Only Human (Goddess of Victory NIKKE SI)

[ZaweRD]

and I'll fuckin' do it again

Click to shrink...

Thats some "Album cover" tier shit. Now i want to hear the music.

 

[BakaSmurf]

===
Chapter 26 - Settling Dust
===

The aircraft continued along the way to the Ark, smoothly soaring among the clouds.

"Anis!" Joe cried out, rushing to the side of the mutilated Nikke who at least was mercifully not bleeding anymore, dropping to a knee and looking terribly worriedly over her. Missing a leg, both of her hands, squirming around in visible agony as tears streamed from her-

"Turn off your pain receptors, you idiot!" A new Nikke, black-haired and with a disdainful, if still distantly enticing countenance approached. She was hoisting an impressive sniper rifle as she all but stomped over, visibly agitated by Anis' crying.

Given her familiar breathy voice, this was the sniper that had been firing on Chatterbox.

Boy, aside from her sneer, Joe wasn't sure that parting her hair like that was the move to make. Talk about a forehead- "To spare us of your pathetic whining, if nothing else!"

Oh wow, fucking bitch.

There was a pause in which Anis went wide-eyed, then sheepishly just sort of stopped rolling about in decidedly unquiet suffering. "I forgot we can do that," she admitted, immediately relaxing and just splaying out on the floor of the transport craft.

"'Forgot-'" the ravenette clad in colours identical to Rapi's started with a scoff.

Aside from the colours and berets, Absolute otherwise seemed to each wear personalized uniforms. The ravenette's get up was a heavy hooded coat worn over a sailor fuku and swimsuit not unlike Neon's—though with short shorts and loose chaps rather than a skirt and thigh-highs.

"I suppose I shouldn't be surprised by the wanton display of simple-minded idiocy, given the sort of company this squad keeps," she declared with overt disdain, glancing Rapi's way out of the corner of her eye.

While Rapi immediately grew visibly discomforted by the declaration and Anis looked the part of the kid caught in the midst of a friend's parent's spat, Mihara and Yuni kept their distance and focused entirely on each other.

While Joe... "Do we have a fucking problem we need to discuss, soldier?" the Commander demanded in about as aggressive a tone as one might expect. He was already amped up after that entire shitshow with Chatterbox—and now his squad was being disrespected right in front of him after taking the sort of beating they did from a fucking shit-talking Tyrant.

Joe was combative at the best of times. And it was hardly as though he or his girls had taken the first swing here.

"Mind your own business, weakling!" the ravenette bit back at him, looking for all the world like a roach had just scuttled across her high-heeled shoe. "This doesn't concern the likes of you!"

"You made this my business the moment you had the fucking temerity to disrespect my squad in front of me; to say nothing of you making a goddamned liar of Ingrid after she made the apparent mistake of assuring me that you could be expected to behave like a goddamned professional!" Joe snapped back, raising his voice in accordance with rising to his feet and squaring up against the sneering Nikke. "Absolute make a habit out of trying to start shit with every squad they're sent to support?"

"Why you-" the aggressor Nikke started, taking an aggressive step towards him-

"Eunhwa! Stop!" She was interrupted by a blonde that, at a glance, looked like—to over-generalize a bit—Rapi's surprisingly youthful and far, far more curvaceous mother or older sister. "Don't pick a fight with another Commander again!"

"Ingrid's gonna get so mad…" a little Nikke with bobbed silvery hair wearing an honest-to-god cloak—albeit a short one that only went down to her mid-thigh—added in her opinion with no small amount of anxious worry. Her large blue eyes looked about ready to burst into tears at a moment's notice.

"Stepping in to defend this weakling and the defective?" Eunhwa, apparently, growled as much as one could with a voice as soft and breathy as hers was. "Just whose side are you on?"

"Ingrid already promised that we would behave ourselves," the distractingly well-endowed blonde said, keeping her tone even as she presented herself as the voice of reason. "You're presenting Absolute in a negative light to Ingrid's sponsored Commander."

"E-Emma's right!" the little cloaked Nikke that, to be frank, presented the image of something of a crybaby asserted, backing up her far larger companion.

"Nobody asked for your opinion, fool," Eunhwa spoke down to her squad mate, immediately putting the smaller girl down, who looked the part of a kicked puppy at the admonishment. "So keep your simple-minded thoughts to yourself!"

"Oh, I can see why Absolute is the pride of Elysion with this sort of behaviour being so proudly displayed to all the world to see," Joe growled, taking on a derisive tone of his own as Eunhwa reminded Joe of the average Ark Commander in all the worst ways, despite being a Nikke herself. Somehow, Joe had never expected to find the worst of both worlds mixed into one perfectly arrogant and disdainful bitch like this.

Eunhwa's pupils constricted into pinpricks as her chest puffed out in anger. "Shut your trap you weakling-"

"A laconic wit is clearly a highly sought-after trait among Elysion's special forces, given your groundbreaking ability to repeat your sixth-grade level insults ad nauseam, huh?" Joe pointedly interjected with a sneer of his own.

Eunhwa's eyes went wide in naked fury as Emma stepped between them, already pushing the sniper away from Joe in a blatant and honestly wise move to separate the two. As she did so, Joe felt a small hand wrap around his wrist, and he was firmly, but gently drawn back as well—Rapi clearly having had the same idea as her former squad mate.

"Commander, stop," she pointedly directed Joe. "This is incredibly unprofessional-"

"Yes! It is! Isn't it!" Joe spun in place to face the ruby-eyed blonde, nostrils flaring. "Sorry to say, Rapi, but it seems you wildly overestimated the professional capacity of at least one of your previous teammates!"

Rapi was disquieted by that, averting her gaze with a frown that was more apparent than normal.

In the moments of quiet that followed, the black-clad Nikke not immediately responding, a few things became noticeable. First, Rapi, along with Anis and Neon, had lost her beret.

That wasn't surprising in the least—their little hats that sort of just loosely rested atop their crowns would be the first thing to go flying once they started getting knocked around. Her clothes were shredded in some places—not enough to betray her modesty, but enough for it to be apparent that she was going to need a brand new outfit top-to-bottom once they were back to the Outpost.

And, more notably-

"Rapi!" The littlest member of Absolute rushed up to her once-companion—moving as if to hug her, but stopping short with a rush of anxiety on her features. "Ah- I, um…"

"...Hey, Vesti," Rapi started, releasing Joe's wrist as she turned to face the girl evidently dubbed Vesti more directly.

At that, a small surge of willpower seemed to fill Vesti, and despite still appearing to be on the verge of tears, she wrapped her arms around Rapi's midsection, resting her face on Rapi's shoulder. "I-it's good to see you, Rapi…" she mewled, damn near letting out a little sniffle as she did so. "I was so worried when we detected the pulsar going off!"

In a heretofore uncharacteristic display, Rapi lightly hugged Vesti back. A minute, but very present smile actually finding purchase on the doll-like Nikke's features. "You know that I'm tougher than most," she remarked in a very lightly chiding, yet endeared tone. "You don't need to worry about me."

"B-but…" Vesti practically whined, drawing back and meeting Rapi's gaze, staring for a few moments before she blinked and looked more than a little off-put. "U-um… Rapi?" She started inquisitively. "Why… why are you wearing such scary makeup?"

At that, Rapi blinked rather owlishly, not immediately responding to the somewhat insensitive question.

"I-I mean, not scary! Creepy! I mean s-spooky- no, I mean u-unsettling! I-I mean-"

But… Now that he was rapidly calming down rather than running hot, stupid, and consequently imperceptive, Joe noticed that a good deal of Rapi's usually caked-on makeup had been sort of… Scraped off her face by the encounter with Chatterbox.

