Scion – Rada Campaign Guest Appearance – Part 3
This account was originally found on Livejournal, I am not the original author—I am just a fan of the journal and have found reading it on livejournal clunky to navigate and rife with errors/instability (such as having to refresh multiple times due to the page in questions becoming unavailable often requiring multiple refreshes. The original post can be found here, published by DJ-Yomi, and was published on Aug 4th 2008
Things remain exciting among Storm’s band of Scions. Not that I mind. We’re fighting Daitokuji, and that’s one of the most worthwhile things I can think of. If it weren’t for us, Daitokuji would be destroying my beloved Japan, not to mention what they’d be doing in America! >_< We’ve got to take them down. Fortunately, the work that Keiko and I did in exposing their environmental practices in America has gotten the attention of some environmentally friendly political interests, so I guess things have been a little uncomfortable for Daitokuji lately. But that’s a drop in the bucket compared to the way we’ve torn right through the company’s plans in Shikoku and Kyushu.
Anyway, after our short break at Maneki’s house, we wasted no time heading to Daitokuji’s main site. Most of the group went in Cesar’s car. Can you believe that it actually flies? Pretty cool, though I have to say the incongruous sight of a car “driving” on thin air is very odd. ^_^ I wonder where they got it? I’ll have to ask about that.
Storm opted to ride with me, Keiko, Sera, and Tabby as we drove our rental to the site. He seems quite taken with Tabby, and talked with her for most of the drive. It’s so sweet. I actually really needed to talk to Storm about important matters involving our pantheons, but I decided not to interrupt. I waited to talk to him later…which I think kinda blindsided him when I did bring it up. But I’m getting ahead of myself. As usual.
The main Daitokuji construction site was located deep in undeveloped land with only a dirt access road leading to it. It turns out the land is Shinto holy ground. I think there used to be a shrine there, but the area has been abandoned for years, and I guess Daitokuji pulled some supernaturally empowered strings to get the permits to build there. It’s scary that they might possess that level of political power, but it’s good to know. We can use that info as we continue to fight them.
The site was surrounded by a high green privacy fence with several human guards protecting the entrance, but Sam took us in through the fence. Yeah, he can walk through walls. Like a ghost. I have got to learn to do that. ^_^ But I believe it relies upon the powers of psychopomps like Anubis, and I haven’t been granted such powers, even though my mom is in charge of Yomi. How fair is that? >_< Anyway, once inside, we could see a half-built six-story building. The topmost floor was only girders, and the rest were in various states of completion. The interior was still largely unfinished aside from the walls.
The place was heavily defended. Six of Daitokuji’s flying robots (what Storm calls Hunter Destroyer Robots, or HDRs) and a helicopter armed with miniguns circled overhead. Carina crept cat-like into the building to see what, if anything, was guarding the interior. Fortunately, since the site is still only half-finished, none of the high-tech security systems I’m sure Daitokuji normally used were installed yet. Unfortunately, there were several human guards and a few BGRs (Storm’s term, it stands for Body Guard Robots) were spread out among the first three floors. Carina also reported that she’d heard a strange, unearthly buzzing coming from one of the rooms on the second floor.
After a quick discussion, we agreed to sneak in and take out the guards on the inside first. Doing so would no doubt alert the robots outside, but we hoped to finish off the security a piece at a time, and if we could lure the HDRs inside, then not only would the helicopter be unable to attack us easily, but the HDRs wouldn’t be able to use their mobility to their advantage. To sweeten the deal, Jacob and Carina hatched a plan to ward the interior of the first floor to shield us against the HDRs when they did come. I’ve seen firsthand how effective Ray’s unseen shield and wards are, so I thought that was a pretty clever plan.
