Chapter Text
You cannot help but look around as a P.O.I.N.T. truck rumbles past, rattling the windows of the bodega. Thanks to the new leadership and collaboration with Voxmore, trooper patrols have increased, and vigilance against “unauthorized heroic activities” is heightened. Still, everyone agreed that a group of young people huddled around a cellphone in a retail store appears less suspicious than everyone disappearing at the same time to meet in secret. Besides, the meeting will be over soon, and afterwards you can double-check your devices for vulnerabilities. It is tempting to start planning which diagnostics you will run now, but instead you choose to quiet your mind and refocus your attention on the conversation in front of you. You are not often asked to speak during Gar’s briefings, but it is essential that you remain engaged.
“As it is not likely that the company has been compromised yet, we should be clear to move in and secure the factory prior to the P.O.I.N.T. operatives’ arrival for the heist.”
“Nice going on getting that intel, Elodie,” says Mr. Gar over the phone.
“Oh, it was nothing. Ms Watkins simply asked me to investigate the company records, which showed unprecedented layoffs, which naturally indicated—”
“Dendy will go with you to secure the place and apprehend whatever P.O.I.N.T. goons they send in. Try to recover whatever they’re after in the factory, too. Over and out.”
You blink at the sound of your name. This is an unanticipated turn of events. Before you can even begin to dissect the unfamiliar rush of emotions you feel at the prospect of working with Elodie, Mr. Gar has already closed the video communication channel. You know it would be futile to attempt to re-establish the connection to protest—signal encryption is one of the bodega team’s only defenses against Voxmore’s superior technology. Mission briefings begin and end at Mr. Gar’s command. You adjust your goggles and come around to stand on the other side of Enid’s legs. For K.O.’s sake, you will tolerate this partnership.
“Greetings, Dendy.” Like you, the blonde girl appears to be at a loss for words. She smiles at you, but you notice that the expression does not extend past her mouth to the rest of her face. Her eyes are deep brown and hollow, with visible lines underneath. “I don’t know if you’re aware of this,” she says, “but I—"
“I know who you are.” You adjust your goggles again. “I once owned your POW card as part of my collection. Then K.O. told me what you said to him during his visit to P.O.I.N.T. Prep Academy, so I destroyed it. Pleased to meet you.” Elodie’s smile falters as she shakes your outstretched hand. She looks over your head at Enid.
“Say, don’t you think that maybe K.O. would be a better fit for this job? After all, he is the one who went with her to the POW card factory last time,” says Elodie.
You nod in agreement and fiddle nervously with your beret. You are not necessarily opposed to working with her. It will surely be awkward, but you are accustomed to interpersonal relations being awkward when they involve you. Nevertheless, you would prefer the familiar routine of collaborating with your best friend. There is also one more emotion that surprises you: you feel a little shy at the possibility of being required to demonstrate your abilities in front of one of the most renowned youth heroes of the past few years. K.O. assured you that you were a valuable member of the team when you fought Small Calf Demon, but…
“Nah,” says Enid, “K.O.’s with his dad this weekend. He just texted me, they’re chasing a goo monster or something. Red and Rad are both off today, so Cob knows where they are. Have fun on your little field trip.” She turns around and walks into the break room, leaving you and Elodie staring at each other. You do not want to be the first to look away. Neither of you blinks. After a few moments of silence, Elodie abruptly spins on her heel and strides out the front doors into the parking lot. You follow, running to keep up with her on your stubby legs.
“Right, then!” she calls over her shoulder. “Shall we take the limo tank?”
After disembarking from the tank a safe distance away from the factory, you and Elodie begin your approach through the woods. She did not seem to appreciate your suggestions to improve the efficiency and combat capability of her vehicle during the journey here. You have maintained silence since then, so the only sound is the occasional snap of a twig that one of you fails to spot underneath the bright orange carpet of autumn leaves on the forest floor.