This revealed that she had a really nice natural complexion, and feeling like an idiot for his brain noticing this of all things given the situation, that her makeup was likely really, seriously detracting from her natural beauty—or as natural as a Nikke's beauty could be, at least.

It wasn't the sort of thing he'd have normally get hung up on, but, Rapi looked downright inhuman, genuinely like a life-sized porcelain doll in a sharply uncanny way with how much powder and paint was daubed onto her face normally.

There wasn't quite enough of her deeply uncanny makeup missing to get a real measure of how she'd look without it. But, given how pleasant the complexion of her 'natural,' exposed skin was, he could only imagine that it couldn't be a downgrade if she eschewed it altogether.

The fact that her makeup had been scraped off by Chatterbox's attacks, without visibly marring the actual skin itself beneath as well, spoke to how shockingly, downright terrifyingly tough Rapi was.

Glancing down, Joe could see that Rapi had taken Chatterbox's initial thrown sneak attack on an armoured portion of her leg, and his earlier observation was based upon the plate strapped to her leg, which had absorbed most of the damage that had obliterated the metal made of the same material a Nikke's skin, and… Very, very slightly marred her actual shin.

Considering that Rapi was apparently a Nikke from the initial Rapture invasion, and had been singled out as a 'Grimms Model, Red Riding Hood,' which Rapi did not seem keen on anyone else learning about—it gave him cause to wonder if maybe she was some sort of early super prototype, like the equivalent of a Gundam emerging among Zakus.

Stuff to ask Andersen about—or rather, demand answers to. Chatterbox knew who Joe and Rapi were, evidently recognized them from their time serving alongside Andersen on a bona-fide Helicarrier like an actual whole-ass century earlier. He wasn't going forward blindly while his goddamned enemies knew exactly who he was, and probably what to expect out of him.

At any rate, while the Absolute girls seemed entirely wrapped up with each other, Joe moved to Anis and Neon, who had grouped up (meaning that Neon had plopped down next to a now casually lounging Anis), and popped a squat as he addressed them. "Y'all alright?" He asked.

Neon answered first. "Yeah. Annoying that I lost an arm and a bunch of ammo, but Nikkes can just get replacements. It'll take like, ten minutes to get a new one installed once we're at the repair centre."

"Yeah, it looks bad, but, well," Anis shrugged from the spot where she'd made herself comfortable on the metallic flooring of the transport craft, despite having visibly and unpleasantly mangled stumps where her hands and a foot should have been. "I mean, I was reduced to just a head not that long ago, apparently…"

"Apparently?" Joe started inquisitively. Quite keenly recalling heaving the blonde's head around like a cinder block.

"Oh, I don't remember any of it happening," Anis replied. "Last I can recall, we were walking through the power station, then I woke up in the repair centre with everyone telling me I got my block knocked off or whatever. The NIMPH suppresses traumatic memories and stuff so that Nikkes can stay functional and junk."

"PSID is super rare among Nikkes, and the NIMPH is why!" Neon declared, seemingly entirely nonplussed about her missing arm. "We can go through some real bad stuff, and be ready to fight the next day like nothing ever happened!"

"You mean PTTD, dummy," Anis 'corrected' Neon.

"It's PTSD…" Joe quietly and actually corrected the two mangled Nikkes, noting how this seemed to be a budding bit of sorts between the two.

But, that aside: the NIMPH. The nanomachines that helped keep Nikkes operational and alive even throughout the most extreme of circumstances—to Joe's understanding, it was also the reason Nikkes weren't killed by things like extreme g-forces being imparted upon their bodies.

They were full-body cyborgs, but their brains were still organic, and flesh could always liquefy. The nanomachines that made up the NIMPH hardened their grey matter against things that no purely organic being could ever survive—hence Rapi just… Walking off Chatterbox hammering her around like she was a wet towel.

It really emphasized how monstrously powerful the Raptures were, for these girls that in most worlds would be functionally immortal to be so incapable of beating them on a meaningful level. Seriously, a Nikke could do to a Spartan-II what Chatterbox did to Rapi.

Stupid anime bullshit making him shit his pants because it was real and scary as fuck in real life.

But, at any rate: "Well, I'm glad you two're all right," Joe remarked as he let out a long sigh.

"Yeah, we're fine, Commander!" Neon declared with a genuine, unperturbed smile. "Nikkes are a lot tougher than we look!"

"Yeah, I'm just relieved that we're all okay after dealing with Chatterbox," Anis assured Joe. "Relieved and kind of bored and frustrated. I can't even check to see if my phone is still intact to put on music or something…" she presented her stumps with a grimace.

"Oh, which pocket is it supposed to be in?" Neon immediately moved to start rifling through Anis' pockets. "I bet you're the type to listen to Kill Your Darlings!"

"What? Hey! I didn't say you could go through my pockets!" Anis immediately started attempting to squirm away from Neon's little invasive grabbers. "And please! I listen to K-pop and some old classic rock like a normal person!"

"Normie!" Neon accused the bodacious blonde as she continued to boldly invade Anis' privacy. "Normie listening to her normie tunes on her normie phone-"

"Stop calling me a normie you weirdo! I just have good taste-!"

Actually managing to crack a smile at Anis and Neon's goonery despite the physical state they were in, Joe returned to his full standing height and ambled off back towards Vesti and Rapi. It'd probably do to introduce himself to at least the decent members of Absolute-

And he found Vesti staring up at him, her big, blue, almost perpetually tearful eyes sparkling in wonder as Rapi quietly observed the Commander's interactions with her current squadmates. Vesti, at that moment, seemed outright awed by Joe, for some reason.

Now that everything had calmed down and he had the chance to more properly take in the little Nikke's appearance, Vesti was wearing the aforementioned cloak; which seemed like an interesting choice, if nothing else. Otherwise, she was wearing a one-piece button down with a red neck tie that incorporated body-hugging shorts into its design, and thigh-high boots. Nothing strange, as far as some of the outfits he saw many Nikkes wearing went.

Is what Joe would say if she wasn't wearing a skimpy, high-legged latex bikini over the bodysuit.

Vesti was, overall, aside from the strange choice of attire, on the cuter end of the spectrum. Curvaceous enough that she couldn't be mistaken for being younger than a young adult, but well within the realms of a regular girl, rather than, say, well...

Joe pointedly didn't let his eyes wander over to Emma, who was visibly giving up as she attempted to speak to a still-fuming Eunhwa on the other side of the transport's cargo bay.

"Y-you stood up to Eunhwa, and even made her run away…" Vesti remarked to Joe, looking at him like he was a superhuman for some reason. "A-and Rapi says you're really nice and care for the Nikkes under your command too…!"

"The Commander is…" Rapi started, trailing off as she seemed to carefully consider her next words. "Superior as far as Commanding Officers go, yes."

Now that was glowing praise from Rapi, holy shit. He was glad that he'd evidently made such a good impression on her, if nothing else.

"You're so brave, Commander!" Vesti asserted, pumping her little arms as she looked at Joe as though he were a celebrity or something. "And nice too… Rapi's so lucky to get such an amazing Commander…!"

Joe sure didn't feel 'amazing' or 'brave' when he was cowering behind that rusted out vehicle as Chatterbox slapped around the girls. In fact, the man wouldn't have been surprised if he'd pissed himself a little at the time, considering the goddamned nightmare that Chatterbox was.

But Vesti was being nice, quite unlike Eunhwa, so he wasn't about to be a dick to her for no reason. "I don't think I'm anything special," he asserted, rubbing the back of his neck somewhat sheepishly. "The other Commanders just suck so bad that I only look so much better by comparison, is all."

Somehow, that only seemed to redouble Vesti's sense of wonder. After a few moments of that…

"Well, it's good to see that you aren't holding Eunhwa's behaviour against us," Emma remarked as she ambled over, sliding into view with a pleasant smile.

