"This mission will include a Commander on the ground," the person speaking wasn't Syuen. But they were getting orders from her. The glare sent my way made that clear enough. "I'm aware for Wardress that this is not a regular occurrence. So I must remind you all to be on your best behavior for the extension of the mission."

  It was nice to not be singled out directly, but it wasn't hard to tell who that comment was aimed towards. However, the fact that I had to be warned meant that I probably wasn't exactly going to be pleased by one of these Commanders.

  "And what about the issue?" Mihara asked. We weren't supposed to call Chatterbox by its designation, which was going to infuriate me to no end.

  "Due to changes in its behavior, we are seeing what exactly it will react to. As well as what won't provoke it," they said. Testing Chatterbox for how it responded to threats? And what is it considered to be worth an engagement for?

  "This is why this is a standard kill mission," they continued.

  "Because working with Matis is a standard kill mission," Yuni huffed, seemingly disappointed. Honestly, though, I considered it somewhat intelligent. Something I never thought I'd think about a Syuen-made plan. Based on what little I'd been able to find, Matis was the singular best squad Misillis had access to. After the last mission ended in a dumpster fire? It made sense to see how Chatterbox responded to the biggest stick the company had.

  Though, it wasn't like that would be the only variable. Chatterbox could be too far away to engage, too tied down by other matters, or better yet, dead. I wasn't going to deny that was what I really wanted. Screw the board and their profit margins. Chatterbox was a problem. If we brought something like that inside the Ark, we'd only be inviting a calamity into what was supposed to be humanity's last sanctuary. Something I very much did not care for. Sure, the Ark wasn't giving me many reasons to care.

  But that didn't mean I wanted people to get killed from the resulting screw-up that bringing Chatterbox into the Ark would no doubt result in. Syuen needed to get burned for that stupidity alone. How did you not expect this to go wrong and possibly bite you on the ass? Something of that power level in the Ark was asking for trouble.

  Ideally, that would be an issue for future me. Ideally. The situation on that front was as far from ideal as it could get. Sure, the plan was sound on paper. But most plans tended to be that way. It was when you came into contact with an enemy that a plan became an issue. Plans were better to have than not. But plans were also meant to be thrown away. No amount of planning could come up with a counter to anything your enemy did. And it still could go pear-shaped simply off of the basic fact that something would go wrong.

  Murphy was an ass like that.

  x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x

  "So, who's the new girl?" Mihara did her best to keep a straight face. It wasn't hard to imagine that Maxwell would be curious. If rumors hadn't spread about Wardress's new member, then Mihara would be impressed. At the moment, 313N was keeping her distance, running through a few checks on her new rifle in the corner. They'd done training with the new firearm, though she had a hard time telling what exactly it was.

  The engineers had called it a cross between an assault rifle and a sniper. There were tradeoffs for something in the middle of the road, but it was hard to argue against 313N's point that it complimented her abilities more. She'd shown that off during the trials.

  At the moment, 313N seemed to be content to ignore everything around her in favor of maintenance. Not that the new weapon likely needed such attention. Frankly, Mihara was happy that she managed to keep 313N away from any alcohol these past few days. She had no idea how much the mass-produced Nikke wanted to drink. But Mihara knew that was going to be a bad idea.

  Especially as 313N seemed to be more curious if she could get drunk enough to drown her sorrows. Which meant that she didn't think that she could successfully do so. That was a bad combination before the alcohol. While 313N wasn't as aggressive as she liked to give off, alcohol tended to make one very stupid. Never mind acting in ways one wouldn't normally consider. If 313N was an angry drunk, which she just might be, then anyone who pissed her off was liable to see a gun trick, or something equally stupid.

  It just wasn't worth it.

  "She's 313N. A modified 08 model," Mihara said, doing her best to keep the aforementioned girl in her line of sight. But 313N's own eyes seemed to be locked on Laplace and Drake on the other end of the craft. The Commander was upfront at the moment, leaving them to talk freely. As for Laplace and Drake, the two seemed to be in something of a friendly argument. Was that why 313N was keeping her eyes on them?

  Or was she just shy?

  It was hard to tell. 313N was understandably guarded. Mihara still knew precious little about her. Outside of possibly somehow coming from the past, but that wasn't anything particularly personal. She was definitely softer than 313N cared to let on. But with the amount of effort she put into being prickly to anyone who tried to even approach her right now? The line of how much of it was putting up defenses versus how much of it was genuine was difficult to tell. Her aversion towards Matis made it seem like 313N just wasn't a people person in general, with Maxwell being the only one not egregiously loud.

