to swim across there to get away from fighting, and we ran into each other in-person!" Larc grinned at her partner in crime. "And then this beautiful jerk tried to blow me up!" She let out a roar of laughter.
Blue returned the affectionate look. "This perfect fool tried to chase me down."
"We fought and stole from each other when we were scavenging, always struggling against each other in the ruins." Larc scowled, remembering her unhappy youth. "Until one day we both saw it - a huge crate of supplies! Food, first-aid kits, even new clothes!"
"We were naive children. We failed to see the trap."
"We never found out which side's soldiers had set it," spat Larc.
Blue nodded, her arms pulling in tighter around her girlfriend. "A bullet may have your name on it, but a bomb is addressed 'to whom it may concern'."
"We were almost crushed under falling rocks, a landslide dropped by the blast!" Larc was trembling with anger once more, only kept calm by her partner's presence. "Blue cut my arm off to set me free, and I did the same to her! And then we realized we could be so much more if we weren't fighting each other. We became each others hands."
"We became each others hearts," echoed Blue.
"It didn't matter if we left part of ourselves behind - we were together!"
"We did what we had to, to stay together." said Blue. "Theft, extortion, and finally becoming what we are now."
"Tag-team cyborg assassin Buddyfighters!" shouted Larc.
Blue giggled, raising a hand to her mouth. "Assassins would mean we're here to kill them." She smiled as her eyes trailed across the field to her opponents. "Not that I'd object at this point, but Skid wants the brain. It's hard to keep that fresh."
"Skid wants someone's brain?" asked Liana. "Man, what a weirdo! Who collects those? Get some gunpla instead!"
Sue sighed. "I don't think she's collecting them." She looked over at the Manticore girls, still holding each other close.
Liana nodded in agreement. "Yeah! Whoever Skid is, she's probably got something bigger planned! These two aren't the kind to be just anyone's henchmen."
Sue crossed her arms, feeling awkward waiting for her opponents to get back to the fight. "Hey, let me look at your hand, I think I've got a plan..." Sue stepped towards her teammate before something shot past her and embedded itself in the wall. She looked down at the cable now separating the two of them.
"Naughty naughty, verrry naughty!" chided Larc, wagging a finger (on her real hand, still wearing the Carapace weapon).
"War is the realm of uncertainty. Haven't you read your Sun Tzu?" Deep Blue was holding out her robotic arm - she had fired a grappling hook in the shape of a scorpion's tail, now embedded deep in the floor next to Sue. "Tag fights involve information hidden even from your own teammates."
"So no cheating, capische!" concluded Larc.
"You guys keep doing the whole PDA thing!" complained Sue. "How is that not looking at each others hands?"
"We don't need to cheat to know what each other have drawn!" Larc gave her teammate lovey-dovey eyes, gently brushing some hair from the shorter girl's face. "We're in love, the kind of love that's one-in-a-billion!"
"Our eyes are only for each other, not our cards."
Sue sighed, and facepalmed. "So you won't mind staying on your own sides of the stage, right? If you're not just a pair of cheaters." She folded her arms again. "And if you are, just concede! If you can't beat us without cheating, what kind of elite Buddyfight assassins are you?"
Blue looked thoughtful for a moment, before pulling back the rope, the grappling hook neatly folding into her forearm with a soft click. "Standing apart is an acceptable compromise." She hopped over to her own platform once more. "However unbearable it feels to spend a single moment away from the love of my life."
"We're moving right to the attack phase." Larc cracked her knuckles.
"Fine by me." Sue glanced at her one remaining Cosmo Dragoon. "Clarke moves to the center."
"And Billion Knuckle knocks him stone dead!" shouted Larc, the incoherent rage from the start of her turn having faded into a colder fury. Her half-robotic buddy obediently swung his mighty fists forwards, only to be stopped in his track by the bifurcated halves of a shield coming together in front of him. The shields parted, Clarke firing his weapon in another shot that struck with deadly accuracy against the dragon.
"Cast! Neodragon Protector! You're not the only one who can Counterattack, and since this spell keeps Clarke on the field that's what he's going to do!" Sue watched Billion Knuckle reform thanks to his soulguard. "Going for in for a second try?"
"Oh, I'd go in for a billion tries! But first..." Larc grinned, reaching out to her own life total once again. It dropped to six as CHAOS Billion Knuckle's lingering injuries reformed.
"Larc protects her monster from his next destruction by paying one of her lifepoints! She's determined to get at Sue, no matter the cost!" exclaimed Eris. She raised her free hand to just below one of her eyes, as if considering covering them both. "I can hardly bear to watch, but for you viewers at home I'll be your ever-reliable reporter!"