Emma was—well, good Lord.

Straight blonde hair adorned with a striped black and white ribbon, olive eyes, an overall very mature, womanly countenance. She was built, to be frank, like something of a fertility goddess, and was overall easily the most normally-dressed member of Absolute. She was wearing a button-down shirt (which was struggling against her chest for its dear goddamned life) with a red ribbon under a proper, well-fitted long coat. A simple pleated skirt worn high on her waist and proper tights worn with proper heels with little ribbons on them.

And a latex bikini top worn over her shirt. Because of course she was wearing a latex bikini over her otherwise normal outfit. Was that her actual bra? Was she wearing it in addition to a regular bra under her shirt? The heck was going on with these girls wearing swimwear over their otherwise regular-ish outfits?

At least Rapi wasn't doing anything overly weird like Absolute with her aesthetic as fuck outfit.

"It's nice to meet you, Commander," Emma projected an air of easy-going, welcoming confidence. She was a… Well, she had quite the presence, to say the least. "It's good to hear that you've been taking good care of Rapi for us."

This woman, having done remarkably little, was already quite powerful. Dang, man.

"Now, as eager as I am to properly meet you, Commander," Emma continued. "Vesti and I would like the chance to catch up with Rapi while we can, if that would be okay with you?"

Ah. Would that actually be wise? Vesti clearly didn't have any hard feelings towards Rapi, but Eunhwa had gone full aggro on the entire team for being associated with her, going off of context—while Emma, at least, seemed to be the voice of reason-

"It's okay, Commander," Rapi assured him, evidently taking note of his hesitation. "You should probably address the… Situation with Wardress anyways."

Wardress-? Ah, right, that's what Mihara and Yuni's squad was called, wasn't it? She was right. The two had likely heard a few things that could cause issues, hadn't they? "Yeah, good point. Okay, I'll leave y'all to it then," Joe nodded, backing off and already moving for the two Missilis Nikkes.

"Thank you, Commander," Rapi said, sounding genuinely grateful.

Glancing back after a few steps, Joe saw Emma immediately wrapping her arms around Rapi's head, and pulling her face into her chest. Hard.

…Best to just focus on the immediate issue at hand.

Yuni and Mihara had sequestered themselves away from everyone else, seated atop a solid steel bench. Despite Yuni being gently comforted by Mihara, who in turn watched Joe as he approached with a fairly neutral expression on her face. "Commander," she acknowledged him as he neared. "Would you mind if I cut to brass tacks?"

Halting and giving the woman a wary look, Joe motioned for her to continue.

"We heard things from Chatterbox you probably don't want being repeated to just anyone," the bondage-clad Nikke began bluntly. "And you saw Yuni doing something Nikkes shouldn't be able to do."

"Now, I don't understand the extent of just how important what we heard was, but I do know that little Yuni is more important than anything else in the world to me, and I don't want her getting undue attention from the powers that be, when it's bad enough dealing with Syuen as it is. So… Simply put? You don't tell Ingrid about what you saw, and we won't tell Syuen about what we heard. Deal?"

That caught Joe off-guard, to say the least. "I'd have expected you to be a bit more loyal to Syuen-"

At that, Mihara barked out a single, mirthless laugh. "Loyal? To Syuen?" She mused, looking at Joe like he was crazy. "Commander, she sometimes uses Yuni as a literal punching bag to vent her frustrations. To be frank, I would take it as something of a favour, giving us the opportunity to deny Syuen something to our own benefit. We do not care for her. We do what we are told, because we must. Nothing more."

Holy shit. Syuen was a walking piece of human garbage, wasn't she? "You girls have it rough, serving such a wretch, don't you?"

"Most Nikkes do," Mihara noted matter-of-factually. "So… Do we have a deal?"

"Yes," Joe declared, finding it to be an easy decision to make.

A weight was visibly lifted from Mihara's shoulders, and she drew her little pink-haired companion closer to her, her relief palpable. "You're kind, Commander. A vanishingly rare trait in the Ark's military."

"Thank you, Commander," Yuni spoke up, noticeably relaxed by Mihara's relief, giving Joe a small smile of her own.

"Alright, I'll leave you both to it, then," Joe noted as he quietly backed off, gaze lingering on the Missilis Nikkes. He was thinking to himself that he'd have to talk to Ingrid and Andersen about the possibility of getting Wardress assigned to him as well; to get these girls out of the awful place they were stuck in.

Damn his bleeding heart, but as odd as Yuni and Mihara were, he couldn't stomach the idea of them both being casually abused by that little punkass CEO. If he could get them out of that toxic environment, well, the more Nikkes he'd have to call on going forth, the better, right? Doubly so when one of them could just casually blind even Raptures.

But, he'd cross that bridge once they came to it.

All that aside, seeing Rapi talking a fair amount with Emma and Vesti, while Neon and Anis did their usual goonery despite being in the states they were in, and really not wanting to interact with that bitch Eunhwa, Joe opted to take a seat away from everyone else. Settle in for the long trip back to the Ark.

Maybe if he was really lucky, he'd experience an adrenaline crash and even pass out, get some rest before arriving.

Having the chance to recuperate and recharge a bit would surely make his plan to grill the fuck out of Andersen go more smoothly, to be sure.

 

[Daniel K. English]

Eyy, trading barbs with Eunhwa! I don't hate her in particular, but she's unnecessarily abrasive.

I sure hope Joe gets Mihara and Yuni out of that situation before it gets worse. Maybe he can tattle to Enikk and have "that" happen?

 

[Slamm-O]

Eyy, trading barbs with Eunhwa! I don't hate her in particular, but she's unnecessarily abrasive.

Click to shrink...

Wonder if we could use her as sand paper then.

 

[Akito_D_Exile]

To Kick or not to Kick Syuen's shit in.
I ask Rapi that question.

 

[VATSTeen]

To Kick or not to Kick Syuen's shit in.
I ask Rapi that question.

Click to shrink...

That would require the excuse of Rapi being mind wiped.

Though I would prefer to upgrade our Nikke in Counters personally. We will face mostly tyrants, Lords and heretics so many times it's only because we get guest Nikke to help us out that we survive most of the time. And then there is both Eden and Dorothy on one hand and Ark and the Central government on the other with both using us as fodder or worse in the case of CG.

 

[Slamm-O]

That would require the excuse of Rapi being mind wiped.

Though I would prefer to upgrade our Nikke in Counters personally. We will face mostly tyrants, Lords and heretics so many times it's only because we get guest Nikke to help us out that we survive most of the time. And then there is both Eden and Dorothy on one hand and Ark and the Central government on the other with both using us as fodder or worse in the case of CG.

Click to shrink...

Think Dorothy will have some sort of mental attack when she sees Joe and the fact he hasn't aged a day as well as wondering if it is some central goverment plot.

 

[EX143]

Think Dorothy will have some sort of mental attack when she sees Joe and the fact he hasn't aged a day as well as wondering if it is some central goverment plot.

Click to shrink...

Considering Smol White hasn't changed much from this image

Spoiler: Smol

I don't think Dorothy's gonna take it well either

 

[Slamm-O]

Considering Smol White hasn't changed much from this image

Spoiler: Smol

I don't think Dorothy's gonna take it well either

Click to shrink...

When Snow is done beating the shit out of chatterbox she is going to be stalking MP Nikke squads comming out of the Ark listening for any and all rumors relating to Joe I wouldn't be surprised if she Batman style appears in his office.

Dorothy given her very strong antipathy towards the Ark will be equally intresting.

Though Scarlet will be happy and probably want a party when she find out and Rapunzel will probably give him a big hug.

 

[Masayume]

Looks like syuen isnt gonna be finding anything out after all nice.

Time to tell mommy Ingrid the squad she promised to be professional wasnt quite so after all heh.