  At the very least, loud in a way that 313N could easily ignore.

  "Modified? She doesn't look all too different to me," Maxwell said, stretching as she did so. The statement more than caught 313N's attention.

  "I know, right? They shoved me onto this thing and the only thing I have to tell me it's different is their word," 313N's voice was sharp, nor was the statement what she was expecting.

  "Yeah, that figures," Maxwell flashed a smile. "Didn't expect you to have any snark though. Most of you 08 models are the quiet and calm types." 313N's eyes narrowed, despite the innocuous statement.

  "Yes. How, stereotypical of them. All the snipers must be calm, cool, and collected," 313N's tone was utter venom, despite the fact it was aimed at anyone in the room. There was some brief muttering that came out of her mouth as 313N ducked out of the conversation.

  "Abrasive one, isn't she?" Maxwell laughed as Mihara sighed.

  "You don't even know the half of it," Mihara pinched her brow. Maxwell was far from wrong.

  "How exactly did you end up like that, anyway?" Maxwell turned her attention back to 313N before Mihara could do anything to stop her.

  "Nothing much. Just waking up with someone's hand digging around in your chest, and when you understandably freak out because someone was digging around in your chest without consent, the boss lady decides to torture you back into line. When that doesn't fully work, the boss decides to attach you, an untrained civilian, to a black operations unit to hunt down a giant armored gorilla that pushed in our shit so hard it's a miracle it didn't come out our mouths. The reason the curb-stomping even occurred was because of an intelligence FUBAR that would normally get someone sacked for gross incompetence," 313N's eyes narrowed into slits, with the entire transport bay falling silent. She wasn't naming names, but at the same time, the only way you couldn't piece together who was who in that story was if you were a complete moron.

  Maxwell simply laughed, cutting through the tension like a knife, even if some of the venom remained.

  "Oh, I think the two of us are going to get along just fine," Maxwell got about, smiling as she did so. Though 313N didn't seem all that impressed. "In part because I'm not going to be the one to do that."

  313N only had enough time to register the thumb pointing at the other end of the transport, as a blue and gold blur connected with the mass-produced Nikke's body.

  "Don't worry! I'll save you!" Laplace shouted mere seconds before contact. 313N let out an indigent squawk as her personal space was swiftly invaded. The self-proclaimed hero managed to get 313N into a death grip as 313N struggled to free herself. On the other end of the craft, Yuni and Drake both howled in amusement as 313N stopped resisting. The expression on her face though made it clear that she really didn't care for the woman now trying to comfort her.

  The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

  Mihara could only shake her head as Maxwell had a smug look on her face. Getting Laplace to let go now was a struggle that wouldn't be worth the effort. Hopefully, 313N wouldn't mind the intrusion upon her personal space for much longer.

  It was then the Commander poked his head back in, mouth open as if to say something, before simply sighing, rubbing his forehead for a moment.

  "We land in five minutes. Be ready," he said curtly, before leaving them to the chaos. Mihara didn't exactly blame him for wanting nothing to do with this either.

  x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x

  The combat mission was going to be straightforward. Find Raptures. Kill Raptures. Repeat until the problem is gone. However, part of me was still paranoid. I hadn't heard anything yet, but it wasn't until first contact that I started hearing something the first time.

  As for the Commander? I'd expected the worst based on Mihara and Yuni's stories. I couldn't tell if they were just trying to wind me up right now though. The idea of luring Raptures into a kill zone at least made sense.

  It would probably work for most Raptures. Chatterbox certainly wouldn't fall for such a trick. But it wasn't like I'd say no to an elevated defensive position. The problem was finding such a vantage point in a ruined city. At least, one that didn't have the risk of collapsing on top of or underneath us.

  I was staying near Yuni and Mihara. Out of familiarity than anything else. I wasn't sure what to make of Matis at the moment. Drake, the one with the short white hair alongside black and red armor was weird. Okay, all of them were weird, something I should have seen coming from the BDSM couple being the special ops team.

  She laughed like some type of Saturday morning cartoon villain or something straight out of Power Rangers. But the moment I managed to worm my way out of Laplace and her violation of my personal space, she came over to ask if I was okay. Because that's what the villain was supposed to do, apparently.

  That alone caused my brain to short-circuit just a bit.

  Maxwell seemed nice enough, and the closest one to sane. Laplace? I'll admit, despite the fact I certainly didn't want to be touched by strangers in general, I needed something resembling a hug. Her heart was in the right place. I think.