Larc raised a half-clenched fist as she yelled, "Go! Billion Knuckle!"
"Cast! Crystal Shower!" called out Sue. "I get a lifepoint back by dropping a card from the soul!"
"Dropping my buddy's soul cards won't save you!" Larc gave a grin of triumph. "Crush that Dragoon!"
CHAOS Billion Knuckle's fists made short work of Clarke, the sharpshooter ill-suited to countering the close-range brawler. Even reforming with soulguard, he had been soundly beaten and his face showed his displeasure.
Blue cackled. Not her usual unnervingly soft giggle, but the manic laugh of a girl pushed too far. "And Ruler of Terror activates, for the last time!" The card she revealed was indisputably a Darkhero - Great Leader Anson himself! "The game ends. The winners? Team Manticore!"
Dead silence gripped the room. Nobody spoke for a long moment, until Larc turned to her teammate.
"Shouldn't we... Isn't it meant to say we've won?" she asked, the words coming out as almost pathetically awkward compared to her usual boastful overconfidence.
Sue was the one to answer, with a smirk of her own. "Maybe you should check your countdown."
The countdown etched on Ruler of Terror's globe was a giant, immutable proof that the game indeed had not ended.
It still showed the number one.
Larc yelled in frustration. "Whaaaaaat? But that's impossible! It was on that before my attack phase!"
"Whoa! You dropped a Darkhero from its soul with Crystal Shower?" Liana did a little jump in the air fist raised encouragingly. "Nice! I thought you'd go for Billion Knuckle since he was attacking you!"
"I mean, it's obvious, right?" Sue turned her head to her teammate. "If that set spell wasn't on the field we'd be in a way better position, but stopping it from working for a turn is just as good right now."
Liana looked back at her, then nodded silently, as if reaching some great understanding.
"Amazing! A second reversal with the same card in this very arena!" Eris looked relieved, a smile back on her face. "Now let's see if Sue and Liana can-"
"Call. CHAOS Braiden." Blue had dropped all pretense of politeness, words cold yet furious as she pointed at Clarke. Two of her fingers were curled in, leaving the other two and her thumb poking out like a child pretending they held an invisible pistol. "Kill him."
Her buddy dutifully slew Sue's monster with a burst of his cannon, not speaking a single word. Blue hissed in fury as the card revealed for her set spell wasn't what she needed - this one was another Sneak Judgement.
Larc's eyes blazed with fury as she leapt at Sue, swinging in with the spiked red gauntlet on her arm.
"Cast - Cosmo Heal Protection!" A metal shield backed up by hexagons of energy kept her foe at arm's length. "Hmm, lucky me, I get a Heinlein to my hand and another lifepoint back."
Sue | Liana | Larc | Blue
L G H | L G H | L G H | L G H
3 2 1 | 8 5 2 | 6 1 3 | 10 1 3
"Draw! Charge and draw! Gaigrander 03 to the left, and he lets me draw a card!" Liana immediately flicked that card out to her right. "Gaigrander 02! Add Gaigrander 04 to my hand! And I transform!"
Liana tossed the new card in the air, spinning on the spot as her armor swapped out piece-by-piece with a new set. Silver, with gold highlights on the arms, legs and chest. The helmet bore a tall spike in the middle, with two shorter ones at the side like spikes, or perhaps feathers. For the cape now hanging from her shoulders somewhat resembled a peacock's tail by way of a galaxy - a pattern of stars decorated the interior.
Though what Sue noticed most about the shining armor of 04 was that when Liana transformed her ponytail must have came loose, her hair cascading from the back of the helmet. It wasn't a look Sue had ever really seen for her friend, and she wondered how it'd look without the helmet.
"Now I'm Gaigrander 04, and I'm ready to fight!"
Blue tossed out her buddy like a hand grenade. "Braiden. Destroy 02."
The cyborg raised his mighty arm cannon, charging a shot. "It will be done. Well done."
"Not so fast, evildoer! I cast a spell!" Liana held an arm out her side, circling it through the air in an arc before flinging out a card of her own. Her lifepoints dropped by one, and for a moment the giant-sized image of Gaigrander 01 loomed over her side of the field, directly opposite from Anson's laughing head. "My Gaigrander Alliance will protect him!"
Eris gasped in amazement. "Gaigrander Alliance? Why, this one is new to me!" She clasped her hands, holding the microphone tight. "What does it do?"
"Oh, it's pretty cool!" said Liana, raising her hand in a peace sign towards Eris as she explained. "So first, I get to draw a card! Then my Gaigranders can't be destroyed by card effects for a turn, and they get 2000 more power and defense! Isn't that great?"