Inb4 Snow White still being pissed off, cause Chatterbox managed to give her the slip, calls Pioneer and Dorothy to help her hunt down this pos rapture, and tells them their commander and Red Hood is alive. Reunion in the snowfields? Except modernia is calling in nihilister too due to multiple goddesses descending on chatterbox.

 

[Slamm-O]

TBH Snow is very goal oriented even before the mind switch I expect she will see what she can dig up about Joe.

 

[EX143]

Looks like syuen isnt gonna be finding anything out after all nice.

Time to tell mommy Ingrid the squad she promised to be professional wasnt quite so after all heh.

Inb4 Snow White still being pissed off, cause Chatterbox managed to give her the slip, calls Pioneer and Dorothy to help her hunt down this pos rapture, and tells them their commander and Red Hood is alive. Reunion in the snowfields? Except modernia is calling in nihilister too due to multiple goddesses descending on chatterbox.

Click to shrink...

...that sounds like things going FUBAR.

And imagine if the Queen/Lilith decides that's she wants her old friend back and shows up too

 

[Slamm-O]

Not sure if Snow would tell Dorothy anything at this point given the way they have fallen out. A paradise may look nice from the outside but you look closely at it you can see the cracks.

 

[Masayume]

Chatterbox encounters is always going to be FUBAR, since it can always escalate things & call for backup. Also fair enough I guess, Dorothy is going to be finding things out a different way.

 

[SongNai145]

We stan Joe in this story. He's the best of us, I swear. Fingers crossed we see more of him just absorbing Nikkes into his squad until he gets a full war party of them.

 

[Zam138]

And imagine if the Queen/Lilith decides that's she wants her old friend back and shows up too

Click to shrink...

The Queen was around before a certain someone lost her head, according to MoG's lore on Cinderella's brainwashing.

 

[Drake D Zero]

The commander was being nice to Eunhwa, a mention of her forehead and he would have murdered her without even trying. Really hope Ingrid addresses her attitude. Thanks for the chapter.

 

[EX143]

The Queen was around before a certain someone lost her head, according to MoG's lore on Cinderella's brainwashing.

Click to shrink...

...make that a Queen then?

I know there was something implying that in Overzone

 

[Masayume]

There is a queen, according to the Red Ash event, the queen is sitting on top of the orbital elevator.

@edit- time to go dungeon diving for cubes to upgrade counters in lost sector eh? Cause we all know Chatterbox is totally going to ambush Joe again next time they deploy towards the surface.

That or the piece of shit is still running from Snow

 

[Fragment of Serenity]

Well, what he doesn't carry in armaments', he makes up for in using his words. Damn Joe. Just shoot her already, it'll hurt less.

Excellent chapter! Flowed well, did right by the characters, talked shit about Syuen. All is good in the world.

 

[EX143]

... So... About that Re: Dash hard mode ending...

 

[Queen]

I loved your interactions with the absolute squad from the awe of vesti which was adorable, to the clashing between you and eunhwa which was very well handled in my opinion! as well the Appreciation of Emma hehe. and def liked the back and forth with mihara hope that deal between them doesn't get found out too soon by syuen neglecting the fact she'd probs take them at there word cause if she lied to her and get's found out it's either scraped or memory wiped ala canon. I rate this chapter a 10/10! and speaking off I loved how in the previous chapter chatterbox just utterly fucked up saying those things in hearing range of snow and the sheer fury she unloaded onto him

 

[BakaSmurf]

===
Chapter 27 - Even Though I'm Gone...
===

Upon arriving at the Ark, Joe had issued his report to Ingrid, informed her that she could tell Syuen to shove it if the little twerp thought she had any right to complain about the outcome of the operation - considering they hadn't been informed they were hunting a fucking Tyrant - then immediately demanded a meeting with Andersen, considering Chatterbox had known personal details about him it really shouldn't have been aware of.

The little detail about Chatterbox alone had caused Ingrid to audibly break something like a pencil over the comms line when he'd mentioned it to her - the added bit about Chatterbox having known the shit it did got her to say she'd have Andersen immediately go to meet him at the Outpost, declaring that she'd handle Syuen while he handled the Deputy Chief.

So, quickly enough, Andersen had emerged into Joe's apartment/office/suite. He dumped his hat on the desk, claimed the seat across from Joe, and immediately buried face in his hands.

After a time, Joe was the first to speak up. "I had a dream out there, on the surface. About a pair of Nikkes named 'Snow' and 'Red Hood.' Then, as Chatterbox pushed our collective shit in, pausing only to identify Rapi as a 'Grimms model, Red Riding Hood,' which really seemed to piss her off… Would you care to guess who emerged from the ether to save our asses, and quite visibly recognized both myself and Rapi, even saying my name aloud in response to seeing my face?"

There was a long beat.

"I don't know where to even begin," Andersen was very clearly not having a good time, shaking his head as he spoke. "I… Alright, alright," he made a halting gesture. "First off… it's good to hear that Snow White is still alive after all this time-" meaning that was a memory. Shit. "-Secondly… damn it, okay… just, give me a minute here. I wasn't expecting to find out about this having happened when I stopped paying attention to what was happening with you for a few damned days." Rubbing at his own face with a hand, Andersen let out a long, weary sigh. "I can't believe Ingrid didn't think to contact me about this entire thing before now…"

"I swear to God, if this is how I'm finding out that communication is going to be a problem in this little conspiracy-" Joe started, visibly agitated.

At that, Andersen again made a halting gesture, shaking his head as he replied, "Let's just- focus on the whole matter of your- or rather, our past. Given what happened out there, and who you encountered… I really don't know where to begin, though."

There was another beat before Joe spoke up again, reaching up and rubbing his face with both hands. "Chatterbox. That thing knew me - made a point to try abducting me because it recognized me. I thought that must have been because of the Blacksmith and Gravedigger. Then it identified Rapi as 'Red Riding Hood,' and suggested that she 'never strayed far from my side.'"

"Right… yes, that would be the most immediately pertinent thing," Andersen sighed, then let out a single, small chuckle. "Have you heard of the Legendary Commander, yet?"

"No," Joe replied plainly.

"I'm… actually genuinely kind of surprised by that, but, that being said," Andersen sounded genuinely taken aback. "The Ark sells him as the man that held the line against the apocalypse. He commanded the Goddess Squad, won mankind our first victories against the Raptures. Then went on to found the Commander Corps and the accompanying academy before disappearing into the annals of history without a trace…" The Deputy Chief Commander explained. Then stopped, and stared at Joe. Silently, and expectantly.

"No," was Joe's eventual, firm, and downright feral reply. "Bullshit."

"Joe-"

"Fuck you," the displaced Canuck pointed harshly at his commanding officer. "Fuck off, not me, there's no way in-!"

"Snow White was one of the Nikkes under your command during your tenure as the Legendary Commander of the Goddess Squad," Andersen cut him off. "Her, and Red Hood. Both are Grimms models, among the most powerful Nikkes ever created. Both answered to you, both fought under your command."

Joe just stared blankly at Andersen. "...I don't believe you," he declared. "My military experience consists of a few months in cadets when I was a teenager. I wouldn't have had the experience, the know-how to command a team of… of fucking supersoldiers holding the line against human extinction! I-"

"Your personal belief does not trump reality, Joe," Andersen pointedly cut him off, reaching into his coat to withdraw an envelope he proceeded to drop on the desk between them. "Red Hood adored old technology. Snow White was able to acquire an old Polaroid camera for her as a gift. She used that thing as often as she did the cassette player she cherished so much. These are the pictures she took and had taken of the squad, of us during the years we served together. These are the real deal, instantly developed nearly a century ago. Not digital captures that could have been tampered with using image editing software. Go on. Look, and tell me that these are fake."

