“Hehehe”

Saydaa skipped down the hallway, a smug grin on her face. Kiyosuke sighed as he watched her approach. Anytime Saydaa approached him was guaranteed to be annoying, but especially so if she was in a good mood.

“Hey jerk, how’s it feel to be the least useful member of the team?”

Kiyosuke paused, staring at her silently.

“What sort of twisted and imbecilic leaps of logic lead you to that conclusion?”

Saydaa crossed her arms and closed her eyes.

“While you’re playing around on the base, I’m off doing super special missions for the boss and undergoing super special training. And what are you doing? Oh, that’s right. Nothing. Zilch. Nada.”

Kiyosuke closed his eyes and heaved a sigh.

“More like, the boss has to give you extra attention so you can keep up.”

“Hehe, don’t be jealous.”

“Who was it who comes dead last in every round of sparring?”

The grin finally dropped from Saydaa’s face.

“Say’s the guy who never beat killer robot girl!”

“Because I’m not weak enough for her to disable the AI.”

Saydaa puffed her cheeks and stomped her foot.

“You know what? Let’s find out, you jerk! Let’s go again, right now! I’ll show you dead last!”

Kiyosuke sighed. What a waste of time. But, well, if he had to play around, knocking the annoyance into the ground was perhaps the least objectionable game.

Just then a voice rang out from the intercom.

“Nemesis to the briefing room, I repeat, Nemesis to the briefing room.”

Kiyosuke scoffed.

“Saved by the bell. Let’s go.”

“You! This isn’t over!”

But Kiyosuke had already vanished, leaving Saydaa to stomp around in rage.

Nemesis sat in silence as the jet continued onward. Saydaa glared at Kiyosuke, who refused to look at her. Nana glanced around with a worried look, but Arvid just shrugged and shook his head. Elise was expressionless as always.

Cikizwa let out a sigh. The team was certainly effective…but teenage drama was not in her wheelhouse. So she’d just do what was.

“All right team, the target is a company known as Alpha Systems. They specialize in AI and robotics, but in truth they’re a front for a villain known as the Atomic Disciple. Inspired by the Atomic Herald, this guy is seeking access to the U.S. nuclear arsenal from the inside. We obviously don’t want that to happen.”

Arvid raised an eyebrow.

“This sounds more like a job for the ILS.”

Cikizwa nodded.

“That’s true, but the ILS is unaware of Alpha Systems’ true backer. Even if they are, Alpha Systems is currently a legal business in contention for a U.S. military contract, so the ILS can’t hit them without proof. And by then it might be too late, so we’re going to conduct a little corporate sabotage.”

Cikizwa brought up a holographic display of the base in the center of the jet.

“The facility is well-guarded with a veritable army of security drones and warbots. And unlike your standard villains, these guys have backups and communication lines with the outside world. Which means if you take too long, they can transfer their data offsite and start up again later. So you’ll need to split up and hit multiple targets simultaneously. Here is the plan: Elise, Kiyosuke, and Saydaa will infiltrate the facility covertly. Elise will head to the main data servers to download anything useful and then wipe them clean. Saydaa will shut down the main external routers to cut off their connection with the outside world, and then move towards the main power generators. Kiyosuke will apprehend the lead researchers. Once your missions are complete, regroup with the outside team. On the outside, Arvid will assault the base directly and wipe out as much of the hardware as possible. Nana will remain on overwatch and ensure none of the key personnel escape. As usual, try to avoid lethal force, though it is authorized should it be necessary for self-defense. Any questions?”

The team shook their heads. Cikizwa nodded once more.

“In that case get ready, we’re approaching soon.”

Saydaa held out her arms, eyes glowing as she stood before the giant Oscillator Engine. Red light glowed around the massive cables leading into the machine, which began to rip themselves out, tearing and twisting the ports in the process. She let out a sigh as the glow faded from her eyes. She kind of wanted to mess with the generator itself, but the boss lady made it clear she shouldn’t touch it if she didn’t understand it fully, lest it explode in her face. And technical blueprints just made her head hurt. So she was to simply unplug the machine in the most egregious manner possible. Hypothetically someone could still plug it back in, but the show would be over by then. And so Saydaa turned to leave, preparing to cast her recognition inhibition spell once more.

Honestly, this mission was too easy.

