Boss King and the Blade

Harmony-Three

Agent Harmony-Three, once a Blade and now a loyal servant to the Hive, cursed the hated Guard clones under her breath. As soon as her snipers had spotted the female clone in the street, she should have authorised them to take the shot. She had hesitated, hoping the target would follow her out into the open.

Instead the inhuman creation must have detected her hidden Agents, forcing Harmony to attempt a frontal assault. They had lost two skilled Agents already, one dead and the other too badly wounded to continue. Their only combat hounds had been destroyed as well, knocked out with disgusting ease by the servant of Archimedes.

“We have little time before the Police Auxiliary get here” Agent Simon-Three reminded her. “If we don’t get the infected Blade now, we may not get a second chance”

Harmony-Three glanced up at the buildings that surrounded them, searching futilely for the highly trained killer she knew had to be close by. Mister August had not told her, but she was certain a Shadow Blade lurked in hiding, ready to clean up any mistakes she made.

“That’s not the only danger we face” she said in a worried tone, eliciting a look of concern on the helmeted face of her fellow Agent. “The Hive Father will not tolerate failure in such an important mission. Get the others ready, we need to force our way in”

“Blessed is the Hive Father” Simon-Three replied. “He shall protect us with his Shadow” He lowered his armoured visor, concealing the face so very much like her own.

“Let us pray that is so, brother Simon” she agreed.

=====

Melody-Six

Melody and Boss King had pushed a sofa and coffee table across the foyer entry, making a barrier that the attackers would have to climb over. Trixie and Boss King’s mother had stood guard over them, watching the open doorway with keen eyes and rifles aimed.

Seeing the clone carrying a Guardfather rifle stirred mixed feelings in her chest, making her wonder anew if Gregory-Two could still be alive somewhere. She forced the emotions down, forcing herself to focus on the danger they were in. A danger she had brought to all of them, making them risk their lives whether they wanted to or not.

Melody faced the open door, seeing the bright sunlit street beyond. Out there lurked Agents of the Hive, sisters and brothers maybe from her own vanished Nest. They were only here for her, not for Boss King or any of the others.

She had taken a single step forwards, her hand lifted to climb the barrier, when a strong hand gripped her shoulder. Melody paused and looked at Boss King, wondering why he had stopped her.

“You can’t sacrifice yourself” he said clearly. “We didn’t go through all of this just so you could give in!”

“They’ll kill all of you if I don’t go!” she told him, feeling tears forming in her eyes. “If they have me, the Hive will leave you alone”

“I don’t care” Boss King insisted, refusing to let go of her shoulder. “If you walk out that door, I’m going with you!”

“Why?” she demanded. “You barely know me! I’m just this strange girl who pushed herself into your life. Let me go!”

“I can’t” he replied, his eyes fierce and strong. “You still owe me ten Pandas”

Melody couldn’t help but laugh and the boy joined in with her, letting go of her shoulder at last.

“Come on, we need to get into cover” Boss King told her. “They’ll hit us any time now”

“Sure, Taiga” she answered him. “But I thought I owed you and Mighty Princess a lot more than those ten Pandas?”

“Well, I haven’t added in our expenses yet” he replied.

=====

Stun grenades bounced in from the open doorway, detonating scant seconds after Trixie called out a warning. Melody was crouched in the kitchen next to Mighty Princess, a wickedly sharp carving knife in her hand. The flash and boom rolled over them, pummelling her eardrums and glaring through her tightly shut eyelids.

“Contact!” Trixie bellowed and there came a tremendous ripping sound as she opened fire, the Guardfather rifle sending a steady stream of bullets into the narrow foyer. Angry shouts came from beyond and the stamp of booted feet, making Trixie pause in her relentless firing.

“Dammit!” she called to her fellow defenders. “They’ve brought Tactical Shields. Samantha, try and aim for their boots and helmets!”

Trixie had backed away to the side of the staircase, allowing Boss King’s mother to join her fire with the clone’s. Melody risked a fast peep into the living room, seeing tall black shields being pushed against their improvised barrier. Bullets thudded into the armoured shields without penetrating, like angry wasps throwing themselves against a concrete wall.

Safe behind the leading shield bearers, more Agents lobbed black plastic canisters overhead, letting them bounce along the battered and scarred carpet of the living room. Dense blue smoke billowed from the devices, forcing Trixie to retreat to the kitchen and making all of them gasp at the acrid stench.

Short, accurate bursts of gunfire came from the top of the stairs as Boss King’s mother kept the attackers penned into the foyer. Between the solid walls either side of the Agents and the bullet riddled sofa at their front, they could not advance without leaving their own cover, risking a shot from overhead.

“We just need to hold out a bit longer!” Trixie told them, wiping the smoke induced tears from her natural eye. She had taken off her eyepatch, the metal and Ceramiglass eye gleaming a brilliant green as she focussed on the entry way. “Looks like they got a bit too much of their own gas” she observed.