The reporter's eyes widened. "Why, yes! Liana, dear friend, that would certainly put a stop to Braiden!"
The golden-armored Liana raised a fist. "All who stand together against injustice are allies! Gaigrander 02, go forth! You are safe from Billion Knuckle's Counterattack for this turn!"
02 swung in with his signature weapon, the black and blue armored hero's sawblade whirring as it cut into the arm Billion Knuckle raised to defend himself.
"I'll protect my buddy with another lifepoint!" called out Larc, the extra energy enough for her buddy to repel Gaigrander 02's blade and its many teeth. "And I'll draw a card from my weapon!"
Liana directed the green hero into battle next. "03, it's your turn!"
Thrumming blades at his wrists and elbows gave Gaigrander 03 the advantage over CHAOS Billion Knuckle, finally striking down the monster. He reformed with the very last card in his soul, his Soulguard defense finally depleted by a heroic onslaught.
"And I'll deal the finishing blow to your whole strategy myself!"
Liana leapt forward, the cloak of stars around her forming into a fan of blades. She flung them at Billion Knuckle, one after the other, many missing the monster. But her assault of blades and swift kicks was relentless, only ceasing when Larc finally intervened.
"Cast! Dragon Prudent! Your attack stops right there!"
Liana fell back to her side of the field, the cape reforming as if from the air itself around her.
"What a wasted attack! What were you hoping to-" Blue was cut off by her set spell shattering into a million pieces. Globe, Anson and all, fragments of her own favored color that swiftly vanished as they fell. All color drained from her face, her eyes wide as they turned back to Liana.
"You said it yourself - You want to shoot the general? You shoot her horse!" Liana raised a hand, pointing at the empty space that had spent most of the fight as the stomping grounds of a giant Darkhero and his sinister fight-ending plot. "I didn't beat your girlfriend's buddy, but just by attacking with Gaigrander 04 I've taken your whole strategy off the board!"
Blue let out a wordless cry of anguish.
Liana clenched the hand in front of her face into a fist. "That was my finishing blow!"
"All for the low, low price of one gauge," added Sue. She twirled her lance in an imitation of Blue's shovel spinning, but quickly stopped when it became apparently just how ill-suited the balance was for that. "I kind of underestimated just how dangerous your Ruler of Terror could be, but it's pretty easy to deal with once someone knows how much you rely on it."
"And my attack phase isn't even over! Since Finish Form went into my hand when I became 04, I can use Crimson Spin to transform right back!" In an instant, Liana was wearing the spiky red armor again. "And this time I don't think you have any answer to it!"
She threw a punch against CHAOS Billion Knuckle, who met it with his own oversized metal fist. Knuckle met knuckle, a crack spreading up the Raging Spirit's arm as he finally began collapsing into a pile of mechanical junk.
"Whoa! Was there just... just never a real monster inside there?!?" Liana seemed genuinely surprised. "I was kind of worried you had shoved half a dude into your evil machine, but I think that might be all there ever really was!"
"A general goes to war with the army she has, not with..." Blue sputtered out, apparently unable to finish her idiom. "Not with..."
"Yeah, they're fakes Skid whipped up in her lab, what're you gonna do about it?" said Larc.
Liana bounded forth in a series of flips, landing directly beside Larc as she launched into a barrage of punches aimed at the redhead. "Don't think your resident hero of justice has forgotten that you're taking three damage from your buddy's Lifelink!"
"'Justice', huh." Larc practically spat the words, wearing a manic grin on her face. "Looks to me like you're someone who just loves fighting! If it wasn't 'justice' you'd still be using your fists to settle everything! Me, I can relate!"
"Whoa, is this the fabled 'we are not so different you and I' technique? It's not going to work on me!"
"Because you're a true hero of justice?" supplied Eris.
"What? No! Because I've seen these two take a hostage and try to kidnap someone! It's not complicated!" Liana held a card up in her hand, landing on the middle platform of the fight stage. "Final Phase! I'll Impact Transform into Gaigrander Justice Form!"
In moments her suit of armor had transformed into the heavier-duty form. Liana clapped together the glowing palms, before blowing away Larc's two remaining gauge cards with energy blasts from them.
"Show me your justice!" shouted Larc, raising her fists as she braced herself for Liana's devastating attack, an aerial spinning kick that wiped out all of her gauge before knocking her flat on her back with zero lifepoints.
"Whoa! I actually pulled it off!"
Sue nodded in approval. "With Larc out of the way, we can both focus on Blue! Use your double attack!" she shouted.
Blue scowled as Liana turned her way, lifting one hand as she ordered her buddy to intercept. "Braiden. My mirror, my sword and shield."