POW Card Industries has undergone significant renovations since the last time you visited, seemingly in the interest of security. The factory is now located at a lake, protected on three sides by steep cliffs so tall, you can barely make out the body of water below. You have no choice but to approach towards the front door, in full view of the state-of-the-art security systems, as well as whoever is operating them. You and Elodie decided to risk a straightforward entry. In fact, the sub-optimally high profile of this mission is the reason why the two of you were chosen: of the group, you are the least easily recognizable as associates of K.O. If questioned, you will identify yourselves as POW card super-fans working on a research report for school. The ruse will surely be effective, you think, since it has already been tested by yourself and K.O. in the past.
However, as you and your teammate enter and proceed into the depths of the building, it quickly becomes clear that something is fundamentally different about the place compared to last time, on a much deeper level than the physical decoration of the building. You attempt to stay out of the way of the main hallways on your route to the central control room, but it is apparent that this is not necessary. Although the fluorescent lights are blazing and all of the machinery seems to be functional, there are no employees to be seen. The factory is loud, but at the same time it is quiet, since there is no chatter or footsteps mixed in with the ongoing clanging of the automated operations. There is no hint of the bustling crowds of tours and promotion that clogged most of the premises during your previous visit. By silent agreement, you and Elodie abandon the pretense of stealth and hurry directly towards the center of the massive building. However, before you reach your destination, a faint rattling noise catches your attention. You tug on Elodie’s shirt hem to get her to stop and listen. It sounds like it is coming from a server room down a narrow hallway to your right. Elodie raises her eyebrows in acknowledgment and creeps towards the door, which creaks as she pushes it open. The rattling stops.
“Who’s there?” Elodie calls, reluctant to announce her location. You follow her into the room. It is dimly lit with a green tint. Rows of server racks stretch towards the ceiling, and coolant tubes coil around them. You are a little surprised to see a single barred window high up on the far wall; you did not expect that your detour brought you to an exterior room. You both had thoroughly studied the factory floor plan in preparation for this mission. Hm…
In the center of the room, there is a large chrome-plated object, approximately the shape of a refrigerator, covered in dials and buttons. Unlike the dusty server chassis surrounding it, you cannot immediately parse its nature. You prepare your hack pack’s diagnostic tool kit. Before you can get close enough to inspect the mysterious object, you are stopped by an arresting growling noise. It is like the snarl of an animal.
“Dendy, get behind me, if you please,” Elodie whispers. Sure enough, crouched in the shadow of the bulky foreign technology, there is a mass of pinkish-gray fur bristling and vibrating ferociously. Fixing you both with a fearsome glare, the creature continues to fiddle with one of the dials using razor sharp claws. You can see now that it is a humanoid figure, female, wearing a P.O.I.N.T. trooper uniform, but with a little gold crown instead of a helmet.
Your dealings with P.O.I.N.T. troopers as part of K.O.’s Resistance have not been numerous. Recent intel states that Shadowy Figure assumed control of the army following the defeat of Foxtail. You know that he is able to command the actions of any individual soldier through the interface between the android Damage and a chip implanted during enrollment in P.O.I.N.T. Prep Academy. Elodie seemed unhappy when you zapped her arm with hyper-radio waves to gather data to analyze, but it did not hurt that much. You assume (you did not find it necessary to speak with her during the procedure). However, you have not fully completed the reverse engineering of the technology, in part because you have not had a significant amount of direct contact with P.O.I.N.T. agents in the field. It seems that Shadowy Figure maintains the army largely for purposes of political intimidation, rather than for combat… so far.
The fact that the operative in front of you has not responded to your intrusion concerns you. Whatever her mission is against this seemingly ultra-proprietary POW Card Industries technology, it is more important to her than engaging with interlopers. This indicates that allowing her to proceed unbothered will most likely be disastrous for K.O.’s Resistance. You prepare the retractable cable on your Hack Pack. A small shock to the cerebral cortex should snap her out of her intense focus. It will not hurt a bit. That is, it will not hurt you.
“Wait.” Elodie stops you again. “I’ve been under Chip’s thrall before. The orders felt more like strong suggestions than commands. I was able to regain my will, thanks to…” She pauses and looks away when you tilt your head. Stuttering a little, she continues: “A-at any rate, let me try to reason with her.”
