A Plot to Kill

Ulrich woke up, with Dominic still sleeping. Considering his first time spending the night in a giant beanbag, he slept pretty well. He thought he would have some kind of back pains from sleeping in a weird position, or front pains from some insane Japanese girl stabbing him. He checked the door, and nothing happened when he opened it. He saw Dominic moving, about to wake up.

"Uh, dude? Do you have a knife inside you?"

Dominic looked at him, as if he was asked a question about being stabbed just as he woke up. He looked under his bedsheets.

"Is this some kind of…dude, I'm straight." He replied groggily. "What kind of line is that anyway?"

"So you weren't stabbed?" Ulrich asked.

"No?" Dominic murmured. "Can I go back to bed?"

Okay, he wasn't stabbed. That was something. He checked for Sapphire, who was up, drinking some coffee.

"Oh, hey Solar." She was as calm as ever, so it stood to reason that neither her nor Lainey were murdered.

"Hey." Ulrich replied, trying not to seem panicked. "You sleep well?"

"Eh, the couch was kinda small. But Lainey seems to be fine." She took another sip of her coffee.

"So, did Ayana come into your room at any point?" Ulrich asked.

"Don't think so." Sapphire responded, giving Ulrich a weird look. "Why?"

"Well, I thought I heard something last night, but if nobody heard anything, then it was probably just a dream." Ulrich gave a slight chuckle, in an attempt to get Sapphire to dismiss everything he just said.

"So, what are you doing today, anyway?" Ulrich asked after a few seconds of silence.

"Shopping, I guess." Sapphire replied calmly. "Probably gonna bring Axe with me, he seems to know what sells around here."

Ulrich tried to come up with another conversation topic to distract her, but Ayana walked in.

"Hey, did you make any weird noises last night?" Sapphire asked. "Solar here apparently heard something."

"No?" Ayana replied, seeming to fake confusion, staring at Ulrich with enough intensity to burn him herself.

"If you say so." Sapphire responded, taking her coffee mug to the sink.

"So, you heading out today?" Ayana asked.

"Yeah." Sapphire replied, putting some bread in their toaster.

"Well, can one of you stay behind? Shin and I will be meeting a friend on the other side of Tokyo."

"Do you…not have keys?" Ulrich asked.

"Shin lost his keys at a teachers union meeting, and I lost mine on a job."

"Can you not cancel the meeting?" Sapphire asked.

"Nah, it's a pretty big deal." Ayana sighed, taking some of Sapphire's toast out of the toaster, and taking a bite without putting anything on it. "I'll be leaving at around half nine, and we'll be back at three. So can you do me a favour and stay here?"

"Sure." Ulrich sighed. This kinda sucked, but it was like, a few hours, so it was all good. Unless this was some kind of plan to kill him and...suck out his fire energy, or something.

Ayana gave a thumbs up. "I'll buy you dinner afterwards."

"Ooh, dinner?" Sapphire interjected, smirking. "Sound good, Ulrich?"

"Uh, yeah!" Ulrich replied hastily. Measuring up against Ayana, he didn’t know if he could fight her. She had more experience in magic, and he didn’t even know what she could do.

"Relax, lady. It's not like that." Ayana replied, rolling her eyes. "I went through it mentally, and it wouldn't work out, anyway."

"Oh come on. Like, a small family of little mage babies. And I can babysit. Trust me, I would be the best babysitter."

"Yeah, that really changed my mind." Ayana rolled her eyes again, and went out of the room, mumbling something in Japanese.

"You get that?" Ulrich asked.

"Something about bats? I don't know, my Japanese is pretty basic."

"Oh yeah, you'd speak Japanese." Ulrich wasn't really that surprised.

"Eh, my main language is Spanish." Sapphire replied. "Hung out there for a few months, so I write and think in Spanish now."

"Cool." Ulrich still had no idea if she was even Spanish or not, and by the sound of it, neither did she.

Lainey came into the room, her pink hair a barely contained mess, but still covering her left eye.

"Mornin, what are the plans for today?"

"Stocking the ship." Sapphire replied.

"Staying here, because they somehow both lost their keys." Ulrich moaned.

"Man, that sucks." Lainey sighed. "Is Dominic staying here, then?"

"He better not. He knows everything about this place." Sapphire said.

And finally, almost like a calling card on a TV sitcom, Dominic made his appearance, fully dressed.

"Hey, what you need me for?" Dominic yelled out. Ulrich could hear the canned TV laughter in his head.

"Hey, you know what's popular in Japan, right?" Sapphire asked.

"Yep." Dominic replied, opening the cabinet and taking out some cereal, looking at the two boxes.

"So, you mind coming with me to help me pick out some stuff for the boat?" She asked.

Dominic was still looking at the cereal boxes, eventually shrugging, pouring the milk, and then a sample of the two cereals in both. "Sounds good." He finally answered. "I was gonna head out for new underwear anyway. Ulrich, Lainey, you guys need underwear?"

"Yeah." Ulrich replied.

"Sapphire covered me on the boat." Lainey replied.

Dominic squinted at Sapphire, who shrugged. "I'm a merchant, I had spares."

"Alright. Ulrich, you coming?"

"He's stuck here, Ayana's doing something else with her brother. And I'll be staying with him." Lainey exclaimed.

"Wait, what?" Dominic asked. "Why?"

"Eh, haven't talked to him in a while. Besides, what could he do alone, watch TV? It's all in a language he doesn't understand."