Joe was hesitant for a few moments, then opened the envelope in question. The pictures inside were genuine old-school instant film cards - and they were old. Protected by an added layer of lamination, but even so, he could tell they'd been around a while before they'd been encased in a layer of protective plastic.

Moreover… They were pictures of himself, complete with his old olive drab fatigue jacket, swords, and even his aviators folded and hanging from the collar of his old favourite red shirt. Typically alongside him was a younger Andersen, who dressed like a massive fucking asshole, full Commander-style uniform combined with an oversized greatcoat hanging off of his shoulders like a cape, a peaked officer's hat, aviators, and a designer necktie, and a handful of jaw-dropping gorgeous young women - along with a single silver-haired teenager he immediately recognized. Snow White. And a striking redhead who was clearly the Red Hood from his dream.

Joe squinted, leaned in, and focused on the somewhat blurry image of Red Hood. She… kind of looked similar...? "Why does Red Hood look so different from Rapi?" he asked.

"Oh, it's going to floor you when you see her without that awful makeup she started caking on recently," Andersen noted with a sharp scoff. "I have no idea why she started doing that… but, I assure you, without all that crap on her face, she looks exactly as she does in those photos… well… save for-"

"The neon red hair, golden eyes, and horns?" Joe looked up from the picture past his eyebrows.

"-Yes, that," Andersen nodded. "There's a simple explanation for that. But, keep looking," he encouraged Joe.

And so, Joe did.

Many of the photos were… sloppy. Unless Red Hood wasn't obviously the one taking them; then they were suddenly a lot cleaner. But they painted a clear picture. Joe was the Commander of a previous squad of Nikkes, many, many decades ago. A legendary squad of Nikkes. And…

The first one aside from Snow White and Red Hood to catch his eye was a stunning, downright angelic beauty in a frilly white dress. Bright pink hair adorned with a colour-matched flower, framing a gentle, downright sweet face with large eyes the colour of precious amethysts. "...The pink one," Joe began inquisitively, considering how she never seemed to stray far from his side in most of the photos where they were present together. "What's her name?"

"Dorothy," Andersen answered plainly. "She was the second member to join the squad. The daughter of… a politician whose name I can't recall at this point. The squad's ace, in many ways. If she put her mind to something, she accomplished it, almost without fail. Generally, if she didn't seem to be able to do something, it was because she refused to make the attempt in the first place because she considered it beneath her. I'm sure you've noticed how she seemed to like being right next to you?" he asked.

"Ah, so, I suppose that was because she wound up as like… a second-in-command, of sorts, on account of seniority?" Joe figured.

"Well, she was eventually settled on as the first in line to take command of the team if both yourself and Liliweiss were ever indisposed or otherwise unavailable," Andersen replied as he closed his eyes, visibly lost in thought as he reflected on days long since past. "You two just wound up becoming fairly close in the midst of her dogged attempts to 'refine' you."

"Bwah?" Joe cried out in confusion and shock.

"You see, I'd wholly understand your confusion," Andersen started, "had you not panicked the first time you met her, and did that high-class sophisticated nobleman bit you'd do when talking to someone you perceived as being sophisticated in an attempt to save face. You gushed your thoughts about her being 'angelic' out loud, you see, and your attempt to course-correct and clean up that spaghetti you'd spilled all over her had given her the impression that you could be 'refined' into 'the perfect cultured Commander' because of it."

Andersen actually laughed out loud at the expression Joe made in response to that.

"It was great," the Deputy Chief Commander continued. "Having someone around that agreed with me about your… drab fashion sense, and conspired with me to actually get you to wear your uniform, cape and all."

"You tried to get me to wear a fucking cape!?" Joe cried, aghast at the notion.

"You would have looked dashing," Andersen asserted. "Which, according to Dorothy, you did, going off of the one time she convinced you to actually dress up for tea with her."

Joe was utterly mortified, staring at Andersen in open-mouthed horror. He wasn't sure what he'd been expecting to learn about his shared past with Andersen - that both Andersen and the Nikkes he'd been working with had been conspiring to gentrify him was not among what he'd imagined hearing about.

But, that aside… Joe started going through the photos again, doing his best to not get lost in the sauce and-

Sweet mother Mary of Joseph in Heaven-!

It took Joe a few moments to calm down after he got a clear, full-body shot of what looked to be a nun - albeit one that was… like, uh, holy shit hello ma'am-

Andersen started chortling aloud, leaning back in his seat, and his amusement was only further emphasized when it took Joe a good half minute to notice. It was like experiencing the squad's first meeting with their designated medic all over again… "Rapunzel always did have that effect on you, didn't she?"

While Joe did his best to not turn beet red, Andersen continued to laugh and laugh and laugh.

It wasn't Joe's fault. Rapunzel was… holy shit.

She was tall, as tall as himself and Andersen going off of these pictures. Her gorgeous, silken golden blonde hair tied back in a massive braid, sky blue eyes fixed on the camera with a gentle little smile on her warm, invitingly lovely face.

But, Joe would have to beg the forgiveness of whomever might be listening to his thoughts right then, but he couldn't think of another way to put it… she was built like an exaggerated hentai girl, with an hourglass figure that made Anis and Emma look homely in their builds comparatively. Those hips. Those hips, mother of God, she was absurdly beautiful, and-

Not wanting to be a total pig, Joe mentally grabbed and wrestled his brain to the ground, beat it into submission, and forced it to move on from her figure. She was stunning, yes, acknowledged and moving on.

Otherwise, notably, in terms of clothing, she could be best described as something of a neo-priestess. There was nothing modest about her attire, a dress which hugged her form from every angle. She notably had a blue cross tattooed on her exposed forehead. Or… was it a decal or just paint? Whatever, not important.

"...What about her, Rapunzel, then?" Joe inquired.

"Rapunzel was a sweetheart," Andersen replied. "Kind, considerate, intelligent… She worked for the Vatican's medical research institute before she was converted into a Nikke - and continued working with them even as a member of Goddess. Notably, she was actually on track to ascending to the Papacy of the Catholic Church beforehand… but she decided that it was more important for her to take up arms in defence of mankind on the front lines. She was so nervous around you and I, didn't interact with men all that much before joining Goddess. You being as knowledgeable as you were about the Bible went a long way to helping her feel comfortable around you… which… in a way, became somewhat problematic after Red Hood went and…" Andersen sucked in no small amount of air through his teeth, looking as though he was bracing against some terrible unseen force.

"...Went and what?" Joe asked, deeply concerned about the vibe he was suddenly giving off to the point of the point that Rapunzel might've been the Pope sort've slipped between the cracks.

"Don't worry about it," the Deputy Chief Commander blew off the topic, motioning for his subordinate to continue on.

As worrying as that was, indeed, he shouldn't get caught up and dwell on any one thing here, when there was the rest of the squad to cover. So, with that in mind, moving on-

Holy Rules of Nature, Batman!

The Metal Gear Rising soundtrack started playing in Joe's mind unheeded, but forcefully summoned forth by the sight of the Nikke in the picture he'd flipped to. Long grey hair framed a brooding countenance from which gazed baleful golden orbs. Like most Nikkes, she was beautiful, but in a cold, distant manner. Bedecked in blacks and reds, a skin-tight bodysuit which exposed her every curve, she wielded, extremely unusually for a Nikke, a sword. Aglow with power, single-edged, curved, and as long as she was tall. A series of plates armoured a single shoulder, and her ragged half-skirt was strapped to her hip by a tight belt. Notably, she seemed to have some sort of… crimson energy halo thing hovering over her head too.

