This is the first of a number of relatively short posts. This one spans the next five or six chapters - all of which I've already written, but not revised or released because of quality concerns.
more detail in it than future posts of similar nature, just so you know. In fact, as I draw more towards the end of her story, expect plot holes, inconsistencies, bad grammar, etc. I'm not proofreading any of these beyond spelling before I post.
At this point I have zero confidence in their quality and really just want to stop holding up SBII.
Starting where I think I left off last, Vanya was on a downtown rooftop getting ready to head into the Parasol Archives building, having just then successfully distracted the guards with a fake bomb. Her friends had already ported over, and so Vanya gets dressed in the Parasol uniform that Reudh and Koth had stolen from Scheck Kenzon's armory (Scheck is Katie's dad, in case anyone forgot), and then Vanya portals over to parking lot of the archives building. Katie meets her and takes her over to the others, who are somewhat irritated by the fact that there's a soldier standing guard in the cargo area, whereas this was supposed to be a stealthy operation. The others eventually decide that Vanya is going to have to fix the problem herself. Gareth gives Vanya the prototype VPTs (variable portal thrusters), and Vanya goes in with her suit's zipper broken and tries to act feminine enough to keep the guard's attention while her friends (Katie, Reudh, Koth, Gareth) break into the archives building. It works, and Vanya manages to get away.
Vanya uses the VPTs to get to the rooftop, where Reudh meets her, and he takes her down to the archives room, where Koth has already broken in. Gareth, by this time, has used his hacking skills to breach the security of one of the terminals, and Katie starts looking up information, trying to figure out who the killer is, as well as giving Koth information on Joseph. They soon learn that Vanya is but one of many, many mind-controlled agents that Joseph has had, and that as of yet, she's the only one who he hasn't managed to kill. They also learn the identity of the person trying to kill Katie and Vanya: Cronan Tames, former Parasol soldier, former squad mate of Katie Okablokum, and traitor to Ballpoint.
Right around here, Gareth reveals angrily that he's hacked a second computer, and that Koth shows up as a Ballpoint employee - and not just any Ballpoint employee, but the same one that had murdered Lieutenant Almory's husband. Reudh and Gareth are very upset for being lied to, but Katie manages to pacify them - at least until they manage to escape the building, as their bomb ploy isn't going to last much longer. They shut down the terminals and sneak out of the building as quickly as they can, unfortunately not noticing the man climbing into one of the mechsuits in the cargo area - which I can't keep low-key here as I might in the actual story, but oh well. Vanya's crew proceeds across the parking lot and splits up to keep from looking suspicious, intending to meet back together a ways into the city and then continue to the portal rooftop. They do so - and during the walk there, Vanya keeps getting the feeling that she's being followed.
When they meet up, Vanya's suspicions are realized as Tames himself comes crashing down a street towards them in one of Parasol's large, agile mechsuits. Koth realizes their weapons are useless against the machine and tells them to scatter, throwing on her active camouflage and getting away with Gareth, while Katie is rooted to the spot in a mixture of fear and loathing. Tames, of course, doesn't give two shits about how pissed Katie is for how he killed her squad mates, and sends a few rockets after her. Katie starts using her prayer magic and throws up hr shield - the rockets curve away harmlessly, and Reudh and Vanya finally manage to get her to run. They run for a short while down a side road, trying doors to try to find somewhere they can hide, but Tames eventually turns the corner behind them, forcing Reudh and Vanya to stop running and face the threat. Vanya throws up the Vendi Scild shield spell Katie taught her, and after deflecting a missile or three, Katie uses the icestorm spell she demonstrated in an earlier chapter to attack Tames' mechsuit, which begins stumbling, its limbs battered by the icy spikes. Finally, he manages to get his mechsuit's arm raised enough to activate the suit's built-in force shield, deflecting the incoming ice. Katie collapses, exhausted from her spell, and Reudh hoists her onto her back and starts to run, Vanya taking up the rear. Tames fires another missile at Vanya; Vanya deflects it; Tames grows wise and fires at the buildings above them, causing a cascade of rubble to tumble down towards their heads. Vanya manages to throw herself out of the way, but loses sight of Reudh and Katie.
While the three friends try to recover, Tames steps into the smoke and rubble with his battlemech, looking for survivors and taunting Vanya. He says she ruined his life, but won't say why yet. Vanya hears Katie scream "Vendi Scild" and Tames' machine guns roar; Vanya realizes that her friends are in trouble, at which point she does something Tames would have expected: she runs. But for once, it isn't to try to save herself, but rather her friends; as she runs down the road, she yells to Tames that she knows she's the one he wants, and that he'd better leave her friends alone and follow her unless he wants her to get away... and he does.
Vanya flees down the road towards the next intersection, bullets narrowly missing her; she turns the corner and uses the Scata Clontas spell to cloak herself in shadows, hiding in a doorway as Tames stomps on, though he pauses for a moment just beyond the intersection, still out of Vanya's field of vision. It isn't long before Tames stomps by Vanya's hiding place... but soon reveals that he'd known where she was the whole time - his suit is equipped with infrared vision, so her spell is useless. She tries to flee back the way she'd come, but the road erupts in an explosion as Tames detonates a number of explosive packs he'd placed, leaving her at a dead end. He seems to greatly relish the thought of playing cat and mouse with her, taunting her and torturing her. He gives her a speech on what had happened after the battle of 48D: As it turns out, Ballpoint refused to accept Tames into their ranks because he'd neglected to tell them about Vanya and her plan to open the portal (which he hadn't known of. Both Parasol and Ballpoint had marked him as a traitor, and he had come to blame Vanya for the whole thing.