But he made an ill-fitting shield, a leaping punch from Liana striking straight through him and reach the criminal fighter who had spent so long hiding behind his effect.
"My justice cannot be stopped! I'll still deal three penetrate damage, and now your buddy monster's gone for good!"
Her opponent hissed, clutching at herself as she stumbled backwards from the blow. Despite all her body armor and previously haughty attitude, despite no real physical harm coming from the Buddyfight, it seemed like Blue's pride had been grievously wounded.
"Why you-!" Larc growled out her words, but got no further in her protest. Taking a single step towards Liana led to a steel rod falling from the ceiling, piercing the ground and making the girl pull back in shock. More fell in a ring around her, making a makeshift cage.
"Blue!" she cried, reaching a hand between the bars. "Why'd you rig these up on both sides?"
"Wait, both..." Sue looked up, noticing a similar set of metal bars far in the rafters above each fighter. "Oh my god, Blue - just how much effort did you actually put into rigging this all up?!?"
The criminal fighter didn't answer. Her head was tilted forwards, her expression hidden in the shadow of her beanie and the bangs of her blue hair. She had her arms wrapped around herself, shaking lightly as she breathed in and out.
"But all good things come to an end. Like Cinderella's carriage becoming a pumpkin, when her turn ends Justice Form returns to our friend Liana's deck and she transforms into a Gaigrander from her drop zone." Eris smiled as her friend's armor was replaced by a suit with bulky shoulders and a video camera for eyes. "At least your Analyze Form has all that defense!"
"[End Of Move]. [Your Move]"
Sue | Liana | Larc | Blue
L G H | L G H | DEFEATED | L G H
3 2 1 | 7 0 3 | | 7 0 2
"Draw. Charge and Draw." Blue raised her head, her expression one of fury that had boiled over into a trance-like tranquility. "Corrupted One Erational. Iron Moon Slash. Noble of Darkness, Killnight. Take her down." She had completely dispensed with any strategy, her swarm of Darkheroes descending on the girl who had dared lay a hand on her beloved.
"Erational is destroyed after his attack, and I draw a card." Blue's Sneak Judgement dispensed the card to her hand as Liana's life total dropped to five under the relentless rush of attacks. "Iron Moon Slash, you never were useful. Just die already." The elder Darkhero disappeared after striking Liana for another two of her lifepoints.
Blue braced the stock of her gun against her shoulder, taking aim at Liana from over the shoulder of her one remaining Darkhero. Killnight may have been a foppish dandy, wearing a feathered helmet and wielding an elegant rapier as he advanced in a storm of rose petals, but Blue simply did not pay attention to any banter he gave. All her focus was on Liana, the one target she now had to eliminate.
"Cast! I've Seen Through Your Moves!" called out Liana, dodging back from the barrage of gunshots and rapier strikes that came her way. "That was a close one!"
"Blue still has a lead on paper, with seven lifepoints to the combined five between her foes! But our heroes may finally have her on the ropes!"
"Beat them down, Blue!" shouted Larc. "Crush 'em both!"
Blue kept frantically clicking the trigger of her Sneak Judgement long after it had ran out of ammo. Killnight returned to her hand, the sole card there outside of the one her item had just given her. Her turn ended without another word from her, just a cold glare and her slightly ragged breaths.
"[End Of Move]. [Your Move]"
Sue | Liana | Larc | Blue
L G H | L G H | DEFEATED | L G H
3 2 1 | 3 0 2 | | 7 1 1
"Draw! Charge and draw! I call Heinlein on the right, and I'll use his Lunar Gate effect to check the top card of my deck!"
"Anything for a lady." said the newcomer. This Cosmo Dragoon wore a white suit of combat armor, augmented by bulky transparent turquoise pads on his left shoulder and right leg that called the image of an ancient samurai to mind. Despite the points of his hairstyle and his generally sharp features it came together to give him a thin and delicate look, one that could be called more pretty than handsome.
"Yeah, thanks. Anyway, it's Bradbury, so I draw him and another new card!" said Sue, barely interrupting the momentum of her turn to acknowledge Heinlein's help. "Now I call Bradbury, to the left!"
Bradbury had his eyes closed as he appeared, the red-haired veteran of a war that had yet to happen steeling himself for the battle to come. "I hear the sound of thunder calling. Could it be you have only called upon us at the end of all things?"
"It's not the end as long as one of Team Manticore still stands! You'll find this scorpion has a sting in her tail!" One last time, Blue grabbed a card in her hand. "I call my buddy - CHAOS Braiden! Destroy Heinlein!"
The Cosmo Dragoon took it in good grace. "Ah, easy come, easy go," he said, before being blown away.