You nod and step aside. Elodie cautiously approaches the P.O.I.N.T. soldier and touches her shoulder with her fingertips. Her muscles tense at the contact.
“Er, Koala Princess?” Elodie keeps her tone level and friendly. “It’s me. Your favourite hero in the world, right? I see you’ve grown out your fur. Very fetching. Listen, I know we’ve never really had a meaningful conversation, but we had some fun times back at the Academy, didn’t we? You and Miss Pastel used to—”
The koala girl snarls and bares her teeth. She has sharp incisors. Elodie gasps, but she does not flinch for long. She grips Koala Princess’s upper arms tightly with both hands.
“I’m sorry I left you behind,” Elodie says quickly. She seems to be searching for something in Koala Princess’s fuzzy face, which is losing its vacant stare and becoming more hostile by the second. “And… I’m sorry I made you hold my drinks for me. That goes for Miss Pastel, as well. It was wrong of me to take advantage of my fans—my friends that way. I’m sorry I stopped talking to you after Enid arrived, I’m sorry I never invited you round for a sleepover, I’m sorry I made you use the hall bathroom—”
Before you can even begin to make sense of her disjointed babbling, Elodie is cut off by a koala paw slamming into her stomach. She doubles over, gasping. Koala Princess easily wrestles out of her grasp and leaps towards the exit in a flash of light. You immediately release your spring-loaded tether, but the cable strikes nothing but air in the place that was occupied by the enemy’s head a moment ago. As the glitter clears from your vision, you spy a little koala clinging to a pipe overhead. By the time you press the button to reload your cord, she has shuffled into a ventilation shaft.
“She’s getting away,” Elodie groans from the floor.
“I know.” You initiate the sequence in your suit for an electrified super jump. You must pursue the fleeing P.O.I.N.T. operative and capture her. If you could finish reverse engineering the delivery mechanism of the trooper directive system, the information would surely prove invaluable to stopping Chip Damage.
Wait a minute. The command to retreat was so strong in Koala Princess’s mind that she could not speak. There must have been some motivation for the urgency. You stand still and listen for a moment. Sure enough, you can detect a faint frequency that stands out from the background noise of the factory machinery, barely within the kappa range of hearing.
“It is just as I suspected. Koala Princess has planted an explosive device to erase the evidence of P.O.I.N.T.’s intrusion. We must exit the POW card factory immediately.”
Squinting your eyes in determination, you turn your back on the enemy’s escape route and hurriedly return to where Elodie has hauled herself to her feet. You grab onto the front of her hoodie with both fists. You plant your feet and bend your knees.
According to your calculations, the window is too high to reach. Also, striking the panes with sufficient force to propel the combined weight of two people away from the building would surely break both of your necks. You angle yourself to the left instead, towards a large coolant runoff pipe that contains mostly clean water. You hope.
“Dendy, what are you doing? We’ll never e—” Elodie’s panicked question becomes a scream as you unleash your super jump at full force. The two of you are airborne only for a moment before you make contact with your target and plunge into the darkness. The momentum from your jump sends you tumbling wildly as you zoom along the tunnel. You assume that wherever the excess coolant is deposited, it will be outside the factory, or at least easier to escape from than the mazelike upper floors. As long as you trust in the integrity of your hack pack’s waterproof casing, you have nothing to fear. You close your eyes and allow the water to lead you. Although you can perceive a massive rumbling in the structure of the building above you, you feel completely at peace flying through the cold darkness. It reminds you of home.
The air supply in your lungs has depleted, but you continue to hold your breath. You can sense that your cells’ excess oxygen reserves have engaged. A metal protrusion from the side of the pipe strikes your knee as you pass by. You tuck your head and limbs against your body to prevent further occurrences. This increases your speed significantly, as well as the rate of your rotation in the water. You feel somewhat dizzy.
