The Enemies

All at once the party launched their attack. With expert proficiency, Captain swung his bat and took down two enemies with barely a scrape on his arms from their bullets. Before, using his baseball skills for violence such as this always brought on a feeling of nausea over him, but his body and mind has gotten used to it by now that he couldn’t help but feel a tiny bit of disgust at himself for developing this tolerance. “Baseball star my ass,” he muttered with a disparaging smile.

Meanwhile, Jian fought with nothing but his own bare hands and feet and expertly took down two more enemies using beautiful yet deadly movements. He used just enough force to incapacitate them and broke their weapons with his own two hands. They fell to his feet with a thud. Jian brushed his hands and met Captain’s eyes, giving him a silent nod of victory.

Data, though she may not look like the offensive type, held in her hand a solid metal firearm the size of a pistol but with a rectangular barrel and wide muzzle. When she pressed the trigger, a beam of neon-red light shot out. The laser heated up the air around it as it traveled through the air, forming tiny bubbles of condensation. When it struck its target, the extent of the danger it presented was made very clear. It cleanly sliced off the enemy’s arm that was holding the gun. With one more push of the trigger, she shot the laser straight at the enemy and it was split into two.

Fender and Suzuran held onto each other in fear as the last two enemies came for them. “They’re coming! They’re coming!” shouted Fender. He turned to Suzuran with childlike eyes and begged, “Please don’t let me go, Suzuran! Whatever you do, don’t let me go!” Suzuran was fearing for life herself and Fender was only adding more unneeded anxiety with his cowardice. They both took steps backwards and Suzuran tripped on a pebble. Fender felt Suzuran’s hands slip from his and turned to see her on her knees. “Suzuran,” whispered Fender with widened eyes. ‘She must be very scared!’ he thought to himself. ‘I must do whatever it takes to protect her!’

Unbeknownst to him, the backpack that Suzuran carried on her back broke her fall. When it did, some contents spilled out. Suzuran noticed a bag of bamboo shoots among the spilled contents. The bag had a yellow tag on them and she remembered something that Data had given her when they first met. She grabbed the bag and opened it. The two enemies were about ready to fire their weapons again when Suzuran threw the bamboo shoots into the ground before her and Fender.

Fender, meanwhile, was still caught up in his own delusions and remembered a memory from his past. Back then, he was known for his strong character as a protector of his fans, opting to put his fans (mainly the ladies) first before his duties as a money-making entertainer. Seeing Suzuran retreat back behind him brought him back to his senses as a protective entertainer. He stood his ground before the enemies and held out his hands to protect Suzuran behind him. “With darkness as my witness, I shall put down my sword to protect the angels of this world! You demons must now dance with me. I will show you the might of the beast that which you have awakened within me with your boorish ways!” declared Fender grandly.

Suddenly, a thick wall of bamboo sprouted from the earth and grew to be more than three meters tall. The enemy opened fire but their bullets didn’t do much to damage the thick skin of these genetically-altered bamboo. Suzuran turned to Fender and said in an urgent voice, “Red Hyacinth!”

Fender was a little taken aback by Suzuran’s words before they finally clicked. He brought out his Fender guitar and plugged the cable to a little amp attached to his right hip. He pressed a button on the amp to turn it on. And then, with a full-forced strum of a F power chord, the speaker shot out a visible soundwave that shook the bamboo as it passed through it. The soundwave’s destructive force was made apparent by how it broke apart the enemies’ weapons and incapacitated their bodies.

All of the enemies were now defeated and the party regrouped. “Good job team,” said Captain with a big smile on his face. “I’m glad to see that none of you were injured. We seem to be improving after each encounter we have with the enemy. This is good news. It means that we will soon be ready to finally face our main opponent in combat and win with a homerun!”

“With how we continue to encounter more and more enemies with fewer rests in between each encounter means that we are on the right track,” said Jian.

Fender, Data, and Suzuran exchanged surprised looks. “That’s the most we’ve ever heard you speak,” said Fender with a grin.

“Fool,” Jian replied to Fender.

“Eh? Now he’s back to his cool-self,” said Fender disappointingly.

“Now, now,” mediated Captain with an awkward smile.

Data approached one of their fallen enemies and kneeled down to check something that had caught her eye. The enemy, known simply as Meta, were human-like robots that were controlled remotely by Laplace. They look like humans in shape and form but otherwise had an obvious metallic body. Prior to this era, they were part of a line of advanced A.I. powered robots that were produced with the aim of improving human life. They were often dressed in uniforms according to their job and had visors that served as both functional sensors and as an identifying feature to discern them from humans. Once Laplace got out of control, all Meta were quickly put under its control. It was because of Meta that Laplace were able to establish its rule of terror on humanity and the Earth.

However, these Meta appeared to be different. Data somehow sensed it when she had sliced off the arm of her enemy. She grabbed the Meta’s visor and took it off. What she saw under it shocked her. By now, the others had also seen what she had seen. Suzuran let out a scream and Fender turned around to empty his stomach through his mouth.

“What the hell is this?” asked Captain with a scowl.

“I had a hunch that something was off about them,” said Data with a shake of her head. “On a regular Meta, if you were to take off their visor, you would only see their A.I. brain and cables. But this is different.”

This Meta was indeed different. Instead of a bunch of cables and computer chip, there was only a pair of dead human eyes staring back at them. There was no doubt about it—those eyes were human.

“I was wondering why the arm of the Meta I shot down looked different,” said Data, going back to her fight. “I knew it. What I saw back then was human muscle.”

“W-What does this mean?” asked Fender, recoiling back from his upset stomach.

Data turned the head of the human-Meta and saw something that confirmed her suspicions. Right behind the right ear was a small circular metallic chip. Captain took one look at it and bared his fangs. “ICON Chip,” he snarled.

ICON Chip, or Integrated Cerebral Operating Network Chip, was the star product of Laplace. Originally created to allow for humankind to access the internet with their brains, it didn’t take long for people to malfunction along with Laplace’s rise to power. If anything, the main reason why the world has come to this can be blamed on this product alone.

“S-S-So the e-e-enemies that we f-fought—,” stuttered Fender in horror.

“Were humans controlled by Laplace,” finished Jian grimly.

Fender felt a second wave of nausea come over him. Before he succumbed to it, he pointed out an observation that he hoped would negate this terrible truth. “B-B-But there was no blood at all! Shouldn’t there be a pool of blood where his arm was sliced off? How can we be sure that they were human and not just really scarily good Metas?”

“They were dead the entire time,” concluded Data.

“Dead the entire time?!” exclaimed Fender in horror.

“ICON Chips send and receive electrical signals from the brain,” explained Data. “It is entirely possible that it can still work even after the death of its wearer. After all, the ICON Chips are all connected to Laplace. It must be receiving orders from Laplace and translating it into electrical impulses to affect different nerves in the body to illicit actions in compliance with the orders it receives.”

“Um, what does that mean exactly?” asked Fender, scratching his head.

“It means that the human wearers, dead or alive, are being controlled by Laplace through the chips,” surmised Captain. “Laplace, you’re gonna regret playing us like fools.”