"Bradbury, attack!" Sue pointed her lance at Braiden. "And when he attacks, I check the top card of my deck!" The card revealed was another copy of Fahrenheit, the very weapon she wielded. "A Cosmo Dragoon means I take one of your lifepoints for myself, and Bradbury gets Double Attack!"
She swung in with that self-same weapon. "Now I'll attack with Fahrenheit! Bradbury, your turn next!" Bradbury's effect revealed Cosmo Salute, causing no change in lifepoints, but the combined attack of the monster and his fighter had left Blue with a life total of two.
"Final Phase! I'll cast my Dragoon Skill, Stardust Maneuver! If the top card of my deck is a Dragoon..." Sue grinned - the revealed card was a sleepy-looking Cosmo Dragoon who wore hair accessories that made her look like a sheep. "Well, LD15 Brackett's going to answer that for you!"
Brackett appeared, giving a big yawn as she stretched her arms above her head. Her clothing was a compromise between a medieval knight's armor and a comfortable dress, and the dragon mech forming around her was somewhere between ram and kangaroo. It whipped its tail around once fully-assembled, striking Blue as her lifepoints counted all the way down to zero.
"[Winner: Liana Law and Sue Dusk.]"
"It's not over yet." Blue was back on her feet already, even with her flag gone. She smirked, leaning on her shovel for support. "If we can't win, everybody loses!"
"No, wait!" Larc called out. And so Blue did, letting the metal bars fall around her before effortlessly snapping one in her cybernetic arm. "Hey... we can do that?" Larc easily bent aside two, her flesh-and-blood arm almost keeping parity with the robotic replacement. "Well, that changes things!"
"Cages," said Blue, tapping a hidden button on her arm. She pressed another. "And the bomb."
"Cages!" cried out Liana.
"A bomb?!?" called out Sue, finding it the more pressing question.
Larc gave a grimace, showing her teeth. "So that's how we're doing this, huh?"
"My usual traps involve tripwires or motion sensors," supplied Blue. "But I can work with near enough anything, as long as it explodes. A countdown timer has its uses."
"Ah hate t' be a grass, but these birds've probably wired up the whole place, too," said Mary.
"Of course. We're not amateurs," said Blue, as if booby-trapping the arena was a standard cardgame strategy.
"Yeah! The buddy police didn't bust in because they know how dangerous we can be!" boasted Larc.
Sue raised an eyebrow. "Seriously? You've rigged the whole building to blow up even if we win?!?" she complained.
"Blow up?!?" Eris sounded as worried as she looked, golden eyes open wide in panic. "There's a bomb somewhere in this building! Oh my! Dear viewers, your darling reporter might be in danger!"
"Ah, Eris..." started the girl holding her camera, seeming almost as concerned.
"Yes Honey, I know, we're reporters." said Eris, calming down a little. "We put ourselves in danger so the audience at home don't have to." She gave a theatrical wink, pointing at the camera's lens. "And since this might help our friends, we can't back down now!"
"R-right." Honey clenched a fist in determination as she resumed filming.
"You move from the spot, and you're imprisoned! You don't, and you're blown to pieces!" Larc roared with laughter, casting aside the remnants of her own prison to join the wreckage of her discarded buddy monster, earning her a momentary look of disapproval from her teammate.
"Caught between Scylla and Charybdis. Do you brave the teeth of the sea, or enter its throat?" Blue chuckled, raising an arm above her head, which Lark took hold of. The pair spun in some intricate dance, hand-in-hand. "Now all that's left is to make our escape!"
But, as the pair twirled, they found themselves trapped in place. They were hand-in-hand, yes, but those hands...
"What is this... Slime doing here?!?" Blue frantically tried to wrench her arm free. She raised her shovel to strike down on the intruder, but when that too got engulfed she was left speechless in shock, letting go of it before her mechanical hand joined the one currently trapped inside King Gummy Slime.
"Oh aye, didnae even need to break out," said Mary, the card trader grinning ear to ear with her hand still extended from throwing something through the bars of her makeshift cage. "With a' your wee fake buddies you forgot King Gummy Slime could slip out as a card!"
Larc gazed in horror as the pink blob her mechanical arm was stuck in barely budged when she tried pulling on it. "Blue! It's... we're stuck!"
"Gummy!" said the monster, a look of determination on its near-featureless face.
Blue held out her cybernetic arm, firing a grappling hook upwards. She tried to retract it, but the pair of fighters didn't budge. She flipped her wrist forwards, pulling the cable back in.
"Aye, the big yin's made of tougher stuff than yer wee gadgets!" shouted Mary, the sheer absurdity of the situation keeping her from even trying to dial back her thick Scottish accent.
