Just Another Day At Work

A short story of two sisters having a bit of a field day at work.

"River, move!"
Hearing Mona's warning and taking heed of it, I ducked behind a nearby car as a piece of the abandoned clinic flew over my head. As I did so, Mona sprinted over to me and slid under another piece of rubble that had been launched after the first one. She came to a stop a foot away from me and I pulled her towards me as a bullet narrowly grazed her ear. We both ducked behind the car and put our backs against it, taking a quick breather. I took note of the newly reformed terrain as I heard the car next to us being destroyed and looked over at Mona.
"This has become a little more trouble than we signed up for, yes?" I inquired, hoping that Mona would respond maturely instead of her usual, childish responses.
"You kidding?" Mona breathed, smiling. "This is way more fun than the messenger runs we've been having to do."
"Is that so?" I asked in disbelief. "Nearly dying every other second is your idea of fun? I would've hated to see what your birthday parties were like."
"You and I both know I've never gotten a birthday party, and even if I did it wouldn't be this dangerous," Mona growled, repositioning herself so that she was in a crouched position. She peered over the edge of the car to assess where our opponent would be coming from next as she continued. "I'm just saying that it's nice to fight something that can really fight back for once."
I planned on responding, but I paused as I felt the car being lifted up from behind us. Mona fell back and we both looked up to see the upgraded B-1 Unit we had been fighting for the past ten minutes holding the car above its head with one hand, and aiming it's arm cannon at us with the other. Mona whistled and I glanced at her, saying, "Perhaps not this much though."
Mona shrugged and rolled out of the way as the B-1 dropped the car. I held my hands up and created a wind barrier to stop the car from falling on top of me. However, when the car hit the barrier, I gasped in surprise and nearly fell to my knees from the weight of it. I have used this specific maneuver before to protect myself and others from stray pieces of rubble or incoming handheld weapon attacks from the B.E.U, but never for a car. So it was a little harder to maintain the barrier under that much weight.
"A little heavier than you accounted for?" Mona called out, amused.
"A little," I grunted back. "I'm confident it would've helped if we had done a little more partnered training before jumping into action."
"Well, sucks to suck sis, cuz we didn't," Mona called out, raising her eyebrow at my shaking body as I struggled to keep my barrier from failing. She readjusted her gloves and positioned herself for an attack as she nodded to me. "Now, are you going to keep talking, or are we going to trash that thing?"
Concentrating, I looked back up at the B-1 and gathering all the strength I could, I threw the car back at its chest. The B-1 was thrown backwards; I stood up, shaking my hands out as Mona stood up straight, slightly disappointed that she didn't get a chance to attack the bot herself. We both walked towards each other and once we closed the distance between us I asked, "Is that trashed enough for you?"
"Eh, I'd give it a seven out of ten," Mona sighed. "But it doesn't look like you're done yet."
As I turned, I caught a glimpse of the car flying back in our direction. I quickly drew a wall of concrete up from the ground and the car crashed into it. I held the wall up as the B-1 started pounding on it. "Alright, after assessing the situation, I think I've got a plan," I said.
"Then let's hear it," Mona replied. I nodded and began to explain. "I'll distract the Unit and see if I can't draw out Gunner. If I succeed, you will have one chance to sneak up on him before he realizes that you're not with me."
"Okay, and how exactly do I sneak past the giant robot to get to him?"
I raised my eyebrow at Mona and she sighed. "Fine. Not the time for jokes I presume."
I nodded and Mona rolled her eyes as she activated her Ter, fading into the background. I turned back to the earth wall and let it fall to the ground. The B-1 came flying at me immediately and knocked me back into a lamp post. I winced as I collided with it and stood up shakily. 'Trashing this thing' as Mona had so delicately put it may be a little harder than I had thought. Perhaps some backup would be appreciated.
I shook out my shock and looked up just in time to see the B-1 swinging its arm at me again. I ducked under it's arm, simultaneously aiming my palms at the ground. Once the arm was clear, I propelled myself up and over the B-1 with jets of water. At the same time, I summoned Bayou, who began to appear in the air next to me. His full form was completed by the time we both landed on the ground and we spun around together to face the B-1. Bayou shook out his fur, scattering the remaining water droplets that were left over from the summoning as he looked around at the situation before nodding to me, "What do you need me to do ma'am?"
I groaned and hung my head, looking up at the sky. "For the last time Bayou, please don't call me ma'am. I am centuries younger than you." It felt like I was reiterating this for the hundredth time. "Now, is there a way we can fry that B-1's circuits?"
Bayou studied the B-1 as it turned around and then pointed his snout towards it's chest. "I can sense some sort of energy source behind that glass in it's chest. If you hit that mark with a strong enough jet of water you should be able to penetrate it's core, in turn, shutting it down."
