Arc 8 Superficial

Chapter 15

Interlude: Skeletons

“This is… sloppy,” said Neon Nurse, looking up at the warehouse walls.

She stood in her pink veined battle suit. The visor down and shield out. She scanned the area for anything hostile, but it didn’t have any hits. She was in the right place this was the location where the suit transponder had been… and the massacre that she had witnessed as well. She checked again, Vesper was back home now in her room. Hopefully, she was getting some sleep after this ordeal, she was going to need it for the harsh lecturing that she was in for when Neon Nurse got back.

Her suit clunked as it shambled along. The extra arms opened the door and she walked into the darkness. Her visor lit up, revealing glowing signs of blood. It had been cleaned up to a degree, but it could not hide from her black lights. Idly, she cocked her head, observing the sprays and arcs of invisible blood. Such a messy one she is. Though Ichigo did try to cover this up, she did not have the correct tools to create a sterile crime scene. Someone had clean up this mess. It would not due for Vesper to be found out and so, here Neon Nurse was neatly stacking the skeletons into the closet so that they could not be found.

“You need to be more careful Vesper,” she sighed to herself.

Neon Nurse did not like Ichigo. That little thing was causing trouble for Vesper, she would have never been involved in this if it had not been for her. Jealousy was not something Neon Nurse was accustomed to, but then again neither was love. She found such things complicated to deal with. Ever since she changed and her body failed her, she had tried so hard to purge these weaknesses. Emotions were a sickness that clouded the mind. Feelings were for the organic flesh bags and yet Vesper had brought these things to her like a lost puppy that had been thrown into a river and fished out. She was too cute to throw back. Vesper, the thing that made her mechanical heart skip beats and feel like it would melt.

The cold, lifeless green eyes moved independently, finding the last traces of misdeed that took place here. The fluid circulating in her tubes and the large canister on her back bubbled. She turned slowly, but surely like a turret as the clear fluid gushed out of her syringe gun. As it went the ground foamed and welled up only to evaporate and with it went every last trace of anything and everything. The vibrant blue color faded into darkness and even the ceiling where something had splashed became clean and sterile.

Her arms idly picked up pieces of metal and debris, placing them into her container. If you are going to murder somebody, then at least make sure all of the pieces are picked up. Even these slivers of metal and clothing, smudges of flesh and clumps of hair could be used to figure out what happened here. A vacuum attachment snaked its way along sucking up the remains that were too small to bother picking up. What pieces of the van remained were slurped up and all the hair from Ichigo as well as everyone else were pulled in with the dirt and dust.

This was a large space to clean all alone, thankfully she had come prepared. Neon Nurse placed down a sizable box that had been attached to her back. The lid popped off and little robo scorpions clambered out. She released a small horde of little robos that scurried all over cleaning as they went. This would take care of the more tedious task of getting everything. She diverted her full attention to the blue path.

She followed the glowing trail of blood and continued the routine. It was her near mechanical cleansing mode, getting every nook and cranny to obliterate any and all evidence. This was illegal, highly illegal, in fact, the sort of thing that violated the trust of the people and the very principles of the Hero League. No one was supposed to be above the law, not even Supers, especially not Supers. She didn’t care, this was for Vesper and Neon Nurse would do anything for her.

It was love and she had long since been ensnared in that deadly web. Why was she attracted to her strange friend? She didn’t have the answer. At first, it was merely the wonder and excitement of finding such a strange specimen. Then the friendship grew and she had found that she was not as lonely anymore. She found herself more interested in watching and talking with Vesper than fiddling with her new creations. The long-abandoned prospect of actually having organic children sparked a fire that had been long dead. A lusty inferno filled with a passion for life that threatened to melt the circuits and overwhelm her. Vesper was not ready for that yet and so Neon Nurse had pulled back and refrained from pushing for this. However, even a cyborg has her limits.

A final cursory glance left her satisfied and she stepped outside. She had not actually seen what had happened to the bodies. Vesper had been foolish enough to bring her suit with her and it recorded everything. If it had been anybody else, then Vesper would have been hard-pressed to explain why she had used lethal force against civis. Supers were prohibited unless under dire distress to use their powers in such ways against civis and this included criminals. Truly, it was an asinine system that left Supers vulnerable, however, without such laws, then the civis would be rioting in the streets over how powerless and scared they were of supers.