Now that you think of it, there is one small matter of concern. The force of your entrance into the waterway caused you to lose your grasp on Elodie almost instantly. You do not know where she is. You are certain that she did manage to clear the pipe entrance alongside you. However, she is much larger than you, so she is most likely moving more slowly. She will be fine. You think.
At last, you sense that you have exited the enclosed space of the tunnel and are now submerged in a larger body of water. Your momentum dissipates. You relax out of your curled position and take a moment to appreciate the endless calm that surrounds you. You will not need to breathe for another hour at least, but you think that you would prefer to proceed on the surface. You reach behind your head and pull the cord to engage your hack pack’s flotation devices. As you rise through the water, you can see a faint orange glow growing stronger above you.
Your head breaks the surface. The orientation of your flotation devices means that your face is in a fixed position staring upwards. Therefore, you cannot see what is happening in the lake around you, but you are content to watch the sunset above you as the gentle waves carry you along at their whim. When you feel your feet brush against sand, you disengage your hack pack and waddle onto the shore. You sit down facing the lake. Across the water, you can see a dark cloud of smoke where the factory is… that is, where it was. The orange flames make for a pleasant view, you think; they match the sunset and the autumn leaves of the forest in the background.
After some time, you can hear a great splashing coming towards you, disrupting the tranquil lapping of the waves. Ah, there she is. Without saying a word, Elodie crawls out of the water and flops face-down on the rocky beach next to you. In fact, it seems that she physically cannot speak, since she is preoccupied with heaving and coughing up pondweeds. Although completely drenched, she appears to still have her weapons and other implements. You assume it was excruciating for her to swim so far while carrying them. She probably suffered a mental impact as well, from the shock of narrowly escaping death by explosion. You decide to wait as long as she requires to debrief.
After exactly seven minutes, her breathing begins to regain regularity.
“Dendy,” she gasps, “what in Cob’s name just happened?”
“We entered the main waste expulsion system and escaped as the largest part of the facility collapsed due to the explosion. You see?” You point across the bay, where the ruins of POW card factory are currently smoldering. Elodie does not look up, but she does roll onto her side to face you.
“I mean, by Jove, how on Earth did we survive?” she asks incredulously. You tilt your head, unsure what she is trying to imply.
“Well, I suppose I understand how you managed it,” Elodie continues. “I’ve studied kappas’ anaerobic respiration process. But we must’ve spent upwards of ten minutes underwater! How could I possibly hold my breath for so long? Especially considering my lack of powers…” Something is trembling in her eyes. Is it fear? Or hope? You are not very good at identifying emotions from people’s faces.
“You also used your anaerobic respiratory system, of course,” you say. Her line of questioning does not make sense to you. Unless… “Elodie, were you not aware? You are part kappa.”
She stares blankly at you.
“I’m—what? No. That’s impossible. I… I’m human!” she exclaims.
“Yes, you are human.” It seems that patience will be required here. “But you are also part—”
“I am not!” She sits up sharply. If you were tasked with identifying her current emotional status, you would definitely say that it is anger. You do not back away as she leans towards you.
“You are. Surely you have noticed certain traits in yourself, such as the green tint in your pigmentation.” Elodie’s eyes widen and her hand flies up to touch her hair. “Or perhaps,” you continue, “your affinity for swimming, or your natural inclination for technology, or the way the ends of your hair stick forward under your ears, or the impulse to keep the top of your head covered with a small hat since the onset of puberty—”
“All right, fine.” She cuts you off in the middle of your explanation. “I believe you. I’m sorry for being sharp with you. The truth is, I did always feel that there was something different about me, even when I had my powers. Still… how could it be possible?”
“I do not know for sure. Like I attempted to say earlier, it is only a small percentage of your genetic material that manifests in a few phenotypes. I believe that one of your parents—your father, if I had to guess—had a distant ancestor who underwent some experimental procedure that resulted in the implementation of a small portion of the kappa genome in their cells. I cannot say what the intended purpose of the procedure was, or if it was designed to affect the person’s reproductive cells. Perhaps it was an attempt to emulate the species transformation inducement abilities observed in certain were-animals.”