"Larc." Blue was calmly appraising the situation - the arm she had stuck inside the monster was her real one, but at that stage of their victory dance her fingers were entwined with the metal ones of her girlfriend's artificial hand. "You're going to have to leave me behind."
"No!" cried Lark, desperation apparent on her face.
"Detach your arm, take mine, and leave."
"But-!" started her partner.
"Your safety is more important," Blue countered. "You need to be as far away as possible when he explodes."
Larc wiped away tears from her eyes with her free arm, before reaching up to detach the trapped one. "I'll get you back, you hear me?" she said, planting a small kiss on the other girl's cheek before pulling off her arm and slotting it backwards into her own shoulder. She turned to the others, raising her voice. "And when I do, we'll pay back this humiliation a billion times over!"
With that, she shot a grappling hook skywards, the powerful mechanism in Blue's repurposed arm making her lurch upwards to a skylight for her escape.
"Hmm." Blue looked like she wanted nothing more than to caress her own cheek after that, but lacked the free limb to do so. "Well then. If you don't find and disarm the bomb in, oh, a minute? I suppose you'll all be joining me in the afterlife."
"Like hell we will!" spat Sue. "I'll find a way out, even if I have to... have to use..." The fingers of one of her hands dug into the side of her neck. There was a way out, still a way out of this, right? "But there'd be no point in that," she murmured to herself. "Not without knowing where it is..."
"Darlings! I'm sorry for talking so fast, but there's a bomb here! Someone here is going to explode, and when that happens I don't know if running will even be far enough!" Eris' usually calm and sweet words were coming out as frantic as she addressed her viewers. "Oh, if this is my last broadcast, please, remember me fondly!
"Some... one..." Sue's eyes fell on the broken wreck that was once Larc's buddy monster. Or... a fake robot version of it? "If the bomb's a person, that means... it's her buddy monster!"
"On it!" called Liana, catching her friend's drift mid-sentence to start moving.
"Mmm, out of time, even you're not fast enough to get over here!" What was left of Blue's arm raised as if she were extending a hand, an invitation to death itself.
"We don't need to be!" Liana flipped back out of the way of the falling metal rods. Instead of imprisoning her, they had been intercepted by her buddy.
"Return to sender!" shouted Gaigrander, spiking a pair of them like volleyballs across a net. They struck true, annihilating enough of Billion Knuckle's machinery that the entire jumble of broken parts and hidden explosives.
"How reckless!" chastised Eris, before giving a smile to the human and buddy pair, a hand over her heart. "But... You might have saved us all!"
"No," said Blue, with a dark smile. "Now Larc should be at a safe distance from that bomb. I accept my fate, to be slain by her hand. Or my hand, as the case may be."
Liana's eyes widened. "Everyone, get down!" she said, tackling Sue off the raised part of the stage as metal bars rained down.
Time ticked by as the pair took cover, but the explosion never came.
"She didn't do it." Blue stared at her partner's arm embedded inside King Gummy Slime, her voice hollow. "I was supposed to... she was supposed to destroy all evidence."
"Wait!" said Eris, piecing it together. "There are bombs in your arms too, darling?"
"'To whom it may concern', huh." Sue gave her opponent a disapproving glance. "And don't you dare tell me you've got another one!"
"I armed it myself this morning, just in case we needed it. I remember it so well..." Blue turned her gaze skywards, to a skylight shattered outwards by Larc's escape. "Every mission, we knew it might have to be our last. Keeping our reputations, even if it cost our lives... And every time, I remember arming it the same way... It must've been, must've been years of living like that..."
Tears were starting to form in Blue's eyes, despite the smile on her face. Even the slime monster keeping her trapped looked forlorn, letting her have enough give to fall to her knees. "Even after we fought, and stole, and made each other's lives hell... she still reached a hand out to me, and said we should be partners. She'd know what my failsafe button is, and she could never press it."
Blue breathed out deeply, and it felt like a great tension had left her body. And with it, the room felt calmer. "I surrender." She raised her free arm - or what was left of it, neatly ending in a port for her now-missing prosthetic.
Sue blinked in confusion. "You... what? You're giving up?"
"You're not stupid enough to try pulling me free yourself," Blue reasoned calmly. "Using Braiden any more would simply make things worse for me alone, even if I could reach his card."
"Gummi-mi!" A determined look crossed the cartoonish face of the King Gummy Slime.
"The Buddy Police have this place surrounded, and I've no more tricks left. So, I surrender."
"Freeze! Come out with your hands up!" shouted a buddy police officer through his megaphone. He lowered it with a grimace as he realized who the approaching pair were. "Oh. It's you."