Good people had died due to this and others were taken away unfairly. Somebody once said, “With great power comes great responsibility.” This was a foolish idealistic way of thinking that was unfeasible in reality. Accountability was the problem, the civis were not to be held accountable even if they agitated things or started the fights in the first place. Protect the innocent? Who the hell would protect the Supers from the ravening hordes of normies? This was because Supers were held to a higher standard and better was expected… no demanded from them. They were supposed to be perfect and infallible, but no one is perfect. They were all flawed and even broken in some cases. The impossible stereotype that they had to live up to was doing far more harm than good.

The Hero League was dying. Poisoning itself, ripping out its own fangs and claws trying to appease those who could not be. They would always push and always find something wrong. Becoming deeply involved with the United Nations was the biggest mistake that Captain Liberty had ever done. It was supposed to usher in a new age of Super relations and help coordinate the efforts to keep the peace. Instead, it opened the heroes up to litigation and forced registration and arbitrary restrictions from people who had never fought a villain before in their life. From people who didn’t even have powers. Before he did that the League was autonomous and acted outside of the jurisdiction of the host countries. It kept them safe from the laws and granted them immunities to the constant backlash. It was no wonder there were so many defecting from the rule of law.

People died, it was a fact of life. Humans will always kill other humans, it didn’t matter if they had sticks and rocks or tanks and laser rifles. People killed people all the time and no one bats an eye. A Hero kills a person and the damned city loses its mind trying to persecute them. Vira’s father went like that. He was a good man and didn’t deserve what they did to him. To think that it had already been ten years since he was dragged away. Vira never did see her father again, not after the trial and he was shipped. This was not even an uncommon story. Many of today’s villains were the product of such things, prejudices, and unfair treatments.

Normies would never understand Supers and they would fear and they would resent, as well they should. A new age was dawning. The birth rates of Supers had been accelerating over the past fifteen years. Given another twenty, maybe thirty years the normies would be in the minority. Of course, that is assuming nothing catastrophic were to happen. If something did happen to wipe out large portions of the population… then the timetable would be accelerated. Once that happened, well it wasn’t hard to see all the resentment and anger rebound back at them, along with fireballs and various other things.

This was what Chimera aimed to stop. They were the lapdogs of the old world. That would mean Kraken were the heralds of a new world. If this was really such a good thing she didn’t know. She cleared her thoughts, it wasn’t good to think about those things. It wouldn’t happen to Vesper, she wouldn’t let it. She had already made contingencies and enough redundancies that everything should go as planned. If they came after her, then she was prepared for it.

She followed the trail, erasing as she went. It ended at the manhole. Neon Nurse was too large to fit down there. She couldn’t check first hand how far the bodies were dumped. Several robos detached from her and skittered through the tunnels. She watched through their feeds until they found what she had been looking for. Vesper had been clever and brought the remains to the sewer rats. Like this, it would take care of itself. They returned to her and the nozzle of the tube was pushed down into the opening. She emptied the rest of her tank in there. It beeped at her once the hose was pulling air and she switched it off.

Finished, she looked around once more, she was not alone. She had not been expecting to see them, it was foolish of these two to be here. Neon nurse ignored them since they wouldn’t tell. Seeing nothing more to take care of and the two familiar forms, staying hidden, the skittering army of cleaning robots returned, putting themselves back in the box.

“Finished already, Xava?” asked a robotic voice from behind her.

The red glowing cycloptic eye on Vira’s visor glowed. She was rounded at the stomach and had a hunched back in which drones fluttered about. Her suit had red veins coursing along it like blood. The two breathing hoses led from the helmet to her back as she huffed.

Neon Nurse nodded, though she didn’t turn to look, “Did you do what I asked?”