The only catch was that the robots were communicating with some sort of tone based check-in system. Sam could hear and interpret it somewhat, and explained it to me and Helena. She’s a computer genius, and I’m a sound engineer, so between us we were able to use my laptop to replicate the sounds and the patterns the robots were using to check in on each other, and set it up to transmit. That way, we could keep the guards from reporting any trouble until we were ready to drop the bomb on them. Helena is really intelligent. I bet she and Adam could have mind-numbing conversations…but they’d probably get annoyed at one another too quickly for that to go very far. ^_^ Maybe that’s why she’s a bit emotionally distant. I mean, Adam’s a bit that way too, and he’s ridiculously smart. He’s nowhere close to as icy as Helena is, and he’s friendly and personable, but I always get the feeling that there’s a distance there…
Anyway, once that was done, we snuck inside to the second floor. With Carina’s help (she’s such a sweetie!), I just shadow-stepped in, because there was no way I was going to cross the open ground between the fence and the building without being seen. And once inside, Storm and Cesar (with his guns silenced, thank goodness!) quickly took out the human guards on the second floor, the ones who were guarding the room from which the buzzing sound came. You can tell that Cesar is a trained killer. I mean, as crazy as he seems sometimes, he’s damn professional. Maybe it runs in the family for the Aztlani. After all, the only other one I know is Elisa, and she’s kinda the same way. Crazy but professional. It’s adorable. ♥ ^_^
As we approached the room and I could hear the buzzing, it began to sound dishearteningly familiar. It sounded a lot like the unholy murmurings of the shitidama, the clawed specters we fought in Shikoku. But it wasn’t exactly the same…there was something different. Sam used his wall-phasing ability to peer into the room, and said that there were vats of blood. We broke into the room for a closer look. There were…faces floating in the blood. They were small and very hard to see, but they were there: tiny corrupted spirits infusing the blood with some sort of foul power. Helena put two and two together and said that the blood’s corrupting influence must be responsible for making the local youkai so angry. I mean, if they’ve been exposed to it, then it would be enough to incite their anger and remove their inhibitions, which would explain why they’ve turned against the local mortals. *sad* Well, it won’t be a problem for long. Cesar got a kinda wild look in his eyes and said he’d take care of the blood, but only after we’d dealt with everything else. He’s apparently going to use the gifts of his pantheon to make the blood burn into oblivion…explosively, I think. O_O I’m worried about the evil spirits escaping back into the world, but I don’t think there’s anything we can do about it. The area will just be haunted for awhile.
The next order of business was to eliminate the human guards on the floor above us before heading downstairs to take out the four BGRs on the first floor. We weren’t all needed for that, so Cesar and Carina (the sneaky ones) took care of it while the rest of us waited. And that was when I took the opportunity to bring up my request with Storm.
See, my relationship with Persephone has caused a sort of schism between the Amatsukami and Dodekatheon, and I need to help that schism heal. The pantheons can’t be at each others’ throats with the titans knocking on the doors of Asgard! So I explained to Storm how Persephone and I had hit it off as friends, and how she took a more “intimate” interest in me. I explained how Amaterasu had taken offense at that and struck Persephone, and how angry Hades was. And I explained how Amaterasu refused to go make amends in the Underworld, for obvious reasons. I told Storm that I’d like to help arrange a meeting between Amaterasu (with whom I’m very close, of course), Hades, and possibly Persephone to help smooth things over. But I’m afraid that Hades in particular won’t treat the meeting as a peacemaking endeavor. I mean, I know Amaterasu’s willing to make peace and I can probably convince her to apologize. I think. But I don’t know about Hades, and quite frankly I’m scared of him.
So I wanted Storm to ask his father, Zeus, to intercede on my behalf and encourage Hades to approach the meeting with goodwill. I’d find a way to ask Zeus myself…but knowing his history of sexual conquest, I’d actually rather not make the request in person, not with my history of attracting other supernatural beings. So I’m hoping that Storm can arrange for Zeus to encourage Hades along the right lines, and I’ll encourage Amaterasu and set up a meeting. And hopefully we’ll be able to put it all behind us.
I’m worried about Persephone. I’d like to see her again. Hopefully, all this trouble will have convinced her that our friendship should remain platonic. Hopefully.
So, we’ll see what Storm can work out. He seemed a bit shocked at the request, and I’m not sure he knew quite what to do at first. But then a look of determination settled onto his face, and he agreed to help me. I have the feeling I can really rely on him. I just hope things work out and we can mend the political situation that I inadvertently caused. >_<
About then, Cesar and Carina returned, so we prepared to fight the four BGRs on the first floor. Carina came up with a good plan for that too. When she’d been scouting the place before, she’d noticed that when slightly alarmed, the robots would follow a perceived source of disturbance to find out what it might be. The BGRs on the first floor were spread out in two groups of two, so to take them out quickly we’d either have to split up or…lure them together. And that’s what Carina did…after we warded the area. Once they were close, we ambushed them and Jacob threw up an unseen shield to keep the HDRs at bay. The fight was short and efficient. In fact, it was so efficient that by the time the HDRs arrived, we’d already finished all four BGRs.
The HDRs unloaded on us with their miniguns, but the bullets bounced harmlessly off of Jacob’s shield. We took a moment to catch our breath and plan our tactics before leaving the protection of the shield to attack them…
(to be continued…)