Episode: 3.9

--- Rai ---

“You sure you want to keep a bottle at home?” Chess asked him as they made their way back home from downtown, both deciding it was better to walk there rather than using their abilities anymore that night.

“Yeah, never know when we’ll need it in an emergency.” He told her easily enough.

(Besides I ended up vomiting up half the Malice from earlier, having a flask at home will make it easier to down when you’re not looking…)

“I guess…” she finally agreed, likely reluctant by picking something up along their bond.

“You okay?” he asked more to shift the spotlight of their conversation onto her than an actual concern for her at the moment, after all she rarely bothered hiding her emotions from him, and the only time he really needed to be worried was when she did.

“Yeah, it’s just-” she paused for a moment tilting her head to the side as her pupils dilated, “Hear that?”

Focusing on his hearing he subconsciously tilted his head the same way as his sister, listening for whatever caught her attention.

(Sounds like… engines… sirens… guns…)

“We shouldn’t get involved.” He warned her, as she took a step toward the noise.

“We’re barely three blocks from the house… we have to keep an eye on whatever happens here.” she argued as she continued on, likely assuming he’d just follow… which he did.

(It’d still be nice if she didn’t just assume…)

He sighed before picking up his pace just long enough to catch up to her.

“Any idea what’s going on?” he asked, knowing her hearing was better than his in the same way his vision was better than hers.

“No… but it sounds like three people are being arrested.”

“Wonder if it’s that one dealer’s house?” he commented, “They’ve been bringing the neighborhood down since they moved in last year.”

“No,” Chess shook her head, “we burned his house down when that twelve-year-old O.D.-ed there a couple of months ago.”

“Almost forgot we did that.” he nodded, remembering the favor he had to pull with an Arcane on sixth street to cover up that mess.

“Actually, it sounds like… Shit.” Chess cursed as he heard the sound of engines in the air behind them.

“Sanctuary…” he cringed trying to avoid looking at the grey security drones that flew overhead towards the sirens.

“Meaning Deviants are involved.” She finished his thought with her own cringe.

“Meaning we really shouldn’t get involved.” Despite knowing they weren’t actually going to follow through on his words, he felt they needed to be said, specifically so he could say I told you so when this went to shit.

“You hang out around here more than me, do you know any Deviants in the neighborhood?” she asked him as they picked up their pace just enough to get there faster but not enough to seem too suspicious.

“Nothing above a C, and even then, that guy is registered.” He offered in a whisper given how dangerous this kind of talk was with Sanctuary in the area.

“When has that ever stopped them?” Chess scoffed, doing the same.

“True, but they wouldn’t cause this big of a scene over a D-list psychic either.” He reminded her, after all Sanctuary only got away with half as much as they did due to one hell of a publicity team.

“What do you think it is then?” she asked, likely harsher than she intended.

“Don’t know, but as long as they aren’t looking at us, I don’t honestly care.” He shrugged, knowing they’d continue to disagree on the topic, like they always did.

Chess prioritized helping people.

He prioritized surviving.

“Why are you being like this?” she growled, eyes flashing for just a moment.

“Because getting involved is dangerous to you, mamá, dad, and everyone else.” He explained.

“And what about the people in trouble?”

“Not our problem.” He told her bluntly, knowing exactly how cold his voice sounded out loud, as he let just a touch more Malice into his brain, to consciously numb out his own sense of altruism.

He felt a spike in her Malice, one that was far more aggressive than his own.

He put an arm in front of her before she could do anything he’d regret, “We’re close enough.”

Ignoring her glare, his eyes swept the scene before spotting a few bulky black vehicles with a set of white stripes and the Sanctuary logo on the side.

“Vultures.” Chess hissed seeing a crowd already half-formed around the scene.

“On that we agree sister.” He nodded, his eyes less on the crowd and more on the drones circling said crowd, and likely preforming a number of invasive scans on them.

Lowering his gaze from the drones, and to the people below.

He pushed on his Malice as much as he dared so close to the scene, willing his other-self to offer it’s more clinical opinion.

(Threat Assessment…)

(Primary Threats: Three trucks: two military, one prison class… Four drones: two surveillance, two turret… Ten soldiers: no specialists or elites…)

(Secondary Threats: -Sanctuary Reinforcements- Sanctuary response time for this district is approximately fifteen minutes… -Outside Reinforcements- Sixteen in the crowd, most likely neighbors of the arrested, or observers; no notable combatants…)

He glanced to his left and watched Chess tense her muscles as her eyes flashed for the split second it took her to make the same threat assessment as him.