Vira seemed a bit shy about it, as one might imagine a young girl in her late teens talking to her crush. She shook and had her hands to her face. If she wasn’t wearing a helmet, then one would likely see her blushing, “I, I did Xava. Will… will you link with me again? I did a good job. I want to feel your components inside of me again. My circuits get so moist just remembering the last time.”

Neon Nurse coldly replied, “No.”

She drooped dejectedly, “Please, please. Just five minutes. That is all I ask. It has been a whole month!”

Neon Nurse crossed her arms, “That was a mistake.”

“You weren’t like this before! It is that Wasp thing isn’t it? She changed you, I remember spending days with our neural networks linked.”

“Don’t call her a thing.”

“It is like you love her or, or something, but, but she is a filthy organic! She can’t understand your greatness, not like I can!” cried Vira.

“I do love her, unlike you.”

Static electricity bristled through the air as a blue glowing figure decided to reveal herself and hovered down from the rooftop nearby, it was Spark Spray, “That is a little harsh don't you think, Xava?”

“Harsh?” Asked Neon Nurse looking the two over, “I look out for you two, far more than you could ever imagine.”

“Just link with her a little bit. You have been being a serious prude lately. All you ever talk about is Vesper, Vesper, Vesper. Of course Vira is going to get jealous. Vira has been working really hard.”

“I know. I suppose she does deserve some sort of reward.”

Vira latched onto her leg, pleading, “Please, I will do anything! I want it, I want it! Put your positronic positor into my quantum motherboard!”

Neon Nurse kicked her off and stomped on her. Normally one would be angry or hurt over such a thing, however, Vira was writhing in pure bliss. She was looked upon like scum, “You disgust me.”

The optical sphere had turned into a heart on Vira’s visor, “Thank you! Punish me more!”

Neon Nurse shouted, “Shut up! I will put my cords in your sockets later, so stop being so unsightly.”

“Thank you!”

“Now get out of here before somebody sees me with you.”

“Oh, right, Boss says that they wanted the encryption keys for the Hero League mainframe. To be specific the personnel files,” said Spark Spray.

“Very well, I will be sure to send them over. I am assuming she is trying to figure out who the Chimera agent is?”

“Yeah.”

“It is Dreamer, Captain Metal, Panther, and Medavac is probably compromised as well. He is ex Chimera, so they likely brainwashed him before letting him go. Fire Chief has been acting weird… actually thinking about it just about all of the city central personnel have been acting strangely. Ring Master went missing a while back too, though no one has been talking about it. Actually, I don’t think many even know about it. Dreamer probably had him killed or something when no one was looking. She has effectively taken over the local Hero League branch.”

Vira nodded, taking in all of the conversation, “Boss says the operation will be soon, Nitro is finished up with L.A. and is coming to reinforce by the end of the month. Apparently, she is still playing games with the last couple survivors, She is having them fight to the death. The winner gets to join Kraken.”

“Sooner than I expected.”

“I can’t wait, we will finally be able to let loose and fuck this place up!” smiled Spark Spray as lighting jolted out of her hand.

“Don’t get cocky. You two couldn’t even handle the local heroes, Chimera is on another level. If I hadn’t let you two go, then that bank heist would have landed you in jail.”

“We were fine.”

“Were not. Now let me tell you, I had to hijack Enforcer’s neural net so that his aimbot was malfunctioning and tranquilize Fire Chief and you two still almost got caught. I even delayed them rushing in so that you two could get the funds transferred. If I had tried I could have easily bagged you two. Since I know all your weaknesses and can exploit them.”

“Yeah, well, you didn’t cause you are our leader.”

“And I am worried about you two. I made you, you two are my precious children. Just lay low until the operation. I have enough to deal with as it is, so don’t make more trouble for me.”

“Yes, Xava,” retorted the two, looking down.

“Good, I will see you two when you get back to the hideout.”

The two nodded obediently and flew off towards the Uptown area, leaving the streets cold and silent. Neon Nurse looked around, paranoid as her camera drones circled scouring the area for anybody that might have seen. There were no heat blips on the inferred and no motion out of the ordinary. There were no signals in the area so there were no cameras. Satisfied the suit warmed up and the jetpack lifted her into the air.

Vesper… we have to talk.