"Detective Eleison!" Liana clamped her arm down on his shoulder. Being fairly tall, she didn't even have to reach up. "It's good to see a fellow champion of justice!"
He facepalmed. "How did I not know you two would be involved in this?"
"Want me to plead the fifth?" muttered Sue, narrowing her eyes.
"My dear detective, these two saved the day!" Eris said, butting into the conversation. "They came here to resolve a hostage situation, and managed to capture an infamously elusive criminal fighter!"
He quirked an eyebrow at that. "So it's true... Team Manticore, in my city..."
"You really could just watch my streams, you know," teased Eris. "We know everything there is to know around here, sweetie!"
"Sometimes more than the Buddy Police," admitted the detective, somewhat reluctantly.
The conversation paused - An argument was breaking out between some officers and the human buddy of the large pink monster that had just been wheeled out of the building, bemused mercenary in tow. Detective Eleison removed one of his gloves, scratching his neck, and something clicked in Sue's head.
"Hey, Eleison... you're missing a hand, aren't you?"
Liana gasped. "Whaaaat? But he's got both-"
The detective shrugged, and took off his other glove, now holding both in one hand. "Lost it years ago, an Armorknight was on a rampage. This one's artificial." He flexed metal fingers to show off its articulation. "Kind of stiff sometimes, but almost as good as my old one. Took a lot of getting used to."
"Made by a subsidiary of the Chaos Control Corporation, right?"
His eyes fell on Larc's prosthetic arm, still trapped inside a somewhat irate King Gummy Slime. He gave a non-committal grunt. "Sue, I know you're still suspicious after seeing that article."
Liana looked thoughtful. "Wait, so if they're made by Chaos Corp... And those buddy monsters..."
Sue sighed. "Eh don't worry about it, I was just curious." Liana was most of the way there, at least. After the buddy cop shook his head, going back to shouting orders among those handling the scene, she quickly brought her friend up to speed "Listen, Liana, we need to talk to Mandy. Those sketches she drew..."
"They had Blue and Larc's arms, yeah." Whether Liana had been playing dumb in front of someone who wasn't fully in the loop or had only just now figured it out, she was on the same page as Sue. "Yeah, if the Chimera Foundation built those arms, and they're building Chaos monsters, we kind of need to find out if the connection is there."
Eris and Honey, it turned out, really did have the most complete account of the night's events that the Buddy Police could ask for. Having filmed the fight and ensuing chaos they had apparently gotten themselves entangled in some kind of discussion with the officers in charge of the scene, leading to the pair being pulled aside for the investigation.
Sue and Liana instead took the opportunity to slip away home, figuring anything that needed their assistance could wait until morning (where, with any luck, they could get the rest of their friends caught up on the situation).
"Those two girls - Blue and Larc." Mandy glanced between the photo of Team Manticore pinned on her conspiracy board and the still-running (yet currently muted) recording of Eris' broadcast playing on her buddy's screen. "Do you think they have something to do with my memory?"
"Eh, I guess?" Sue shrugged. "It's not impossible."
Mandy nodded, as if in understanding. "I see, I see." She began connecting two pins on the board with a piece of string - one pin held up a crude sketch of herself with question marks around her head, the other simply had a piece of paper with the word 'GIRLS?' scrawled on it.
Liana caught her own fist in an open palm. "We have to find out everything we can about the mysterious kaijin that attacked, and if there really are more on the way!"
"'Kaijin'?" asked Mandy. Sue threw up her hands in frustration that Liana was still insisting on the title.
"It means 'monster men'!" Liana raised a finger on one hand as she cheerfully explained. "It's the word they used in old sentai shows from back before buddy monsters were around!"
"Oh! So like monsters of the week that some hero fights! Like Pudgy Pig or Teacher Telephone!" Mandy nodded in understanding, folding her arms. Liana responded with some noise of fangirlish delight, apparently overjoyed at the examples.
"I don't think it really fits them." Sue shrugged. "Both girls, both human."
"They're augmented humans, so it works," maintained Liana.
Mandy nodded some more, despite now being on an entirely different tangent. "And they had buddy monsters, too."
"Yeah, not loving that lion girl having those two heavies backing her up." Sue furrowed her brow, thinking of just how devastating the combination of buddies had been, pushing her and Liana to the edge of defeat over and over. Artificial or not, both monsters had been perfectly suited for the respective styles of Team Manticore. "We could've at least grabbed shovel girl's core gadget..." she murmured.
"That's evidence!" protested Liana.
"...Forgive me for not trusting anyone about two criminal fighters who were looking for me." Sue took a breath, before trying to impress upon them that this was actually serious, and not just some frustrated response to the events of the night. Two girls, a masked hero and a television all stared at her, somewhat apprehensively. "Because I think I know exactly who sent them, and exactly why."