"Should? If I don't?" I asked, preparing a water attack. Bayou thought for a moment then sat down by my feet and offered, "Call Zeru. He does seem to be the more destructive type."
"While I am not always a fan of Zeru's tactics, I feel like you confuse his destructive nature with his powerful one."
"More like you're the one mistaken ma'am," Bayou remarked with a small smile. I opened my mouth slightly and crossed my arms, giving Bayou a look. "And if I wanted sarcasm, I would've called Adan."
Bayou nodded as I uncrossed my arms, turning back to the B-1, which had started to run towards me. I held my hands out, aimed, and fired two strong jets of water. They both hit the dead center of the B-1's chest, smashing through the glass easily. The B-1 stopped dead in its tracks and started to spark up as the water flooded through the gears. I stopped the jets of water as the B-1 began to lock up, then after a moment, it exploded.
The force of the blast threw me backwards and I landed on my back in a small crater that the B-1 made from earlier in the battle. I shifted onto my side and covered my head with my arms as pieces of the B-1 were thrown all over the area. Luckily, nothing hit me. Though the B-1's chest plate came strikingly close. When I lowered my arms, I could see the fading light of its power source glowing a few yards away from me. I rolled back onto my back and blinked a few times as I tried to see through the dust and smoke that had been thrown into the air from the B-1 exploding. I stayed on the ground for a few moments in order to gather my thoughts, and once the ringing in my ears ceased I readied myself to stand up. But I stopped once I heard a gun being loaded and looked up to see Gunner pointing a gun at me.
I put my hands up slowly and nodded slightly to the remains of the B-1 behind him. "I would recommend that you start building more durable Units. That one was a little too easy to take care of."
"You seemed to have had some trouble," Gunner replied furiously. I could see his hands shaking vigorously out of anger. I nodded slightly and responded slowly, careful not to make anything worse. "I admit I needed time to adjust."
Gunner glanced back at the sparking remains of his B-1 and I saw something in him snap. Gunner was never stable mentally, but he always seemed to have restraint. However, it didn't look like he planned on having any now. He whipped his head back around to me and hissed, "That Unit took me years to perfect! It took you less than ten minutes to destroy it with your bare hands, when it would have taken any normal man an army to even slow it down!"
"I suppose I am just too used to taking out B.E.U. endorsed Units, no matter how upgraded they become," I shrugged. Gunner threw his empty hand in the air and sort of flailed it around, too angry for words. I gave him a moment to collect himself and when he did, he growled, "Do you have any idea what you've cost me?"
"A very expensive robot?" I guessed. Gunner shook his head, gripping the handle of the gun tighter. "I built it specifically to take down you Terrors..." He started, but I held my hand up to stop him.
"I'm sorry, is that rumor still going around?" I asked. "Mr. Gunner... I am not a Terror. But I can guarantee that any of my Terror friends could've done the job faster than I did."
"Shut up! You people don't deserve what you were given!" Gunner screamed, stepping closer to me. I pushed myself up into a sitting position and raised my voice as well as I replied firmly, "Is there a need to turn this into a privilege thing? Even though I am not one myself, I know the majority of Terrors didn't ask to be experimented on. So with all due respect sir, please get over it."
Gunner looked like he was about to pull the trigger any second and my heart began to speed up from the anticipation. I am considerably fast, but considering that I am stuck in the crater at point-blank range... I knew that I would not be able to dodge that bullet. My only hope would be to create a wind barrier to slow the bullet down, anything else would take too long. And even then, the bullet would still hit me. The damage would just be minimal.
I began thinking of ways to talk Gunner down, but fortunately there was no need. Relief flooded through me as I saw the air shift between the gun and me. Gunner looked confused for a second at my sudden change of emotion. The confusion quickly turned into shock as Mona appeared in front of him seemingly out of nowhere. She immediately knocked the gun out of his hand and followed up with a hit across the face. Gunner stumbled back, staring at Mona in panic.
As I have stated before. I am not a Terror. But Mona certainly is. And Mona is known for being one of the scariest and threatening Terrors that the Resistance has ever recruited. Not just because her Ter allows her to turn invisible, but also because it includes limited dark matter manipulation. No one, not even someone as unstable as Gunner would want to mess with that.
Mona glanced back at me and I gave her a slow thumbs up. She nodded slightly and turned back to Gunner with her hands close to her body, curved around a growing ball of dark violet energy. "You've got two options Gunner,' She announced. "One, come with us calmly, or two, get blasted."
I stood up and began to walk up behind Mona. "I would recommend that you go with option one."
