Amelia, Ch 208- Riley
The others shunted moments after they entered ordered our hotel rooms, leaving only Clarice behind in the room. I sat down to eat the meal, or fragments of meals, that they brought me. The food was really good even if it was leftovers, and especially nice since they didn't need to bring me anything at all. The Yggdrasil was completely safe to eat and some portions of it were more nutritious than any natural food could hope to be. Even if it tasted like mushy apples and tree bark.
In the time they'd been gone, a series of small bedrooms had formed for all of us, allowing us to sleep here instead of inside the building. Our rooms were geoanalogous to the ones we had rented in Bet, and we had the dimensional viewing tech hard at work.
"That looks eerily like my actual room," Lily said as she walked out of hers.
"It's suppose to," I answered proudly. "My Big Sister used it as the model when she grew this one."
"Sometimes I forget just how insane her power is," she muttered. "She can do something this fine detailed from a thousand miles and another dimension away."
"Eight hundred and seventy three point four miles," I replied, having accessed the mapping program I plugged into Clarice. "From your bedroom and this one."
"How do you think I feel?" Vicky laughed. "I remember when she was my mostly helpless baby sister who was afraid to use her power for anything. Now here we are on a planet where she is pretty much a literal god."
"She's just that amazing," I agreed happily, then I hesitated. Clarice's motion sensors detected someone approaching, and strangely the spacial distortion senses I used to navigate Clarice through Missy's power were activating as well. "Umm. Looks like we got our company."
We turned our attentions to the dimensional overlay, allowing us to watch everything. "Ooh, he's good," Vicky noted with approval. "Case 53, looks a lot like Newter, but he's got some really good camouflage so I can't be sure his actual colors. And somehow, he's crawling on a ceiling made of those cheap panels that couldn't hold the weight of a large housecat."
"Doesn't match any records I have," I replied as I ran the description through our databank. "Wish we could have brought the command center with us."
"I'll go greet him," Theo replied as he covered himself in his liquid metal yet again. I smiled as he shunted over. The advantage of his power being so defensively perfect is that I could build his suit for features and battery life, since I didn't need all the armor reinforcement. It wasn't an unusual design, fairly standard equipment profile for the brutes who were receiving our equipment, but I made his better than those.
He deserved it.
We watched, using his armor and Clarice to provide what sound the could. I was a tinker and even I didn't know why light could cross like this, but sound couldn't.
"Open the door, take a half step out the door and turn your head to the left and up," Vicky instructed. Theo followed the instructions. "Perfect, you're looking more or less right at him. He can't see your eyes.
"Good afternoon," Horus replied calmly. "To what do I owe your visit."
"Uh... you can see me?" the invisible lizard man asked.
"No," Horus responded calmly. "But I don't need my eyes to know you're there."
"I heard you were asking about us," the man replied. "You made quite a scene."
"Not nearly the scene we could have made," Theo shrugged dismissively. "Honestly, at this point it'd be simply just to request all the villain groups give us their phone numbers. Save everyone the headache of doin' it like this."
"I wonder, did you pick up that attitude from your bosses, or from Kaiser?"
Clarice's sensors noted Theo's heightened emotional state, but he recovered masterfully. "I was hoping to keep that one a secret until after I turned eighteen," he sighed. "I don't suppose you'll keep that tidbit quiet."
"Don't worry, I ain't a snitch," he answered. "So, you were sayin' you don't think we did the killing?"
"This guy's weird," Vicky spoke up. "My combat sense isn't working on him. He might be some kind of really impressive illusion. Keep your armor at full strength, we can't be sure what to expect."
"Probably," Theo clarified. "It's too obvious a setup. Then again, it's also too obvious a setup. It could be you, trying to run a double bluff."
"Wheels in wheels bullshit, huh?" came the dismissive reply. "Nah, we ain't so, wassa word..."
"Machiavellian?" Theo suggested. "Elaborate?"
"Yeah! Elaborate," the voice agreed. "Now, I ain't sayin' this ever happens, mind you, but if it did. We wouldn't leave them to be found. Lotsa places to dump a body out there. Lotsa powers to make sure there's no body to be found. Hypothetically speakin, of course. You bein' here is real bad for our business."
"So who would you sus-" The area was bathed in a soundless white light. I had just enough time to register Clarice's damage alerts before her automatic defenses shunted her over to our dimension. The bitter sweet scent of burnt sugar poured off the changeling. She was still alive under the armor, in as much as she could be called alive. I did a quick estimate of how much heat it would have taken to do that damage that quickly. If it wasn't an exotic power based attack, which of course could break any rule, I was absolutely certain the building was already destroyed.
All this had happened in the two seconds. In the third, Vicky shouted commands. "Spread out! Find the attacker!" I couldn't see what the others were doing, and chose to stay in the center. It was a good thing the dimensional viewer tech had upper limits on energy transfer, it saved my retinas from being burned out.
There was a thud as a large body hit the ground, followed by sizzling.
Theo. My world stood still. I moved toward the metal shell, only to hesitate when I got close. The heat from the armor was incredible, hot enough to overwhelm and burn a plant that had withstood New Delhi. One which pulled much of its power out of active volcanoes. I wanted to get closer, but discretion was the better part of valor.
I can't help anyone if I burn myself. I accessed the badly damaged Clarice doll, commanding her to move while observing how it was killing her. Perhaps only two minutes left.
She activated her absolute zero weapon, draining massive amounts of heat away from herself and Theo's armor. I hoped my calculations on where to fire were correct, considering all I had available for senses was Clarice's badly damaged echolocation system.
Theo's power should be able to protect him. I hope.
The light was still blinding, though it had faded to that of natural flame instead of whatever attack started this. Clarice, with only a little bit of strength left to spare, was used to cut through Theo's armor. At some point it had converted to the standard metal state, meaning he lost concentration on his power.
Don't die. Don't die. I screamed internally as my changeling did all the dangerous work of peeling him out of his suit. I didn't speak, I simply stood there operating the controls and idly listing off the symptoms of shock that my body was exhibiting.
The armor was empty. Or at least empty of Theo. The metal was there, and the completely ruined bioarmor was there. Theo was not.
How? I was so caught up in hope and confusion and fear that I didn't even notice when Clarice stopped functioning, slumping over the semi molten then flash frozen metal and baked Yggdrasil.
Vicky shouted a couple command that I didn't register. I was too stunned to care. I heard a body land next to me, and a hand rest on my shoulder. "Is... is he?" A voice asked hesitantly. It took me a moment to recognize it as Atropos.
"I don't know," I answered, trying to keep my emotions under control. "He wasn't in the armor. I don't know where he is."
"We'll find him, she insisted, placing her hand on my shoulder. "Now let's get you away from here. We have to regroup and figure out what to do. Victoria's already gone over to help with the fires and rescue survivors. My power's not so good for that. Do you have anything that can help?"
"No," I admitted, allowing myself to be guided by her hand through the blinding light. "Clarice didn't survive the explosion. Do you think Theo will be alright?"
"His armor's indestructible, remember?" She tried to sound comforting, but I could hear the doubt in her voice. "I'm sure he's fine. Just needs us to pick him up."
"Yeah," I responded. Lying my agreement to her lie. I knew we had the clone technology, but I didn't want to think about Theo being dead even for a little while. I didn't want to think about Missy crying. I calmed myself by counting my own tears, and a promise to myself that I would find whoever did this and extract a scream for every last one of them.
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A/N- I get to torture Riley now!
Aww. Now I feel bad.