"Scarlet was certainly an attention-grabber, wasn't she?" Andersen mused aloud. "I recall that you'd always assert that 'Rules of Nature' started playing in your head on its own whenever you looked at her… I maintain that I'd instead hear 'I Am All of Me,' but that's neither here nor there. The only member of the squad that wasn't a Grimms model, she was actually at one point a common mass-produced Nikke, but had been so extensively customized and upgraded by the time we'd met her, that she was reclassified as a true 'specialist' model just the same as the Grimms. She had a field day with you the moment she noticed you had swords on you back at the base."

"...Swords that I didn't actually know how to use?" Joe pointed out.

"Which she never believed, no matter how many times you repeated it," Andersen chortled from his belly. "'Pray tell, what manner of ill-begotten fool would make the ruinous mistake of presenting themselves a warrior with blades they know not how to wield? Cease this idle chicanery and draw your weapons that I might test thine steel and your mettle, Commander of the Blade!' She'd then chase you around the base, demanding 'satisfaction' all the while, which would send Rapunzel into a tizzy and enable Red Hood… So many times that caused her and Dorothy to get into scraps, when she'd rush to protect you, not that the two needed the excuse in the first place…" rubbing his eyes from some distant, long-standing exhaustion, Andersen nonetheless looked intensely amused. "You'd think I'd have forgotten those sorts of declarations after so long, but the way she spoke was so… antiquated that it stuck with you and simply refused to fade away."

…This was sounding more and more like a bona-fide goon squad, rather than what was apparently the most powerful squad of warriors to have ever existed in human history. Moving on regardless, the next photo revealed a…

Joe paused, blinked, leaned in to the picture, and felt a… shallow pit forming in his stomach. The same deep-seated dread one experienced when gazing upon something that plunged entirely too deep into the uncanny valley-

"Liliweiss was admittedly somewhat unsettling to gaze upon, before you got used to it," Andersen said, looking a bit put-off, but not saying anything against the expression gradually taking hold on Joe's face. "She was the first, as in, the literal first Nikke ever created. As you might imagine, they didn't quite nail the attempt to make her look like a naturalistic human being…"

The white-haired woman with an asymmetric bob was smiling pleasantly at the camera, and while she was beautiful at a glance in her well-fitted caped uniform, the eye rapidly started picking up on… obviously inhuman traits. Her skin was too perfect, literally without flaw in any way, shape, or form. There was a mild, artificial sheen to it, her features were… noticeably perfectly symmetrical, and her pupils were bright pink crosses - or were they flowers? They were obviously not human looking, regardless. She was adjusting a fine pair of white gloves as she acknowledged the camera, smiling genially as she did so.

"She was the true second-in-command of Goddess, and the most powerful Nikke ever created to this day." Andersen continued, his gaze falling low, attention fading into the ether as a visible melancholy found purchase on his features. "She was so powerful that nobody could create a weapon for her that she wouldn't rapidly accidentally destroy. She just settled on pummelling Raptures to death with her bare hands after a point. Yet she was easily the most intelligent member of the crew, despite having been a jet fighter pilot before her conversion rather than any sort of scientific mind like Rapunzel was. Smart, strong, one of the few people around able to corral the herd of cats that made up Goddess and get them to behave themselves, if only a bit…" For the first time since Joe had met the man, Andersen didn't just look sad: he looked downright heartbroken as his gaze drifted further and further off into the past. "...I miss that woman more and more each and every day."

Quickly, Joe started to figure that there might've been something between Andersen and Liliweiss - then the next photo all but confirmed it, given that it showed Andersen desperately, with terrible agony having caught and attempting to hold up a doubtlessly monstrously heavy swooning Liliweiss. The Nikke looked utterly smitten even as Andersen was visibly screaming in pain from the doubtless horrible strain on his limited human muscles and back, his aviators looking ready to slip from the tip of his nose as his knees comically buckled.

…No wonder he'd been so… decent about what had happened with Marian.

Not wanting to drag up painful old memories about a lost love, Joe continued to go through the pictures, finding one of an openly cheering Red Hood holding a squirming and doubtlessly whining Snow White in a headlock. "...Snow White looks like she visibly matured and grew since back then. How is that possible?" he asked the Deputy Chief Commander.

"Because she did," Andersen answered matter-of-factually. "The Grimms Nikkes had all sorts of quirks about them which makes them seem downright mystical compared to modern Nikkes. Such as the fact that Snow White was designed with a unique musculature and skeletal system meant to simulate naturalistic physical maturation using nanomachines. Her body was being very gradually broken down and rebuilt by her onboard nanites whenever she slept using processed materials she took in via eating, drinking, and if necessary, injecting. So that she wouldn't risk experiencing an eventual Mind Switch after being trapped in a teenager's body even after she emotionally matured into an adult over the course of her lifetime." Leaning back in his seat upon being brought back to the present, Andersen nodded as he thought back on the formerly little Nikke. "That was simply not necessary with the rest of the Grimms models, as you might imagine. They were all grown women by the time they were converted. Plus, the brass wasn't so keen on repeating the process of making Nikkes capable of growing again after they saw the cost of creating even the singular prototype that was Snow White…"

Yeah, that checked out… and really highlighted just how frighteningly far the Central Government's technology had fallen since then. Snow White was terrifying for the few seconds where she'd routed Chatterbox almost instantly. If they had more Nikkes on par with her today, they might've been making real headway in retaking the surface already. "What was her role in the squad? Sniper?"

"Engineer," Andersen corrected the assumption. "She maintained everyone's weapons, built new weapons for anyone and everyone at the base at the slightest inkling of an excuse to do so appearing, and deployed turrets, drones, and all sorts of other gadgets in combat. The things she built for everyone in the crew, like it was second nature to her…" shaking his head with a downright prideful smile, Andersen continued. "Red Hood was the resident sniper. That, and, well, the resident busybody menace."

Popping an eyebrow at that, Joe inquired, "In what way?"

"The trouble she'd cause and get into!" Andersen immediately threw his hands up in exasperation. "Egging on Dorothy and Scarlet's fights, corrupting Rapunzel with those old porn magazines, poking and prodding everyone, finding, intentionally or not, all of their triggers and pulling them repeatedly, if not intentionally then because she was such an id-driven dumbass," he sighed deeply, exhausted by the mere thought of the woman's antics. "To say nothing of how inscrutable she was."

Joe was about to ask what Andersen meant by that, but the next photo in the line-up consisted of… Joe, sitting in a chair eating something, with Red Hood having surprised him by draping herself over his shoulders to reach out and grab at his food with her bare hands, a massive shit-eating grin on her face even as she pulled him into an awkward over-the-shoulder back hug with her spare arm. "...The impression I got from my dream was that Red Hood and I didn't get along…"

"At first, you two did," Andersen replied. "In fact, you two got along entirely too well initially. Not only because of how incredibly jealous it made Dorothy, who wouldn't stop complaining about how she wasn't just 'undoing' all of her hard work in refining you, but was making you even more of a goon than you were at the start of everything. To say nothing of how she'd actively goad Rapunzel into trying to-" again, Andersen visibly caught himself before skipping over the point he was about to make. "Honestly, for a time, you two were so on the same wavelength that everyone was certain that…" drifting off, he shook his head, seeming to reconsider something. "But then, one day, out of the blue, she just turned on a dime, and suddenly treated you like a leper. That angered Dorothy even more than the perceived poaching of you ever did, and worse yet, she never actually explained to anyone, except for maybe Snow White why she suddenly couldn't stand you."

…Well. That sounded… awful. Joe wasn't sure what to make of that, beyond… "Is that why you seemed so worried about me getting along with Rapi?" he asked.

"Frankly speaking? Yes," Andersen confirmed the theory, adjusting his position in the seat, causing the faux-leather to crunch and protest at the motion. "I'm glad that you two are apparently getting on well now, but… I just worry about the possibility of things repeating themselves, despite the fact that Rapi's essentially a completely different person from Red Hood in every way that matters."