“I see.” Elodie looks down. “I guess that explains why my… guardians were always so domineering about my social life. About everything, really. And why they got so wound up when I lost my powers. I suppose they were afraid of people figuring it out… including me.” She half-smiles and scoffs. “But Dendy, how do you know about all this? I suppose everyone knows?” Her voice wobbles a little.
“Hm… I do not think so. It seems that the pattern of these characteristics would only be noticed by someone who was looking for them.” You pause at the unfamiliar sensation of a blush warming your face. You did not intend for her to find out about this. “I happened to see you in a promotional advertisement for Sun Drink three years ago. Back then, society thought that kappas were incapable of heroism. I felt empowered to see a hero who was like me, even in a small way, so I researched your family history. You were my first POW card.”
“Oh!” Elodie’s expression looks startled. You frown. Perhaps you should not have revealed this. You turn your attention back to watching the smoke rising from the factory up on the cliff. Elodie does the same.
“Well,” she says, “it’s really too bad that there’ll be no more POW cards, then. What with the factory being wrecked, and all. I’d autograph you a new one…” She stops talking and blinks. Then, she leaps to her feet. “Dendy, I’ve just realised,” she says excitedly, “what if P.O.I.N.T. wasn’t trying to steal anything? What if—?”
“Their true objective was to destroy the POW card factory all along,” you say, also standing up, “which is why it was already evacuated when we arrived. But why would they do this? They have been prioritizing covert operations ever since they were forced to retreat from the Glorb harvesting site last summer. There must be a strategic motive.”
“I don’t know. I agree that it’s odd,” Elodie says solemnly. “We’d better get a move on and report to the others.” You nod and attempt to rise to your feet. While you felt fine in the water, and the injury should completely heal within half an hour, your knee that was damaged in the tunnel earlier is currently causing you difficulty. Seeing your pain, Elodie frowns. Instead of turning her back on you and sprinting in the direction of the limo tank, she holds out her arms towards you. This behavior is puzzling.
Of course. My hack pack is out of power at the moment. It will be faster this way. You reach up and grasp her forearms so she can lift you. Once you are situated against her torso, she sets off at a brisk trot up the embankment and into the woods. Clinging onto her water-soaked clothes as you pass through the trees, you feel a peculiar emotion. Despite the ostensible failure of your mission, you are glad to know that you will return to K.O. and the others with important information. You, Dendy, are a valued team member in the fight against Voxmore. You also feel a strange stirring of kinship towards the person who is cradling you in her arms, so close you can hear her heartbeat, slightly inhuman in tempo and a little like your own. What is the word…? Belonging.
When you finally arrive back at where the tank is parked, Elodie sets you down on top of one of the treads. She takes a moment to remove her outer layer of clothing, the drenched hoodie, and wring out some of the water before she climbs into the hatch to drive home. She makes a surprised noise as her cellphone falls out of the hoodie pocket onto the ground. It is ringing.
“I’m honestly surprised my phone still works after all that,” she smiles at you as she picks it up to answer the call. “You’re lucky you haven’t disrupted our stealth, er, field trip.”
“Guys, it’s an emergency—” Radicles’s voice sounds garbled and watery through the damaged speaker. “Professor—goo monster—Enid—”
“What? Enid?” Elodie’s voice goes up sharply.
“No, me and her are trying to look for—We haven’t been able to find—gone Turbo again."
The call cuts off as the device becomes too waterlogged to function. Elodie anxiously tries to get the screen to turn back on. But you heard enough to comprehend the essence of the urgent message Radicles was trying to tell you. Something happened while K.O. was away with his father, to bring out the darkness you created in him years ago with your callous experiments. The situation is highly familiar to you. Stunned, you scramble into the tank to hurry back to Lakewood. Memories wash over you: passing notes in class at Lakewood Public Elementary School, trying to teach him the basics of Sapphire on Rails, making a video channel together… all gone in an instant. You managed to bring him back once before, but that is no indicator of success; his emotions have steadily grown more volatile since then. You will have to dedicate all of your strength to saving your best friend this time.