Val struggled to catch her breath as Brain stood above her, eyes flicking back and forth between the frail scientist and the giant man that had just punched her across the room. She pushed herself back up to her feet, wincing as pain flared in her side.

Two ribs are broken, and I doubt that was Brawn’s full strength. It seems like they want to keep you alive for whatever extraction procedure they have planned, but it might be possible for them to extract me for a short amount of time after your death. If we are going to make any move, now would be the time.

Well, thanks for that cheerful note. Any ideas?

Yes actually. But I need you to give me complete access to your nanosystem. I can try to forcibly activate some offensive subroutines, but since we haven’t practiced them at all, I need no interference. That means you’d have to fight them without any body enhancement subroutines or any other active nano usage. And we’d need to time our attack to coincide.

Val wiped a trickle of blood away from the corner of her mouth. While Brawn may not have been aiming to kill, he certainly wasn’t holding back from causing serious injury. You’re certainly asking for a lot here, Noir.

I know. But we don’t have much of a choice.

Seems like it. Alright, we’ll try it. What do you need from me?

The forced activation will take a second or two, but I should be able to predict when you make contact so I’ll handle the coordination. But I need you to hit them near a critical point in their nanosystem – preferably the chest, stomach, or head, but a shoulder or hip should work too.

And without using any body enhancement, right? Didn’t expect Bri’s training to come in handy so soon.

Val took up a defensive stance as Brawn strode towards her. She noticed Brain shuffling slowly towards a control panel near the table with the help of a cane. Val tried to maintain her distance from Brawn by retreating further into the room. She stepped between different workbenches and apparatuses, trying hard not to think about what twisted experiments had been conducted on them.

Undeterred, Brawn pushed aside the obstacles as if they weighed nothing. Which they probably don’t to him. Cursing to herself, Val started circling clockwise around the room towards the door. And further away from the extraction table, which now emitted a sinister hum as Brain apparently initialized some startup procedure.

Brawn chose the exact moment when Val was distracted by the extraction table to make his move. One moment, he was casually taking a step towards her. The next, he launched his massive frame forwards, bulldozing through a table of glassware. Val threw herself into a roll to her left as an avalanche of beakers shattered against the wall where she had just been standing.

Or at least, most of it was shattered. Val’s eyes bulged as she watched Brawn’s fist slam into the wall mere inches from her shoulder, leaving a large crater in the wall. The few shards of broken glass caught between his fist and the wall were completely pulverized by the impact. With a grunt, he pulled his arm free of the hole in the wall, sprinkling Val with a fine powder of silica dust.

Brawn’s other hand blurred forward, much faster than Val expected for a man of his size. He grabbed her arm with a vise-like grip, nearly breaking her wrist as he held her in place forcefully. Despite the pain, years of combat drills took over as Val’s foot lashed up in a kick. With a sneer on his face, Brawn caught her foot easily in his other hand.

Val knew she only had a few moments before she lost what little leverage she had left. Remembering Noir’s instructions, she twisted her body towards Brawn and launched her free hand forward. Restrained as she was, many of Noir’s preferred targets – head, shoulders, chest – were too far out of reach. Stomach and hips, though… that I can do. Out of instinct, Val opened her hand and landed a palm strike instead of a fist against Brawn’s rock-solid abs…

And nothing happened. Val slowly looked up at Brawn, her hand still pressed against his stomach. He stared down at her contemptuously before tightening his grip on her limbs again.

Noir, any tim–

Val’s message to Noir was interrupted when a searing pain flared in her chest. A surge of power rushed down the traces in her arm, concentrating where her palm lay flat against Brawn’s skin. Val screamed as a second wave of power ripped through her arm before the energy blasted into Brawn.

Val collapsed to the ground, pain consuming her senses for several seconds before she was able to think coherently again. Glancing down, she was almost surprised to see that her right arm was still attached. The pain was so intense she was sure it had been blown apart by whatever Noir had done. Even now, her arm refused to respond to any commands her brain sent it. She gingerly cradled it to her chest with her left arm.

She blinked in surprise as she realized that her left arm was free. Her mind was so addled it took her another moment to figure out why that was supposed to be surprising. Oh crap, wasn’t Brawn holding that? Her head snapped towards the man who had been about to beat her just moments before.

Her eyes widened in shock as she took in the sight of the gargantuan fighter on the ground besides her. His left hand was still wrapped around her right ankle, but she was able to yank her leg free. She hurriedly scooted backwards as he made a feeble attempt to grab her again. Anger and pain warred on his face as he lay incapacitated on the ground.

Val, you have to move. The Daemon sounded strained. I doubt we can do that again soon, and the forced technique is incomplete. Brawn will probably regain his abilities within the next hour.