Gazing at the picture, Joe took in Red Hood's appearance, and decided to follow up on the inquiry that'd opened up this conversation. "Why does Rapi look so different now? Her hair, her eyes, the horns…" Her taste in clothing had changed wildly too. Red Hood wore a lot of oily obsidian-black latex that was clearly tailored to her every curve, to say nothing of how there were large 'panels' of material strategically missing on the thighs, revealing way more than one might've expected when at a glance, it looked like she was wearing full pants topped with the straps of a thong arcing out over the waist of the leggings.

Additionally, a red jacket was worn over a heavily-cropped latex top which consisted of what was basically a (unzipped) zip-up bra and full sleeves with integrated fingerless gloves, all capped off with a large, voluminous red scarf. Red Hood knew that she was a very pretty girl, had a style she was clearly proud of, and wanted everyone to know it.

"Well, the horns are just dressed-up antennas, to extend the effective range of communications. Not that she cared about that. She had them installed so she could make jokes about being a 'horny red devil' to everyone constantly, which, somehow, Rapunzel never picked up on even as Red Hood actively exposed her to degeneracy…" rubbing his heavily stubbled chin, Andersen answered easily enough.

…Joe really struggled to imagine Rapi cracking jokes like that, but he supposed it was what it was…

"As for the hair and eyes? Red Hood was a natural blonde, for starters," Andersen continued. "The ruby red eyes are what they'd look like normally too… her hair was literally aglow most of the time because she refused to close the throttle on her 'super mode,' I think it was called 'Exceed' or something like that. Hair burned red, eyes glowed gold. It was a shockingly successful attempt to allow a Nikke to perform nearly on-par with Liliweiss without the constant associated wear the first of the Nikkes experienced just… living. Liliweiss didn't have the safeties and limiters the Grimms had been built with in response to how taxing the upkeep on her body was, effectively overclocked and red-lined 24/7 as she was."

"...Why did Red Hood refuse to shut off her super mode?" Joe asked, almost fearing the answer.

"Every time someone asked, she'd just respond by…" bringing his hands up to his face in exasperation, Andersen continued, audibly pained, "declaring: 'Because I'm s-s-s-smokin' hot!' Followed by licking her finger and pressing it to her scalp and pantomiming a hiss with her mouth, then giving everyone in the room that damned ear-to-ear shit-eating grin of hers…"

…What a fucking goon, and Joe pointedly kept his comment about how much he liked that to himself because he didn't need to affirm the allegations about him being made more of a dumbass than usual by Red Hood right to Andersen's face this soon after hearing about her. "If she just kept it on all the time… wouldn't that be hard on her body?"

"She only just opened the throttle enough to trigger the red hair and glowing eyes, and had a degree of fine control over her power that Liliweiss never did," Andersen elucidated. "She was basically doing the equivalent of revving the engine in neutral, while Liliweiss was actually peeling out at a full-tilt in a barely controlled burnout even when she should have been idling, as it were. Being the first had its drawbacks, as you might imagine."

To say the fucking least… "So… can Rapi still do that?" Joe asked, because that seemed really important to address.

"Yes, but she absolutely should not unless it's a life-or-death situation," Andersen very, very forcefully declared, leaning forward in his chair as he did so. "The Ark's technical prowess has, to be blunt, regressed to the point of having absolutely no idea of how to properly maintain Rapi's body. Even her absurdly durable integral armour which you've seen for yourself is beyond the brainless nincompoops in the Central Government. Elysion has tried to reverse-engineer her systems and body, to disastrous results, given what happened when that thankfully anonymised data was shared with Missilis and produced Guilt-," Andersen forcefully shook his head, grit his teeth, and looked as though he was fighting back the urge to spit on the floor in disdain. "But, to no avail. Rapi's functioning at a small fraction of the power her core can actually output, because her body hasn't been properly maintained in many, many decades. She could open the throttle easily, that function is still open and available to her. The issue is that she'd basically be doing the equivalent of firing a Nikke-grade bullet through a human-grade rifle at this point. Her body couldn't handle it, not for more than maybe a few minutes with expected long-term and likely irreversible damage, at least."

…Well, good lord. "...Is this something I should bring up with her…?"

"Don't," Andersen pointedly shook his head. "Rapi… she knows that she's Red Hood, but she doesn't know who Red Hood is. Her past, what she's done and did, all lost to her. And it's best that she not have that information put on her at this point either. Doing so could… induce a Mind Switch. I hope I don't need to explain why that would be a bad thing."

Joe had gone over Mind Switches during his time with Marian. Nikkes could basically undergo Cyberpsychosis from Cyberpunk under the right circumstances, and it had the potential to be every bit as horrific as that suggested. And even when it didn't cause a Nikke to go violently insane… it would more often than not effectively cause personality death along with a high likelihood of a complete loss of memory. Reset to a blank slate, functionally as a completely different person. Just another kind of death, and a mortifying kind of birth from the ashes of the girl's former self that might as well no longer exist anymore.

If there was a fraction of a chance that confronting Rapi with this information could cause her to go through that, then it was off the fucking table, full-stop. Just… let sleeping dogs lay when they may. "I understand. I won't mention any of this to Rapi." But… now that the topic had been brought to mind, considering how Red Hood sounded like a totally different person apart from Rapi… "By the sounds of it… she's already survived a Mind Switch before, hasn't she?"

"Yes," Andersen replied, visibly crestfallen by the fact. "She has."

The two fell silent for a time, Joe musing on this horrible information bomb, Andersen thinking on the past with melancholy, and how close, yet so terribly far away a trusted comrade had been this entire time, looking at him like a total stranger whenever they'd interact…

Noticing one last photo, Joe drew it as he set the rest down to focus upon it - and felt everything he had upon setting eyes on Rapunzel, but redoubled. "...Uh," he started, looking at the image of yet another likely, strikingly curvaceous Nikke, a single ice-blue eye gazing downright sweetly up at him from a seated position past long bangs which hid her right eye, a hauntingly beautiful, anxiously eager smile forever captured in a perfect moment in time. "W-who's the silver-haired girl with the twintails?" Holy shit, she was the prettiest one out of the lot, and that was saying something.

Andersen didn't reply immediately to that. In fact, he looked like he'd just been told that a family member had died, slumping in his seat, eyes becoming incredibly downcast, and took a long minute to reply. "...Cinderella can wait for another day," he said, voice audibly straining for the first time since Joe had met him.

Joe could be a massive horse's ass, and was, in fact, generally kind of an ass at a baseline, when not pressed to be on his best behaviour and hold himself to a higher standard on account of circumstances. But he wasn't stupid. A damned fool at times, yes, but not stupid. Thus, he dropped the clear and obvious extremely sore spot without another word on the matter, regardless of how terribly his curiosity was stoked on the matter of this 'Cinderella.'

Instead, he shifted back to another obvious topic that had to be addressed. "...Snow White. My encounter with her. What do we do about this? What should we expect?"

At the very least, that seemed to bring Andersen back up to full power, the man immediately latching onto the question and addressing it with as much firm militaristic professionalism as he typically did. "This means that Snow White is in fact one of the Pilgrims we've received scattered reports of existing on the surface, operating independently of the Ark. If she's out there, still as strong as she ever was… it means that the other surviving members of Goddess might well be counted among the Pilgrims." He paused, noticing the quirked eyebrow Joe was wearing. "...Ah, Pilgrims are Nikkes with no apparent connection to the Ark, living on the surface. I always had my suspicions, but… it's good to know that at least the White Reaper is still raising Hell up there. Otherwise… if nothing else, it means that she is going to come looking for you. You… you and Red Hood would have been thought lost to them, and she'll want answers."

"...And what would those answers be, Andersen?" Joe pointedly asked. "Why were us three, you, me, and Red Hood present in the Ark, while the rest of Goddess have apparently been on the surface this entire time, thinking us dead?"

