Chapter 29

 Then, everything went quiet. No more rumbling? She opened her eyes and found her laying on the cliff overlooking the beach in her mind.

“Damn, guess we’re busted, eh?”

Hanabi turned her head in the direction of a voice that could only belong to Kumoko. However, it wasn’t just Kumoko in her head space. All the girls except for Sofia were hanging out there, looking positively exhausted. It’s almost as if they were the ones fighting Apex.

. . . . . . . . . . .

‘Wait a minute…’

She pulled up her system logs, she thought her body was acting strangely and now she knew why. Apparently these girls brought it upon themselves to use the innate neural link the squad shares, break in, and start messing with her code to… make her more effective, it looked like?

“You’ve been bypassing my built-in security, uploading code, enhancing my functions, and… what is this? Linking your neural maps to my own? What is that?”

“Basically,” Irene raised her hand from the ground, “we were making you a more efficient fighter to stand up to Apex.”

“How does that work?”

“...I am way too burned out to explain it.”

“Besides is that really the weirdest thing you’ve seen today alone, ms living-dead girl made of metal and spare parts fused with tech built from super-powered people who is going toe-to-toe with the most powerful Super in recent history?” Claire said with a smirk.

“...I guess. Still though, why? Why would you help me?”

“Yeah, that’s what I wanna know too.” Sofia stepped into the realm, walking around all the girls and looking at them with a mix of scorn and disappointment. “Everyone get up.”

All the girls groaned.

“Stand at attention, right now!” Sofia’s cane slammed into the ground, creating a booming noise that reverberated throughout the space — as impossible as that seemed.

The girls immediately got to their feet and stood upright, except Hanabi.

“So, I’ve been in standby for a while now…” Sofia said while pacing the line. “But, from what I can tell… you girls have decided, for some reason, to try and assist in attacking Apex. Who I will remind you, is a 1st-Class Paragon!”

They all averted their gaze.

“Look at me when I’m talking to you!” She struck the ground with her cane again. Sofia pinched the bridge of her nose in a clear act of frustration. “You know this is treason, right? They’re not gonna give you a slap on the wrist and let you go on your way. AT BEST, you’ll be dismantled and retired. At worst… I don’t even have a lexicon to describe how much WORSE it could get. You understand that, right?”

“Ma’am.” Irene stepped forward. “We were just-”

“And you! Really? I expect that from them, but you? Oh also, Mariposa, don’t think I’ve forgotten you either. You two are supposed to be the mature ones in the group.”

“Well, ma’am… the thing about this… we, um, we felt that Apex would use this as an excuse to go after the entire Sparrow Regiment.” Mariposa was obviously lying, based on the wavering in her voice. It was a weak excuse at best.

“Ma’am!” Kumoko raised her hand. “He attacked Hanabi first!”

“Who in the stars is Hanabi?”

Hanabi raised her hand. “That’s my name now, ma’am.”

“Did I mention that earlier? Honestly, my drones are still processing memories in my head so… I might’ve forgotten.”

“Well I’m glad you found a name, however… when I mentioned that we eventually develop a personality of our own, I didn’t think you’d develop into an idiot. And also!” She rounded on Kumoko. “We have backup consciousnesses uploaded to our secure servers! Even if he destroyed her frame, it’s not like she’d really die, she’d just be asleep for a while.”

“It wouldn’t really be her though.” Kumoko mumbled.

“What was that?”

“Nothing, ma’am.”

“I don’t think he had any intention of letting anyone leave alive.” Naomi spoke up. She eyed Hanabi.

“And why would he want to do that?”

“Well, he is Apex, that man’s got more of his own soldiers killed than the actual enemy.” Claire mumbled, and then shut up when Sofia shot her a look.

Naomi continued, “...Intuition. We’ve been watching since she confronted the terrorists. These terrorists had something that the Consortium wanted back. Meaning, he’s likely under orders to glass the region if anyone happened to see it. Though…”

“Given that it’s Apex,” Mariposa interrupted. “It’s probable that he’d have found an excuse to glass the region.”

Claire picked up the conversational baton, “Ya know, just to be absolutely sure. Not like the council would have an issue with that, all they’d lose is some soldiers, an independent settlement, and probably whatever resources they were gonna negotiate for. All expendable. And even with that in mind, they’d likely just have another unit to quickly grab what they can before New Genesis or the FSA moved in to pick through the remains.”

“So… if I’m understanding correctly, you decided to commit treason based on speculation? Is that right?”

No one said anything.

“I should have each of you dismantled and debugged for this, there’s clearly some major malfunctions in your programming. You realize you might’ve put the whole regiment in danger because of this?”

“Ma’am, if I may, I made sure our tracks would be covered. Even Hanabi herself didn’t realize that we were helping her.”

“Ya know, until she checked the logs! And besides, this isn’t up for discussion! I can’t even see a way out of this situation, Apex looks like he won’t stop until she’s scrap metal. And even that might not be enough.” Sofia once again pinched the bridge of his nose. “Honestly, you girls really screwed up this time, and I don’t know how I can save you from whatever the consortium has planned when they find out about this.”

Everyone remained silent.

“Whatever,” Sofia sighed, “Under the authority as commander of the Sparrow Regiment, I’m putting an end to this right-”

“He was gonna get away with it.” Hanabi finally spoke up.

“Get away with what exactly?”

“He took someone very precious from me. He just… killed them. they were a child, and he killed them. He didn’t even care.” Hanabi got to her feet. “No one was going to hold him accountable, nobody would even try. How do you punish someone who views themselves as a god and has the power to back it up.”

Hanabi brought up the window, time hadn’t really slowed, they were just communicating extremely quickly in this realm, so when viewing real space, it only seemed like time was slow. “I won’t ask you to understand me, but I can’t let him get away with it. I’m sorry if I’m being stubborn, and this wasn’t what I originally intended, but it’s already gone too far.” Her finger hovered over the exit button. “I’m sorry, but I have to see this through.” She pushed the button.

. . . . . . .

A giant X overlaid on top of the exit button. She tried again, but again nothing happened. She was trapped here.