“Or maybe they are waiting for something else to happen?” Melody said. Trixie gave her a sharp-eyed look, as if realising she shared more than just genes with her. They had both been trained to fight and recognised that in the other.

“Crap!” Trixie muttered in understanding. There was a loud boom from above their heads, rocking the walls and shaking dust loose. An untended coffee cup jiggled and rolled from the kitchen table, smashing into brightly coloured fragments.

“They’ve breached the upper floor!” snapped Melody and surged to her feet. Trixie was ahead of her, firing at the Agents who now swarmed over the barricade, shields discarded. There was no fire from the stairs and Melody looked upwards, seeing dust and smoke filling the corridor above.

“Mom!” roared Boss King in anguish, propelling himself towards the stairs. He nearly made it when an armoured body crashed into him, the Agent driving a Stun Baton into his side. Mighty Princess rushed the intruder, her machete swinging in a vicious arc as she yelled Taiga’s name.

Everything was chaos as the Agents flooded the living room, shooting and punching and stabbing batons in one wild melee. For a moment Melody stopped, catching the eye of a fury filled Trixie as she hurled one man bodily into a wall, then kicked a female Agent solidly in the stomach.

“Get to Samantha!” Trixie commanded and Melody obeyed. She leapt the struggling trio of Boss King, Princess and the Agent, her kitchen knife rammed between the man’s armour joint on his shoulder. She left the blade behind, taking the stairs two at a time as she ran. Melody was truly enraged now and the knife was unnecessary.

“Banzai Butterfly!” she screamed and the Shadows flowed from her arm as if she had summoned them for all of her life.

=====

Harmony-Three

Agent Harmony dropped through the hole first, smoke still streaming from the torn and buckled roof sheeting around her. The augmented sensors of her helmet visor pierced the clouds of dust as she landed, her boots slamming hard onto a mound of broken plaster and pieces of corrugated metal. With precise moves she brought her short-barrelled Machine Pistol up to her shoulder, the weapon sights linked to her visor.

A woman lay sprawled nearby, a Guardfather rifle abandoned to one side. Harmony stepped off the debris, giving room for Simon-Three to land as he jumped into the house. Like her, he lifted his rapid firing gun up to his shoulder, scanning the corridor to their rear.

Shots and yells echoed from below as the breaching party forced their way into the living room. It would be over soon she thought, the defenders too few and too weak to stop the Hive. The woman stirred at her feet, coughing wetly and opening her eyes.

“Get out of my home!” the woman snapped. “The Hive has no business here!”

“Ah, you are indeed one of the Heretics” replied Harmony. “We suspected there may be some of your kind here” Her gun pointed directly at the sickly looking woman and a secret smile played on her face, hidden beneath her armoured visor.

“The Hive Father does not forgive your sins” Harmony declared and her finger tightened on the trigger.

Then the Shadow Blade arrived and everything changed.

=====

Melody-Six

Melody saw the Agent as she rounded the corner, a black Machine Pistol aimed at Samantha-Two’s head. Without a moment of hesitation she hurdled the fallen woman, interposing her body between Boss King’s mother and the deadly weapon.

The gun fired and Melody could swear she watched the bullets spit from the muzzle in slow motion, each one trailing flame as it was ejected like a spinning top. Her right arm moved like liquid darkness, the Shadow Blade deflecting each projectile away from herself and the precious woman she was protecting. When the burst had finished, she reached outwards almost casually, her Shadow Blade sweeping back and forth.

Like it was made of soft cheese the gun fell into cleanly sliced pieces, falling away from the Agent’s hand with slow cartwheels. Melody finished her graceful ballet of destruction by taking off the front of the woman’s visor in a careful arc. It fell to the corridor floor with a clatter, leaving the Agent and Melody face to face.

Time took notice of Melody once more, reverting to the usual beat of sixty seconds for every minute. Her whole attack had occurred in less time than a leisurely heartbeat, but she doubted the Agent was feeling very calm at that moment.

“Shadow Blade, why are you doing this?” the Agent whispered in confusion. “The woman is a Heretic, she deserves to be punished!”

“I’m not a Shadow Blade, Hive sister” she told the woman. “I’m Melody-Six and you need to leave this house right now!”

The Agent looked into her eyes and blanched, stepping back from her as if she were Archimedes himself. Raw terror was etched across her face and she scrabbled away, clutching at the male Agent who had appeared at her back.

“Recall the team!” she whimpered to her companion. His helmeted head regarded her dumbly, unaware perhaps of what Melody had done.

Melody lifted her arm, the Shadow Blade extending longer and longer until it pierced the front of his visor.

“She said you all need to leave, now!” Melody snarled and twisted her arm sideways, tearing open the front of his helmet. His panicked face met her own, both Agents almost identical in appearance.