Andersen opened his mouth, only to have his watch start loudly beeping, eliciting a curse from him. "Damn it, got too wrapped up in the nostalgia bait… I'm out of time here, I put off an important meeting and have to return to the Ark before I run the risk of pissing off the Central Government brass and drawing eyes we do not want on us." Standing, he adjusted his uniform to make sure everything was in order, and with a nod, reached out and grabbed the pictures of Liliweiss specifically, depositing them into a spare envelope he'd evidently had on him… then he reached back out, for the picture of Cinderella. But he halted mid-reach, expression unreadable.

After an awkward moment of silence, Joe started moving to hand the photo to his commanding officer, only for Andersen to sharply retract his hand entirely, shaking his head at the motion. "No," he said, voice again taking on a strained edge. "...No. She'd have… she'd have wanted you to have at least one nice picture of her."

…Well Christ alive that statement carried all sorts of implications Joe couldn't even begin to sort out. Nor did Andersen give him the chance to even start, pointing at a seemingly random floor tile. "There's a hidden safe under that false tile. Tie its lock to your biometrics, and do not let anyone else see these. As soon as I have more time, we'll meet again to continue discussing these matters. But, until then, before I go…" he took a deep, bracing breath. "Either Chatterbox knew who you were because the Raptures simply never forgot you, or, more worryingly, this relates back to the matter of how, exactly, Marian was Corrupted from within the Ark itself."

It felt like a hot iron zipped up Joe's spine, and it took everything he had to not demand more information.

"For now, recuperate and ready yourselves for more deployments to the surface. Counters is, after all, still a member of the Ark's military, and there's no rest for the wicked on this bitch of an Earth." With that, Andersen set his cap back on his head, nodded to Joe, and departed with the pictures of Liliweiss in tow, leaving the rest with the displaced Canadian… including the picture of Cinderella, the currently most mysterious member of Goddess, maybe? What exactly was her relationship to both Andersen and Joe, for the Deputy Chief to react the way he did to the discussion even beginning to move onto her? And the matter of Snow White being expected to be looking for him and Rapi now… and the implications behind the notion that Marian's corruption may have tied into Chatterbox's knowledge of Joe…

The apparently Legendary Commander was deeply frustrated by the realization that this talk with Andersen had wound up leaving him with far more pressing questions than those he'd had answered. "Man, fuck this cloak-and-dagger cyberpunk conspiracy dystopia bullshit..."

---

Marching forth through the untamed no-man's-land of the surface with a purpose, the wind causing her long, silvery locks to whip to-and-fro with wild abandon, Snow White dead-focused on her target as though nothing else in all the world mattered. Not Chatterbox, not right now. The wretched, vile, lowly creature had managed to evade her punishing grasp, and for as terribly as she'd love to strangle and crush and rip and tear every last fragment of life from that abomination, it was nearing that time of the month. The time when the remaining members of Goddess convened to discuss what they'd found, what had happened, what they'd done since their last meeting the month previously.

The Commander and Red Hood were alive. They were alive, they were alive, and serving the Ark. Why? Under what pretenses? Were they being coerced? Were they willing servants to those that had betrayed them so callously all those years ago during Operation Ark Guardian? Why did the Commander seem so… shocked to see her? As though he couldn't believe his eyes? As though… he were seeing a ghost?

Questions. Questions with no answers, not yet. But answers they would receive. Pioneer squad walked this forsaken Earth in honour of those long lost - those thought long lost. Their Commander, their sister… both were there, and in her unhinged wrath, Snow White had made the mistake of letting them slip away, of letting herself lose them in favour of unleashing all of her fury upon the writhing Tyrant when she should have driven it off, and returned to the Commander's side, where she belonged, where they all belonged…

Once again, once more, she had failed him. Once more, the Commander was there, he was right there, and she just… let him go. Let him march into the maws of the beast, did nothing, did the wrong thing, and for so many decades, he was lost to them. Yet… Red Hood, she was there, she was protecting him, despite how things had been between them last they'd been together at the Ark's main entrance, she was shielding their Commander she professed to detest so much.

But, now she knew. Now the rest of Pioneer would know too. They were alive. They were active, they were operating on the surface - that meant they could track them down, find them, and… Save them? Or interrogate them? She supposed that it depended on the answer they received from their old comrades, from the man they all cherished so much, from the sister they'd all thought lost to the cruel malaise of her mysterious, unseen departure, her closing chapter forever unknown to them…

Idly, she wondered: if Joe and Red Hood were alive, if perhaps Andersen might be as well. Perhaps such a thought, a hope, was gluttonous greed in its purest form. A miracle had presented itself to her once already - to hope for the impossible beyond that, she might as well pray that Liliweiss herself would in turn step out from behind the tree she was about to pass, right as rain, ready and raring to bring the fight to the Rapture Queen, as though nothing had happened all those terrible years ago…

Questions. Questions upon questions upon questions - they would need to formulate a plan, get to their Commander and sister, and, if need be, rescue them. Their Commander, their sister, they'd found their way back home... and Snow White dared to doubt them. No, never. Never again, never again would she fail them. She knew them. She trusted them. Their Commander would need them, Joe needed them. This entire time, once, and now again... Red Hood, for how long had she shouldered this burden alone?

No more. Never again. They'd bring their family back home. Once again, they'd be made whole.

"Wait for me, Commander," Snow White said, projecting her voice forth and into the wildness unheeded, her gaze steely and unbreaking, free hand intensely gripping the hilt of one of the blades he'd left with her - the promise - the tools that he had her promise to cherish, until the day came that he returned to reclaim them, her purpose renewed. "I'll be right there. So... just wait for me. I'll be right there."

But, in the midst of the storm of thoughts and emotions that raged in her mind, one thought in particular shone more brightly than any other. A declaration which, so many long years ago, had cost them their leader, had driven Dorothy to the wretched depths she had sunk to.

Why?

Why had Oswald lied to them?

 

[palacesound]

Why had Oswald lied to them?

Click to shrink...

The Central Government fucks everyone.

 

[Zam138]

Why had Oswald lied to them?

Click to shrink...

It truly is cruel, tbh. Oswald was their biggest fanboy he remembered everything about the Goddess Squad and their feats (RedAsh)... and was then assigned to be the man who closed the door in their face (OverZone)

Either it's cruelty on the CG's part... or a self-assigned penance. "Someone had to do it. It had to be me."

 

[palacesound]

With how this seems to be going, Joe may actually need to be exfiltrated by Pioneer Squad before long. Since he still looks exactly the same, he's gonna be in incredible danger from CG when he gets even a little bit famous in current-day Ark. Anderson can't protect him forever... or well.

 

[Daniel K. English]

Either it's cruelty on the CG's part... or a self-assigned penance. "Someone had to do it. It had to be me."

Click to shrink...

Probably this. CG made the decision, and someone would have had to do it.

Oswald actually kept in touch with Dorothy and the others until the doors locked, which is certainly above and beyond. The last supply drop was probably unnecessary by CG expectations as well.

And of course there's Joe being a harem protagonist. Considering the setting, that might be a welcome trope.


Poor Dorothy.

 

[Fragment of Serenity]

I vote that they just drop the CG out into the world and let the Raptures solve the issue.

 

[Slamm-O]

Snow is the best but gods when she drops this with pioneer its going to be all kinds of bittersweet and heart breaking.

I vote that they just drop the CG out into the world and let the Raptures solve the issue.

Click to shrink...

I second this motion.

 

[AldariSiradla]

When Pioneer gets word...
They'll drop their shit...
And make an Exodus to his side.
When Inherit hears of this...
They'd lose their shit...
And make a march for War.
Excited to see Goddess Squad back together...
Even if it is a hundred years in the making.