"Everything Covered in Fog"

“Nifty disguise, see?” Grace said, raygun in hand.

Zipper didn’t understand. She already had that image of Grace in her mind, the one that she used for her Talos Mimicry Protocol, a Grace so full of life, so wise, so realistic, that the actual Grace seemed like a sham. Zipper hadn’t seen her in six years. During that time, Grace’s hair grew longer, unkempt, loose strands across her forehead. Paranoid creases lined her face. Her eyes still looked amused, self-confident, but there was a fire rising in them now, an uncontrolled flame verging on inferno.

Zipper reached out. “Grace, it’s me-”

Kenny Franco smacked away Zipper’s hand and trained the pie-gun on her. “That’s the Caesar-Messiah you’re speaking to!”

“The wha?”

Anon6 snarled. “Haven’t you heard? The Caesar-Messiah will save us all!”

Nat, who went to high school in Chicagoland, simply had no idea what the fuck was going on. Sue and Zipper, who were Grace’s former classmates, knew only a little bit more.

“Grace, it’s me, Sue! Remember? We had gym class together!”

Grace tilted her head. “You still haven’t taken my advice about deodorant, have you?”

Sue opened her mouth, paused, then grew teary-eyed. “It’s been a long day…I was arrested like nine hours ago…”

Zipper stepped forward, not scared of the two followers, since Grace, even after all these years, was still her slick Club President who looked after her friends. “What’s going on, Grace? Waddya doing with a gun? And who are these oddballs? A-Actually, why are you in Tokyo in the first place?”

The moonlight pouring through the scaffolding darkened as clouds passed by.

“We have so much to catch up on,” Zipper said softly. “You’ve inspired me to find myself. Even after all these years, it’s amazing how big of an impact you’ve made on me.”

The followers looked at their savior. Grace’s face remained amused, tired.

“I appreciate hearing that. I want to make the same impact on everyone. But I didn’t go to high school with everyone, see? There are trillions out there. You have to take creative measures to inspire people nowadays.”

Grace stood before Azuki.

“You know what I’m here for,” Grace simply said.

Azuki eyed the raygun. It made a very persuasive argument.

Slowly, she turned. Back now to Grace, she undid her kimono-

“Wha!” exclaimed Zipper, Sue and Nat similarly confused, but Kenny and Anon6 cocked their pie-guns. Altamont had an injured wing, Charles looking after him. Everyone else there was unconscious.

Very carefully, Azuki lowered the back of her kimono. As bare skin became exposed, Zipper couldn’t believe her eyes - stretching across Azuki’s back was the most magnificent tattoo she had ever seen. Crimson dragons flew across cloud-covered shoulder blades; white-faced mikos with billowing red robes danced up her ribs; a bright sun shone down from the nape, illuminating a torii gate stretching across upper vertebrae. A minutely-detailed shrine covered the center of her back, beneath the gate. At its center stood a large stone pillar covered in symbols.

Zipper squinted her eyes. These weren’t mere symbols; they were numbers.

“Since the Sengoku,” Grace said, eyes alight. “The Shinjitsu-kai have tattooed their truths onto the heir of the sect. There used to be a thousand truths. But since Jackson Mississippi and Doc Rooney arrived at Starlight Cafe a thousand years ago, the sect dedicated themselves to only one truth. One formula to unlock the True Harmonic Future.”

Grace traced a finger down a miko. Azuki shivered at the touch.

“The 24th time capsule,” Grace whispered in awe. “The last piece of Jackson’s formula to replace the Laws of Nature with the Law of Man, and establish peace for all time…”

Azuki’s face drooped in shame as Grace’s Eye-Implant filmed and photographed the tattoo from every possible angle, capturing the tiniest of details. As she worked, the two followers grinned in achievement. And then, out on the edge of the 662nd floor, a beret appeared from outside, two eyes beneath it, looking like ol’ Kilroy Was Here. Zipper opened her mouth, but Kaede brought a finger to her lips.

Kyoko popped up next to her. Together, silently, the two unveiled their most recent models - Kaede with space-cruiser Nachi, and Kyoko with space-cruiser Mogami. Both were filled with firecrackers. In unison, they raised their arms and flung their models toward Grace.

Grace and her followers, so enraptured by the tattoo, didn't notice the incoming cruisers until it was too late. Grace's eyes widened as the ships closed in on her - too late to dodge, too late to fire back!

But then Nachi swerved left and accidentally rammed Mogami.

“Damn it!” swore Kaede. “It always does that.”

Both cruisers, though stopped short, exploded in a spectacular show of firecrackers and lights. In the confusion, Nat knocked Kenny and Anon6's heads together, while Zipper charged Grace. She didn’t know what she was gonna do, so she kind of just awkwardly fumbled between her and Azuki.

“Grace! What’s going on? You’re going around pointing guns at people and making ‘em strip for you! That’s not the Grace I knew.”

Kaede and Kyoko scrambled onto the floor. A swearing Haraguchi, head throbbing, began to rise. Grace analyzed the situation and responded by taking out the beams holding up the scaffolding above them.

“Then you didn’t know me all that well,” Grace answered. She took off, knocking away an incoming Kaede. She urged Kenny and Anon6 onwards; they disengaged from the fight and withdrew down the stairs. The Dime Boys wanted to follow, but the floor above was collapsing, and there were several unconscious people, bad as they may be, who would be hurt if they didn’t do something.

Kaede ordered the flying taxi-drone that brought her and Kyoko there to wait on the edge of the 662nd floor. The Dime Boys and friends stuffed Polymermen and Tigers alike into the drone. As the beams and columns gave way, the scaffolding above entered into a general collapse, the chaos kicking up dust and smoke, causing a chain reaction that sent more of the incomplete 663rd floor tumbling downwards. Kaede and Kyoko ushered Azuki into the van; Altamont and Nat dove inside while Charles carried Sue (she was lazy). That just left Zipper, who’s lack of athleticism meant that she grew exhausted about halfway to the drone.

Zipper huffed and puffed, but then a big rebar of A-Polymer fell in a sharp trajectory towards her stomach. She couldn’t do nothing but cry about the end of her short, young life, where she accomplished nothing and her role model turned out to be a nutjob.

But then Haraguchi yanked her out of the way. The rebar slammed into nothing as the 662nd floor itself began to collapse. Haraguchi scooped her up, dodged falling debris, and jumped into the flying taxi right as the floor gave way. The taxi zoomed off, leaving behind rising smoke that drifted into the neon air.

All those conscious in the van eyed the ruins.

“Well, that was kind of cool,” Sue said.

Nat dope-smacked her on the head.