Val’s jaw dropped open. Her own nano disruption subroutine had been barely enough to distract a Class F direwolf. But Noir’s forced technique had taken down a Class A User instantly, even if the cost to both her and them seemed large. No wonder the Defect’s anti-User rating didn’t drop much when I joined. If this is what we can do without any training… Val shook her head, pushing aside the distracting thoughts.

She tried to stand up before collapsing back to the ground as nausea wracked her body. She dry heaved twice before spewing the morning’s meal onto the ground. Spitting once, Val wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. Clearly, Noir’s technique had affected her body more than she initially anticipated.

“The extraction device is nearly powered up, Brawn. Bring our guest over!”

Brain’s exclamation urged Val back into action. Val’s brow furrowed with effort as she pushed herself up to her feet, leaning her left shoulder against the wall for support. Slowly, she slid herself along the wall towards the door. She could hear Brawn’s grunts of pain behind her as she focused on putting one foot in front of the other.

She had nearly made it to the door when she heard Brain cry out behind her. She glanced into the center of the room, and quickly wished she hadn’t as she made eye contact with the crazed scientist. He took one tottering step towards her before leaning on his cane and reaching into his pocket.

Val’s eyes widened as he pulled out a small gun and aimed it towards her. She lunged for the door as a loud crack rang out in the room. A small slug slammed into the spot she had just been standing in. It bounced off the wall without dealing any real physical damage, but a cloud of nano burst out of the round on impact.

Not wanting to find out what that would do to her compromised nanosystem, Val dropped her useless right arm for a moment to slam the control interface next to the door with her left fist. Mercifully, the door slid open to reveal the empty hallway.

She took a step through the threshold before she heard another gunshot. This time, she felt a sharp pain in her back as the bullet caught her in the shoulder blade. Reaching up, her hand came away from the impact point free of any blood. Confused, Val tried to take another step into the hallway when her body locked up completely. Frozen with one foot in midair, Val came crashing down to the floor.

Noir, what’s going on?

Another virus, this time turning your nano against you to cause full paralysis. Seems like he uses bullets as a delivery mechanism. Clever.

I love appreciating a good villain as much as the next gal, but now’s maybe not the time. Can you counteract this?

Annoyance bled through the neural link from Noir. I’m already working on it. The core subroutine is the same as the one that disabled your nanosystem during imprisonment, but the differences are enough that the same trick doesn’t immediately work.

Well, no pressure, but I can hear him coming.

Dread rose up in Val as she heard the rhythmic shuffling of Brain’s feet and the thump of his cane slowly approaching. He let out a wheezing noise that confused Val until she realized it was his version of laughing. If she wasn’t paralyzed, she was sure she would have shuddered.

“Well, isn’t this a surprise? Wolf had reported that you didn’t have access to any of Noir’s techniques yet.” He clicked his tongue. “I guess that’s what I get for trusting that… animal.”

Done.

Val felt immediate relief as her muscles relaxed, the nano holding them in place flowing away back into her core. She turned her head just slightly so that she could watch Brain’s approach. Three steps… Two steps… One… There!

Counting down the steps until Brain came into range, Val lashed her foot out just as he placed his weight down on his cane. He let out a high-pitched yelp of surprise as without the needed support, his weak body came crashing down to the ground.

Ignoring the pain in her body, Val pushed herself up and slammed her fist into the man’s head. A resounding crack rang out through the hallway and Brain’s eyes rolled backwards as he fell to the ground unconscious.

Finally, it’s not me for once.

Count is still not in your favor. But good job taking down an old man.

Val shook her head, instantly regretting the motion as another bout of nausea welled up in her stomach. Val took a few deep breaths through her nose with closed eyes, letting the feeling pass. Opening her eyes once more, she looked down at Brain’s body beside her. Pushing down her feeling of revulsion, she patted down the man’s stained lab coat but didn’t find anything in his pockets.

She picked up the small pistol from where it had clattered onto the ground several inches from Brain’s hand. A frown came over her face as she looked down at the red indicator built into the grip of the gun.

Seems he biometrically locked this gun so only he’d be able to use it. Can you break this, Noir?

No. Invasive nano in someone’s body is one thing I happen to specialize in, but arms protection subroutines are another story.

Val shrugged. Worth a shot. She shrugged her right shoulder again, realizing she was starting to get feeling back in the arm. Standing up, she looked down the hallway to the right. Glancing at the overlaid map, it seemed like this was the way she had come. Turning her head to the left, the hallway continued for another twenty feet before coming to a three-way intersection.

What do you think, Noir? Back towards the cell, or into unknown territory?

Your guess is as good as mine. But I do recommend we don’t dally.

Their point was underscored by Brawn’s groan in the room behind her. Val looked both ways again before setting off towards the left. No reason to retrace our steps. Might as well get as much information as we can.

A slight affirmation from Noir gave their approval of the plan. Less than an hour of freedom wasn’t much, but Gaia strike her down if she didn’t plan to use it to the best of her abilities.