"Obviously!" Mandy said, nodding along. "They have to be from Project Revenant!"
"Exactly! They're from... Project... Revenant?" Sue trailed off as she realized that Mandy was talking about something completely different. "What the hell is Project Revenant?"
Mandy flipped over her conspiracy board and pointed at a newspaper article. "The US Army dumped a ton of money into making prosthetic limbs for injured veterans." She traced a finger along a red string, following it to what seemed to be a page cut out of some glossy fashion magazine. "But it was all a sinister front for their true agenda - reviving everyone who has ever died as part of a sinister alien ploy to-"
Sue raised a hand. "I'm going to stop you there," she said. "Because that is the dumbest thing I've ever heard."
Mandy pouted, puffing out her cheeks. "The evidence is all there. Unless..."
Mandy started rearranging the photos and articles on her board, then flipped it over revealing a board covered in entirely different articles. She pinned a string to one that had a singer who (only slightly) resembled Sue, circled and labeled with the words "SECRET IDENTITY?", and pinned the other end to a complex web of connections that was already in place. She turned and pointed at Sue.
"You're secretly an idol singer who got tired of fame and fortune, and those two girls were your bandmates come to take you back for one last big show where-"
"Mandy, you've heard me sing in the shower. I can't hold a note to save myself." Sue ran a hand through her long hair. "Oh my god, it really is going to be easier to tell you everything. So this is kind of going to be a long story..."
"You're the one who said it, not me."
Sue rolled her eyes at Le Guin. "I can give you the cliff notes on my past, if it's too boring for you."
"No, by all means, tell me what you told them."
"You know I'm from another world," stated Sue.
"Like Hero World, or Outer World?"
"It's not like I can raise a flag and call out monsters from my home world. It's more like..." Sue put a line of cards on the table. "Okay, suppose you had Earth - that's the generic card - and all the other worlds? Dragon World, Danger World, Outer World, whatever." she continued, placing them in a neat row.
"The world I'm from would be somewhere around here." she said, putting a card directly below the Actor Knights monster she was using to represent Earth - two different arts of The World from the set of tarot-themed monsters - before continuing a second row of cards directly below the first. "And it has its own Dragon World, and Danger World, and you get the picture, okay?"
Gaigrander rubbed the chin of his helmet, deep in thought as he considered the implications. His buddy, instead, voiced what everyone was thinking. "A parallel Earth..."
Sue snapped her fingers. "Bingo."
Liana gave her a grin. "Just like a big comics crossover event!"
"It's..." Sue blinked. Maybe that was a helpful way to explain it, given her current audience. "Okay, if that helps you visualize it?"
Mandy closed her eyes, nodding. "Oh, so it's like that world where The Beatles never broke up!"
"Wha- No." Sue decided mid-word not to even ask.
"She's not giving you the full picture," noted Gaigrander. He put his fingers on one of the rows of cards, gently sliding them out of alignment with the other row.
"Yeah, about that..." Sue awkwardly twirled some hair around one finger. "It's kinda complicated."
"Well, no better time to spill it!" Liana said, somewhat teasingly. "It's not like we're in a hurry!"
"Last night I had the strangest dream," sang out a voice, accompanied by music, soft snoring, the buzzing of a phone and the soft sound of footsteps on grass. "I sailed away to China, in a little row boat to find ya..."
"Bok."
"What is it, Casu-Legs? Still sleepy..." mumbled Colossus, eyes still closed as they marched.
"And you said you had to get your laundry cleaned,"
A more insistent "Bok!" followed.
"Didn't want no one to hold you, what does that mean?"
"Can it wait until we get there?" Colossus winced, pulling the still-ringing phone out of their coat pocket. "Alright. I'll answer..."
"You said - ain't nothin' gonna break my stride, nobody gonna slow me-"
"Hello Captain. I'm awake." They held the phone out in front of them in one hand, the ringtone silenced at last.
"Colossus." Frostburg's voice rumbled like an echo from a deep ravine. "Deep Blue and Larc have failed their primary objective. Use the data they provided from their secondary mission. The target list has been narrowed down - Find these girls."
Colossus let out a loud yawn, stretching their arms in the air, phone and all (much to the irritation of the man on the other end of the call). "Must have been walking so long. I slept all that time, but I still don't feel refreshed. Nearly there." They swayed from side to side as they kept walking. They stared at the images on their screen - three different girls. "What was it we were to do? Find out which one is that girl, bring her to you..."
The drowsy buddyfighter rubbed their eyes with their free hand.
"And the other two?" asked Colossus.
"Stomp them flat."