After explaining it to her, he prepares to execute her, raising the machine-gun arm of his battlemech - and Vanya leaps into action.
This scene is actually part of why I'd completely stopped writing - I never meant for Vanya to feel like a "special snowflake" as Mr Frog put it - I actually fought rather hard against it, trying to make sure that Vanya didn't seem too overpowered or Mary Sue... but in order to increase the awesome and keep the story from growing lame, I had to do something... this was the only real option I had.
Vanya yells Vendi Scild and charges at Tames and his mechsuit as he begins firing rounds that are deflected harmlessly by her shield, curving around her; she draws her daggers as she reaches him, sliding between his mechsuit's legs and slicing at everything within reach. With the addition of the batteries Almory had given her, they're able to cut metal, but she doesn't do any vital damage until he swings his arm around to smash her - she barely manages to leap out of the way, but is able to slice his machine gun up a bit, rendering it useless. After a close, but brief melee battle, Tames catches her with a hard blow, sending her tumbling down the road towards the debris from the earlier explosions. After she gets to her feet, she ducks inside a gaping hole in one of the nearby buildings, and Tames - more than a little pissed at this point - soon follows her.
Taking advantage of the fact that Tames' mechsuit is a little too tall to easily make it through the building; she flees up several flights of stairs to the roof, hoping to use her VPTs to get away - but finds that the entire rooftop is encased in glass like a greenhouse. Not only that, Parasol news crews are hovering around outside, itching for a better view. With no means of escape, she hides, and Tames soon gets to the roof as well. She's hoping he'll go away, but he has a feeling that she's up there, and starts looking around for her - and eventually finds her. He's out of missiles, and his machine gun is broken, so for want of a ranged weapon he begins picking objects up and throwing them at her, while Vanya dodges around the room, both parties yelling back and forth at each other - Vanya out of fear, Tames out of hatred. He eventually manages to corner Vanya in an alcove and throws a set of shelving at her, crashing and tumbling along the ground - she ducks and it barely misses her, crashing through the glass behind her instead. As Tames gets ready to throw something else, she slips the VPTs onto her hands again and makes a blind, desperate leap into the open space beyond the window's gap, praying that she'll be all right.
With ten stories of emptiness below her, she barely manages to swerve and avoid the opposite wall, trying hard to keep herself upright - the servomotors in her suit are helping her keep her arms straight (plot hole avoidance + Chekhov's gun). She manages to slow her descent soon before she crashes into one of the trees lining the street below, only to see Tames leap out of the window above her with a roar. Unlike a Ballpoint mech, which would be designed for power and armor, Parasol's are based around agility and stealth. Tames is able to grab onto the side of the opposite building, though he severely damages the structure as he does so; Vanya gives a squeeze to her VPTs and barely manages to rocket out of the way, and so a tense semi-aerial battle begins, with useless news crew documenting every second that they can. The battle has Vanya and Tames running/flying through alleyways, Tames doing a pretty decent job of keeping up, and Vanya only barely managing to stay out of his way - but the servomotors in her suit are starting to weaken. She realizes this, and suddenly changes tactics, flying upwards, far beyond the towering Parasol skyline. Just then, the servomotor for her right arm breaks, and she fumbles, barely keeping from spinning out of control, and makes a careful landing on the top of a shuttlecar tube, just over the shoreline of the bay.
Tames soon arrives after her, flinging himself upwards from the rooftop of a nearby building in a death-defying leap that's a testament to the strength and agility of a Parasol mech, and lands atop the shuttlecar tube as well, though his suit crashes through the glass. The tube's shielding mechanism activates, sealing the tube off with a forcefield that soon begins melting through the mechsuit's lower body, and Tames is forced to eject, landing on the shuttlecar tube's top with two handguns in a supremely badass villain sort of way.
Vanya backs away from Tames worriedly, trying to get as far over the water of the bay as she can (the tube slopes downwards towards the water's surface, while she yells at Tames that he'd killed all her friends. Tames retaliates by saying she was stupid for becoming friends with them in the first place - Vanya says that his mistake is never letting anyone close. The cops finally arrive, having been distracted for a time by the fake bomb Vanya's crew had set up at the Parasol Intelligence Center, and order both of them to stand down, to be taken into custody. Both combatants ignore them. Vanya eventually reaches the end of the tube, where it dips sharply downwards towards the water, and Tames has had his fun by this time - he raises his weapons to kill. Vanya gives a last parting shot and dives into the bay fifty feet below, where a pod of glowwhales are swimming - this scene shows that her previous dive into the caverns below Spearbreakers was to prepare her for this moment.
This is where I stopped writing. Everything beyond this would've been highly subject to change, and won't have nearly as much detail, but I planned it out as best I could.
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Topic: [34.11] Spearbreakers - It shudders and begins to move (Read 2283110 times)