Gunner looked like he was trying to cover up his fear with anger, but wasn't succeeding. I picked up Gunner's fallen gun as I walked up next to Mona and crossed my arms as Gunner's eyes flicked from me to the ball of dark matter in Mona's hands. I raised my eyebrow and motioned to the ball; Gunner sighed. He put his arms up and hung his head, "Fine. You win."
I smiled and Mona dissolved the ball of dark matter in her hands. She took out a pair of handcuffs and went over to cuff Gunner. As she dragged him out of the crater, I looked around the area we had demolished and couldn't help but feel a little pride at the damage we had done. "What Sector are we in again?" I asked Mona. "R7?"
"R4," She called back. "Ranger is taking care of R7."
I felt a twinge of disappointment at her reply. "Oh."
"Why?"
I sighed and climbed out of the crater. "You know I usually don't like destruction, but I was really hoping we did all of this to R7."
"I feel the need to ask again. Why?" Mona asked, giving me an odd questioning look.
"Because that is one of the Sectors Mazda claimed."
Mona immediately smiled in understanding. "Ah. You know, for a second I thought you just wanted to destroy a random Sector, which is my play, so I was about to get defensive."
Once Mona finished cuffing Gunner, she nodded to me and I hit him over the head with his gun. Gunner crumpled onto the ground as I took the gun apart, scattering the pieces across the area. Mona took out her notebook and flipped to the middle, scratching Gunner's name off our list.
"So, who else do we have to pick up today?" I asked, shifting the glove that was starting to fall off of my arm.
"Nobody," Mona replied, flipping her notebook closed again.
"Really?" I was surprised. Considering how many Sectors we had yet to clear, it seemed odd that Gunner was the only one we were sent to pick up.
"Yep. Gunner was it." Mona confirmed.
"I thought Cardinal would've given us more to do than that," I muttered aloud.
"Wow, workaholic much?" Mona jabbed. "You know, I'm sure that if you asked her, she'd give you more to do."
"I don't think you know how she acts around anyone who isn't you," I explained, "She doesn't exactly appreciate it when people ask her for assignments."
"Oh, come on, I'm sure that's not true."
"You're only saying that because she's your girlfriend."
"Don't pull the whole 'girlfriend' card on me Riv, or else I'll do the same thing," Mona threatened, but I could hear the humor in her voice.
"You wouldn't dare," I warned, attempting to hide the humor in mine.
"Oh, I would totally dare."
Mona and I stared at each other for a few seconds before bursting out into laughter. We both knew that neither of us really meant anything about pulling the dating cards. It was just something to get on each other's nerves. But Cardinal and Ranger's reactions are certainly amusing whenever they come across us arguing about them.
As we both calmed down, we heard a howl and looked up to see Bayou standing on top of a pile of rubble. He jumped down and walked over to us. He stopped in front of me, sat down, and dipped his head. "Well done ma'am," he commented.
"For the love- Bayou!" I shouted in frustration. "I have asked you time and time again to not call me ma'am! Please, I am not your master, I am your friend!" I paused, taking a breath to calm down before continuing with a lighter tone. "Apologies for raising my voice. But it's not right that you continue to refer to me as ma'am. Just River is fine."
Bayou nodded slowly and sighed as he rose to his feet. "If that is what you wish... ma'am."
Mona snorted a laugh and I shot her a glare before saying, "Bayou, the bane of my existence, return to the water."
Bayou winked at Mona before disappearing in a swirl of water droplets. I crossed my arms and looked at Mona in annoyance. She ignored me and poked Gunner with her foot before lifting him up. She slung him over her shoulder and winked at me. "Alright, come on grape head. Let's get him back to base."
Mona started walking towards our truck and I followed in protest, "Hold on, I was under the impression that you were supportive of the purple hair!"
"I was. But I didn't think you were going to go emo purple. That's my brand."
"Isn't emo and goth two different styles?" I questioned. "And truth be told, your style is more of a casual punk/grunge look."
"I can not believe we're having this discussion," Mona exasperated, tossing Gunner from her shoulder into her open arms.
"I am merely engaging in the discussion you started," I pointed out.
Mona threw Gunner into the back of our truck and flipped me off as she walked around the truck. She dug in her pockets for the keys and tossed them over the truck to me once she found them. I caught the keys and shuffled through them to find the truck key. A few seconds of metal hitting metal, I found the right key and opened the driver's door. I jumped up into the driver's seat and placed the key in the ignition. I started the truck as Mona got in and I grabbed my seat belt, buckling it. I then glanced at Mona, who I noticed was not buckled. She looked at me and raised her eyebrow in confusion. I motioned to her seat belt and asked, "Buckled?"
"Oh my gosh- drive, emo!"

I smiled to myself and put the truck in drive. Placing my foot on the gas, I drove through the remains of Sector R4 and towards home.