  The reason I thought that was because I wasn't sure she had a brain to listen to her heart. Immediately leaping to hug someone you didn't know was something I didn't like. Especially if you didn't ask for permission first. Even if it was clear they needed help, it was better to ask permission first. Someone might have anxiety. Or germophobia. Or maybe they just didn't want to be touched by a random person they just met.

  I was one of those people.

  What I could tell is that they were armed to the teeth. Maxwell had waist-mounted battery packs, as well as a cord coming out of what appeared to be the base of her spine, which connected to a massive rifle. I couldn't tell whether it was a kinetic weapon or an energy gun. The cord suggested energy, but it could just take a lot of power to fire a weapon of that size.

  Laplace carried a cannon. There was no way to describe it. It looked like one of those old ship cannons one used to see on sailing vessels, centuries ago. Expect it could be carried by hand, colored blue and gold, just like Laplace's armor. I wasn't sure where she had been keeping the thing, either. I had no idea what it could do. But it was clear that whatever it was, the weapon was an advanced piece of hardware. Drake's shotgun almost seemed mundane by comparison.

  The key word being seemed. It was abundantly apparent that Syuen had taken a considerable amount of effort to arm Matis as much as she could. With as much advanced weaponry as she could spare. I was almost surprised. Almost. I didn't know much about inter-corporate politics, but making sure what you marketed as your best had the best equipment made sense.

  I thought the gun I had was an upgrade. Now? I was considerably envious. They got a lot of high tech gizmos, while I was still using a basic ballistic rifle. Though it wasn't like Yuni and Mihara were better off. The type of tech that went into Matis was probably limited.

  Or it was experimental crap that came with downsides. Which was never a good idea to deploy without compensation. With Syuen, either was possible.

  x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x

  A Rapture exploded on the edge of the pack's formation, Maxwell's laser rifle tearing through it in one powerful shot. I moved on to a new target, three rounds puncturing the Rapture's core.

  Frankly, compared to everyone else, I was a drop in a river of munitions that went down range. Maxwell and her laser gun could take out a Rapture far faster than a bullet could. While Laplace and her explosions were hard to miss. Never mind the damn energy stream it could emit whenever a big Rapture got close that could metal one of the things that could melt it into slag in a matter of seconds!

  It was hard trying to measure up to that much destructive force.

  "Come on, you got to have something special up your sleeve," Maxwell teased, seeming to take it upon herself. I certainly had figured out a trick. After all, the whole point of getting more ammunition was to mag-dump a lot of rounds into some poor sucker's face.

  It's just that it was loud. Then again, with two explosive weapons, it wasn't like we were going quiet by this point.

  Screw it. Our presence was already known, kill box be damned. And the teasing wasn't going to stop from her unless I strut my stuff just a bit.

  I felt the world slow down around me as I lined up a shot. Before I could pull the trigger, something caught my eye. They were moving slowly now as they flew through the air. But since when were those missiles launched? What put them up in the air?

  Well, that was a problem for the next few seconds. Because the trick of destroying several Raptures in the span of a second or so was going to be far less impressive than sniping a few rockets out of the air. I took care to note the path the rockets were taking before I began to fire. With only six targets, I figured it would be best to aim three bullets at each. Overkill? Certainly. But it was better to be safe than sorry when it came to such matters.

  Each bullet slowed mere moments after it exited the barrel, coming to the same crawl as everything else around me. It didn't take long for me to empty my clip as I began to feel a tingle in my spine. There was one thing left to do.

  Turn off my hearing. I'd heard it before in the simulation. Guns were loud. That went without saying. But what happens when you fire a rifle at an increased speed? When you empty the entire magazine in what was in reality a single second? That was very, very loud.

  I saw everyone around me wince at the sound of eighteen gunshots in nearly an instant. I was already ducking behind cover as I reloaded didn't let me see my handiwork. But by that point, I'd already switched my hearing back on in time to be filled by the sound of explosions.

  "Give us some warning next time!" I barely heard Yuni's voice over the sound of the shockwaves, so I chose to pretend I couldn't hear her.

  "A heads-up of some sort would be appreciated if you're going to do something like that again," the Commander said, rubbing his ears. The words sent a chill down my spine. Not because of the content. But rather the weight. It was just a suggestion and yet I almost felt the pressure on my mind.

  "Yes Sir," I said, doing my best to hide my sudden spike in hostility. What the actual hell was this shit? He suggested something and I felt like I had to listen to him? What the hell would happen if this guy gave me an actual order?