All that security turned out to be useless when confronted with a killer cyborg that can think in code and a half-genie/witch (trainee)/professional con artist. Even when they had that useless jerk as baggage. Bet he was screwing things up right now.

Suddenly Saydaa’s mouth curled into a grin.

What better way than to show up that jerk than to finish his job for him? She’d save his sorry butt and show him he’s the least useful all in one go.

Kiyosuke stood on the roof of the lab, looking over the researchers at work. He remained still and silent, waiting for the annoyance. Hopefully, she was good for something…

The lights shut off. Well what do you know?

Kiyosuke made his move, leaping down off the roof as the scientists began to panic. He pulled out his stun blade, making a clean swipe.

“Gah!”

One.

“Ack!”

Two.

As he approached the third there was a green flash of light. Kiyosuke found himself flying through the air, along with the desks, computers, and other researchers. He flipped midair and landed on the wall, his eyes still blurry from the sudden light.

But his ears worked fine, as he heard someone run from the room.

The other researchers lay on the floor, groaning. They weren’t going anywhere. Kiyosuke made his choice and leapt towards the door. He was just about to jump into the hallway when he caught a green glow at the edge of his vision. He grit his teeth and dug his heels in as a green beam hissed through the hallway ahead of him.

Once the beam cleared Kiyosuke leapt into the hall, his hand full of shuriken, and then clicked his tongue. The hallway was empty. He put away his shuriken and sprinted down the hall.

Saydaa was running down the hall when a hidden door suddenly opened on the wall ahead of her, a man stepping out. He turned and jumped when he saw her in the dimly lit hall, holding up his hand.

“Who are you?”

Saydaa grinned. Looks like the jerk failed after all.

“Your worst nightmare.”

She held her hands up and began to form a circle of red light in front of her, creating a complex geometric pattern. Time to show the jerk what real training’s all about…

And a green beam slammed into her before she completed the circle.

Saydaa let out a cry as she flew down the hall, skidding across the floor. She groaned and looked up.

Her eyes widened.

A glowing green hand pointed towards her.

And then the man grunted as a stun blade struck his back.

“Foolish.”

There was the jerk. Saydaa grit her teeth and rose to her feet.

“I had him, you shouldn’t have interfered! I didn’t need your help!”

Kiyosuke raised an eyebrow.

“You’re not even supposed to be here right now.”

“Neither are you! Weren’t you supposed to catch this guy?!”

“I did.”

“With my help!”

Kiyosuke scoffed.

“I was right behind him, he couldn’t outrun me so this outcome was inevitable. All you did was nearly get yourself killed doing something you weren’t supposed to.”

“You!”

“Enough. We need to get moving.”

Kiyosuke turned to leave…before smirking slightly.

“How does it feel to be the least useful member of the team?”

Saydaa leapt at him but the shinobi was already gone. Saydaa stomped on the ground, sending tremors through it as her eyes glowed.

“I’ll show you…just you wait. I’m going to show you how much better I am. And then I’m going to smash that stupid mug of yours straight into the ground."

Bob heaved a sigh as he reviewed the report from Cikizwa. No problems with the mission itself, but Kiyosuke and Saydaa were having a bit of a spat. Hopefully it was just the usual teenage drama and broody loner act, because he wouldn’t have time to deal with it either way.

Linda had just reported in, the poor girl had barely slept lately. Londyn had pulled out all the stops, her drone network was expanding rapidly and she was about to start launching her own spy satellites of all things. He figured recent events would light a fire under her but at this rate her intel would eclipse his own any day now. Still, she had a lot more raw data coming in that would need to be filtered and analyzed while he already knew who he was looking for thanks to the EL dossiers. Likewise it still didn’t change the number of heroes she had available in the short term or how quickly she could redeploy them, so he still had time to act on the more troublesome villains. Though…her next project might close that window.

He heaved a sigh. One final sprint. Londyn was pushing him out of the game but that was fine. He needed to head off to train with Xiong Huang eventually anyways, so it wasn’t worth the trouble to rebuild a new system under the expanded ILS. The only thing he needed to do was keep some of the game changers under wraps and prep an emergency card or two for rainy days, after that Londyn should be able to keep the peace.

Which meant he needed to get this coffee back to the boss ASAP. A minion’s job was never done.