(Pack status: (Cheshire Black, sister) -Stress levels, high-medium- increased emotional response (medium), decreased focus (low)… -Malice concentration- low projection, no notable effects…)

(She’s going to get herself killed, if I let her do this alone…)

Black eyes with white pupils jumped to him with a glare, “What?”

He ran a finger along his collar bone before sighing, “You’re going to get involved regardless of what I say, aren’t you?”

She paused for a moment, before giving him a nod, “Yep.”

Closing his eyes for a moment he rolled his neck before inhaling slowly.

(1… 2… 3… 4…)

(1… 2… 3… 4…)

Slowly he let the breath loose, a black mist pouring from his mouth.

(Personal status: -Stress levels- Medium- no notable effects… -Malice concentration- 11.3% / 14.7%, no notable effects…)

“So be it then,” He sighed before turning to the crowd with a calculating gaze, “but if we’re doing this, we’re doing it my way.”

“I thought we had the same way?” she grinned before turning to the crowd herself, “Hit ‘em smart, hit‘em fast, hit ‘em quiet.”

“True,” he nodded, “but don’t forget we’re in our neighborhood, we need to make it look like the Deviants escaped on their own otherwise…”

“Otherwise they’ll raise the alert level for our district, by saying there’s an ‘illegal Deviant infestation’ here.” She finished seeing his point, “So how you want to do this?”

“Give me a second.”

Inhaling once more Malice flooded his brain, as he pushed his perception to its max speed, causing the world around him slowed to a crawl.

(Okay, what am I working with here…)

He started with the three Deviants being handcuffed, and two guards watching over them.

(Objectives: -Primary- Free targets… Avoid detection… -Secondary- Frame targets for all notable traces…)

(We’ve got to make it look like they escaped on their own, but how…?)

His gaze moved to the trucks, as he tried to figure out their time frame.

(Average Sanctuary arrest time for district: 15 minutes, 32 seconds…)

(Estimated Time Transpired: 9 minutes, 46 seconds)

(We’ll need to move fast then, Chess can use her perception filter to get to them and undo their cuffs that’ll take her about two minutes between the three of them…)

His eyes jumped to the soldiers wandering around the site.

(They lost the last fight, and aside from some subtle support we can’t help them… and without knowing what their Deviancies are we can’t do much else on that front…)

He glanced a little higher to the drones.

(Airborne targets are always a pain… Can’t stealth them, or use anything useful against them without OD-ing, and despite how Chess feels about this, it isn’t worth that…

(That said we can’t use any external Malice at all until the surveillance drones are down, which won’t happen until they’re ready to move out…)

Pausing for a moment looking the scene over once more before giving Chess a ping.

(With our stealth skills we should be able to set up something, but Chess is going to have to do the heavy lifting…)

He felt something brushing against the edge of his consciousness, before twisting his Malice in such a way that it would strengthen the pack bond between him and Cheshire, allowing her a semblance of his processing speed at the cost of lowering his own.

[Query] Chess asked pushing a simplified imprint of her thoughts through their connection, leaving him to translate the thought that was more feeling than anything else, into the simple question of, (What’s the plan?)

[Query] [Stealth] [Time] [Limit] (How long can you apply your filter to your Malice output?) He questioned eyeing the drones once more as he sent the string of concepts for her to parse through.

[Time] [Value] (3 minutes, and 26.3 seconds) She offered easily understanding his question.

[Approval] (Better than I was expecting…)

He nodded to himself, before glancing towards his sister.

[Unit: Cheshire] [Warning] [Unit: Self] [Assistance] [Limit] (You know you’re going to have to do most of the work on this, right?)

He felt it was only right, that he reminded her of that little detail before they got started.

[Amusement] [Unit: Raimundo] [Combat] [Value] [Minimal] (I know, with your Malice this low you’re useless as a field unit.)

He decided it was better to just let the jab pass after all, she wasn’t entirely wrong… though she wasn’t entirely right either.

[Targets: Defending] [Free] [Interrogate] (For now, go loosen their cuffs and try to get them to tell you their Deviancies while you’re at it.) he told her, letting the Malice in his brain retract as he started forcibly repressing his own, [Objective: 1] [Complete] [Objective: 2] [Begin] (After that we can work on phase two…)

“What are you going to do?” Chess asked aloud, as his end of their bond became unresponsive, and their minds returned to a more human perception.

“Distraction. Signal me when you’re ready.” He told her, rolling a knot out of his neck as he made his way towards the crowd.

(Oh, this is going to suck so much…)