The male Agent looked up at the hole in the roof, as if contemplating how he could jump the three meter height to the ceiling. Melody gave a soft snort of amusement and reached towards a shuttered window, her ebon blade slicing it open with no effort at all.

“Go now and take your people” Melody insisted. The pair of Agents took no time to clamber out onto the sloped roof of the house front, running and leaping to the street below. In the distance, sirens could be heard as the Police Auxiliary finally came.

From the living room the sounds of combat ceased abruptly. Melody could hear Trixie’s powerful voice commanding the others to let the Agents flee. There was a rush of booted feet and soon enough the house was quiet.

Melody was looking thoughtfully out the window she had cut open when Samantha got to her feet, laying a gentle hand on her shoulder. A strange yet somehow familiar sensation ran through Melody at the touch, as if they were bonded by something deeper.

“Thank you, Melody” the woman said. “You saved me”

Melody tilted her head and smiled, feeling only a faint tingle as the darkness coiled and retreated into her flesh once again.

“I’m glad I was in time” she answered.

=====

Melody sat on the sofa, the fabric ripped by bullet holes and smelling of stun grenades. It had been dragged back to its original position, the scarred coffee table placed before it as if nothing had happened.

She drank her lukewarm cup of tea as Police Auxiliary officers, a pair of blue painted Sentinels and two Paramedics moved to and fro, trying their best to sort out the situation. In their midst stood Trixie, her blue wig and eyepatch restored, barking orders like a Guardfather at a training session. Despite the chaos, it felt comforting to know the ex-Guard had become her ally.

“Mom is fine” Boss King declared, dropping himself onto the battered sofa with a whumpf. “At least as fine as she can be” he amended. “The Paramedics recommended she goes to the Washima District Hospital for a complete check-up, but I know she won’t go”

“How is Rebecca?” Melody asked. “I saw she was being treated in the kitchen too”

Boss King frowned unhappily, recalling the intense battle she suspected against the Agents.

“She took a heavy blow to her right hip from a Stun Baton” he answered her. “Right about where she was shot the other day. The Paramedic says she’ll need bed rest for a couple of days but she should be Okay”

They both watched as Trixie finished issuing her latest series of commands, then the big woman came to stand in front of them. Looking up at her expressionless face, it was easy to see the imposing Guard clone she used to be. Then her mouth split into a faint smile and her natural eye winked at them.

“You kids did good” she praised them. “Whatever you did to the pair upstairs Melody, it spooked them big time. They couldn’t get out of here fast enough!”

“They recognised me as a Shadow Blade” Melody said quietly, soft enough that only Boss King and Trixie could hear. “At first, the leading Agent thought I was on their side. Then I did some stuff and they realised I was the one they had been sent to kill. I guess I was scary enough to make them run away”

“Yeah, you can certainly be scary when you want to be” Boss King agreed. “In a cute schoolgirl kind of way”

“Hey!” spluttered a familiar voice. They looked up as Mighty Princess hobbled to the sofa, a crutch under one arm and her right pants leg cut away to show a massive bandage wrapped around the upper thigh. “Thief Girls don’t get to be cute! That’s my job”

She dropped herself between Melody and the boy, forcing them to move further apart. A small squeak of pain came from her lips and she wriggled her legs into a more comfortable position, somehow ending up closer to Boss King in the process.

“Sorry you got hurt in the fighting, Rebecca” Melody told the other girl. Rebecca shrugged her shoulders as if this kind of thing happened on a regular basis.

“S’Okay, Melody” she responded, her words starting to slur a little. “I’m happy to help out a friend” she mumbled. Her eyes closed and she slowly tilted sideways until her head was resting on Boss King’s shoulder.

“Guess the Paramedic gave her some sedatives” Boss King decided. He was about to move aside and lay her down when Melody told him to stay where he was.

“She was super brave today” Melody said. “She deserves this”

With that she got off the sofa, careful not to disturb the sleeping girl. She glanced at Trixie, meeting her eyes with a questioning look. The ex-Guard nodded and followed her outside into the street, stepping over the blood and bullets that still lay across the floor.

“We need to talk” she told the woman.

=====

“Is there really someplace that I will be safe?” Melody asked Trixie. They were standing against the wall of a neighbouring house, watching as blue uniformed Police Auxiliaries took photos and collected what forensic information they could.

Of the attackers there was no sign, the Agents hastily carrying away their wounded without panic. By the time the first Officers had arrived on the scene, it was only the defenders recovering inside the ravaged house. Trixie had announced herself as a member of the Special Executive Agency, a high ranking organisation that could override any orders from the Police Auxiliary.