"Eh, can't argue with that." Dominic replied, taking a spoonful of his mixed cereal, kind of enjoying it.

"So, the two of you can go. Have fun, and we'll meet you at…" Lainey looked at Ulrich.

"Three." Ulrich replied.

"Three." Lainey finished her sentence with confidence.

And as such, that was what happened. Ayana and Shin left, as Ulrich made sure to watch as they did. And after about fifteen minutes, Dominic and Sapphire left too.

"So, what now?" Lainey asked.

"You like Fatal Fantasy?" Ulrich asked.

"What, the fighting game series? I'm pretty good at it."

"Nice! Because I'm pretty sure Shin has the game around here."

Ulrich spent about ten minutes looking through both his room and the living room. Eventually, he found a GameStation 2, hidden in a cabinet behind some winter coats, and plugged it in. Already, Fatal Fantasy 4 was inside the console. He called out to Lainey, and she walked in, slightly pale.

"Something up?" Ulrich asked.

"Eh, it ain't much, just found Ayana's comic stash."

“What’s there?” He asked.

“Let’s just say her and Dominic could bond over their love of…perverted shit.”

"You wanna elaborate?" Ulrich asked.

"Nope." Lainey replied, grabbing a controller, starting up the game.

25 characters stood before them. Ulrich didn't know just how good Lainey was, so he decided to go with somebody he was decent with, but not insane. Mr. Smiley seemed like a good choice for this. Lainey choose Lesser Jake, a decent enough character. The match began, and Ulrich went straight in with the On and On combo, a classic.

Lainey took the first hit of the combo but managed to get out and block the other four hits, and then hit him with a medium punch, directly into a Lion City Roar, a shockwave move sending him straight across the screen. She jumped into him, and Ulrich activated the Hit me Hit me, the best counter in the game. Lainey just waited for the flash to stop and used the A-Bomb Escape. And with a quick Short Fuse Burner, the game was over.

"Huh, I assumed you would be good at this game." Lainey said, sounding almost disappointed.

"Well, I'm part of the Florida top 8." Ulrich replied, flabbergasted.

"And I'm the best in NYC, what about it?"

"Then why weren't you at the national tournament? Pretty sure I would have seen you." Ulrich managed to make it to the nationals, although he lost in the first round. And for the best player in NYC to apparently not even be there? This was pretty weird.

"Eh, I had band shit." Lainey replied. "Besides, pretty sure I'd get kicked out for nepotism."

"Excuse me, nepotism?"

"Oh. My surname is Bryce. Did I not tell you?"

Wait, Bryce? Like, Wilson Bryce?

"Are you like…his niece, or something?" Ulrich asked slowly.

"Uh, move a bit closer." Lainey replied.

"Daughter!?" Ulrich yelled out.

"Bingo." She replied casually.

Ulrich looked at her for a second, and then towards Operative Ivy. Looking at it, they looked pretty similar, minus Ivy's sunglasses and the fact her hair was green.

"So, is Ivy…you?"

"Yeah. I came out to my dad before the fourth one started development. And his first thought was to add a lesbian to it. Gotta say, she’s pretty cool.”

"Huh. Well, there's a good dad." Ulrich scratched his head.

"Yeah." Lainey chuckled.

"So, we starting another round?" Ulrich asked.

"Uh, beforehand, I just wanna ask you something. It's just…a plan. For when we see the other three again." Her voice was slightly trembling.

"What is it, exactly?" Ulrich asked, slightly nervous. A small trail of sweat was dripping from her forehead.

"Well, this is why I stayed with you." She started. Her voice was shaking. She took a deep breath, and then shut her eyes.

"I'm gonna kill the ice chick." She said, really quickly.

"What?" Ulrich chuckled slightly, before the look of pure distress radiating from her visible eye. "Wait, you're serious?"

"Ulrich, you don't get it. It's…the prophecy. You didn't hear the whole thing."

"What's…the whole thing, exactly?" Ulrich was also nervous at this point.

"According to it, one woman has to die for prophecy to come true. So far, it's me, Sapphire…and the ice girl."

"Okay…but the prophecy also mentioned that there would be four people at the final battle, and we currently have seven. Hell, we could probably get Ayana and Shin involved and bump it up to nine."

"But…if we have to kill her, we can, right?" Lainey still seemed on board with this. Ulrich could understand her, knowing that if one man had to die, Dominic would freak out, and probably try to kill the suit guy. "All we gotta do is take off her gloves, and then we can kill her. Problem solved, and nobody important has to die."

"Yeah, about that." Ulrich sighed, showing her his gloveless hand, and firing a small blast of fire from his pinky to the ceiling.

"Shit." Lainey looked on in terror as her plans were slashed.

"But to be honest, something tells me the prophecy is fake." Ulrich explained. "I mean, 'man with dark hair?' that's like, at least seventy percent of men. And 'girl with incredible backstory?' you were attacked by demons once, and that qualified you."

"So what would 'one woman must die'…mean?" Lainey asked, gradually regaining the composure in her voice.

"That's what I'm trying to think about." Ulrich replied. "Unless god is really misogynistic or something, I don't really have any ideas. My only real guess is the prophecy being a load of bullshit.”

But before Ulrich could think any further, the door burst open, and in walked Dominic, with blood pouring out of his left arm.

"Guys, you gotta come now. It's the demons."