Their commanding officer, an ex-Japanese detective by the name of Kamori, had bristled at losing control of the battle scene, yet he had no choice. He diligently verified her Ident with his headquarters then relinquished the command to her. Since then Detective Kamori had been leaning against the wall of Boss King’s house, smoking an illegal cigarette with angry puffs and sending the blue tinged smoke in their direction.

Trixie ignored his unhappy glares and answered Melody with frank honesty.

“I believe so. My boss has some contacts in the Home Islands. He’s helped a few people escape the Zone for one reason or another in the past. It’s kind of a hobby of his. It won’t be easy, but if I can get you to a ship we trust they’ll be able to link up with the Furidamu in the Pacific Ocean”

“Furidamu?” Melody pondered. “That means Freedom, right?”

“Yes. It’s one of the bigger Island ships, with close to fifteen thousand people living on the decks. I’ve never been there but Boss says it’s a floating paradise. He has people there that will take you in and give you a home”

Melody’s eyes were drawn to the broken door into her friend’s home, seeing the damage the attack had caused.

“They won’t let me go that easily, will they?” she asked. “Even if I get out of the Zone, what is stopping the Hive coming to the Furidamu?”

Trixie laughed good naturedly, trying her best to ease the anguish she realised Melody was feeling. She reached out and lightly touched Melody’s hair, brushing away some dust and pieces of plaster. Her big hands felt softer and warmer than Melody had expected, reminding her of the times Nursemother Narelle would brush and plait her long hair.

“The Home Islands are not easy to get to” Trixie explained. “More importantly, they take the safety and security of their citizens very seriously. Once you are there Melody, you won’t ever need to be afraid again”

She paused in contemplation for a moment, then continued.

“Except for one thing I suppose. How do you feel about seafood?”

=====

Melody-Two

Melody-Two moved unseen and unheard across the rooftops until she was far enough from the commotion at the boy’s house. Below her, Agents Harmony-Three and Simon-Three crouched behind a pile of recycling bins, oblivious to her presence despite their frantic glances around themselves.

The attack had been a failure, an unexpected result but not impossible when fighting against a Guard clone. Even Melody-Two had to admit that Trixie Smith was a formidable opponent, yet against a Shadow Blade she would fail. There was no living creature on this world more deadly than one gifted with the Shadows, that was a simple truth.

She focussed on the whispered conversation between the two Agents and frowned at their words. From what they described, it seemed that the Agents had encountered more than just children and a clone in the battle. Gathering her strength, Melody-Two jumped easily from where she was hidden and landed with only the faintest of sounds beside the Agents.

To her credit, Harmony-Three spun instantly at the nearly soundless landing, her Stun Baton swinging to connect with Melody’s skull. Except the Shadow Blade caught the weapon in her bare hand, the electrical discharge pulsing harmlessly into her body.

“That was sloppy, Agent Harmony-Three” she said without rancour. “You should always aim to the centre of the body. It will have a better chance of disabling the target”

“My apologies, Shadow Blade” the Agent responded, recovering her composure quickly. She deactivated the baton and sheathed it once more at her hip. Behind her the second Agent lowered his Machine Pistol, offering a bow of his head in mute apology for their lack of awareness.

Melody-Two had observed the leading Agents breach the roof of the house, dropping into the midst of the battle. What should have been a devastating counter-strike had instead become a rout, these two servants of the Hive fleeing through a window and commanding the remaining Agents to withdraw.

“What happened in there?” she asked them, her tone as flat and emotionless as Mister August.

“The girl has Manifested, Shadow Master” Harmony-Three said urgently. “She used the Shadows against us!” The Agent produced the severed grip of her Machine Pistol, the upper body shorn away cleanly as if by a razor sharp blade.

Melody-Two took the broken piece from her, running her fingers over the smoothly cut surface. A faint tremor of familiar energy came to her, the hint of darkness made manifest.

“You are forgiven, Agents” she declared. “The Hive Father knows you fought bravely and commends your efforts. Collect the rest of your team and return to our base”

She returned the broken piece of gun to the hands of Harmony-Three, noting the relieved expressions the two Agents could not conceal.

“Thank you, Shadow Blade” they said in near perfect unison. “Blessed is the Hive Father”

“Blessed are the Shadows” Melody-Two replied. “For they shall hide us from our enemies and strike fear into their hearts”

She stood and gathered the last of her strength into her body. It would not do for her to appear weak and spent in front of mere Agents. Her legs bent and then she launched herself over their heads, landing on the rooftop above them.

Out of sight, she crawled as quickly as her body allowed into the cover of a water tower. She collapsed there, breathing hard as the pain she refused to show finally overcame her. Tears welled from tightly clenched eyes, her right arm throbbing in exquisite agony.

“Please, Hive Father” she begged through lips twisted with despair. “Give me release!”

In the cool shadow of the tower she waited for something or someone to answer her. Despite her prayers, nothing came to offer her comfort. She lay there, curled around herself like a whipped dog until the day faded into night.