NOVEL WEB Chapter 6: With Allies Like These, Why Must She Have Enemies?
Plynx’s fighting style was a thing of beauty, in Svetlana’s opinion. She moved like a dancer, her sword like an extension of herself as she flowed between their robotic enemies. Svetlana’s style, meanwhile (now that she was free of the goo-grenade that had pinned her down) was far less fluid. It generally got the job done, though. Such as her jump across the street to dive into a melee against the robots with the goo-grenade launchers, where she ended up falling through the decaying old roof when she landed.
At least it surprised her opponents as much as it surprised her. She was able to take advantage of that to attack from below, pulling the androids down through the roof one at a time to avoid getting caught in a crossfire of goo grenades.
When she emerged from the old buildling’s attic again, however, she was annoyed to see heavier combat robots had appeared. They were, if anything, dumber than the cheap androids they’d been fighting earlier, but also annoyingly more durable. Plynx had gotten herself surrounded in the process of fighting them, and Svetlana’s heart fell when she realised the feline princess was about to be on the receiving end of some rather serious blows.
Not stopping to think about step two, Svetlana launched herself across the rooftops to tackle the robot about to hit Plynx. Even with the cushioning and protection of her current armour, Svetlana felt like she’d thrown herself into a brick wall as she and the robot fell down to the street below. The robot did at least break Svetlana’s fall as they collided with the asphalt and concrete of the street.
“Oww…” she moaned as she pulled herself out of the her-shaped indent on the side of the large combat robot.
She got up just in time to see one of the robots jumping down at her and was barely able to scramble out of the way. The robot she’d landed with was less lucky and was smashed to bits by its comrade’s landing. A second one landed behind Svetlana, trapping her in the narrow two lane street.
“It’s flattering that both you boys are chasing after little ol’ me, I must say,” she said, mostly to herself as she tried not to panic.
[I suspect they are after myself as much as you,] O’tmyil chimed in her head.
“I was joking,” Svetlana muttered, before charging forward.
The deranged strategy worked, the combat bot being confused enough by the frontal assault for Svetlana to slip between its legs and out to freedom and the breathing space provided by a nearby parking lot. As the robots turned to chase after her, she hurried over to one of the lighter compact cars in the lot. It was about the maximum weight she and O’tmyil could actually throw, but—
“Did they fill this thing with bricks?” Svetlana hissed as she strained to lift the car into a throwing position.
[The change in your physiology transferred much of your muscle mass from your arms to your legs. I had shifted the suit augmentations to match the new distribution. I thought it would be more natural.]
“Can you move it back?” Svetlana groaned, struggling with the weight of the car.
[Not while you are currently holding up such a large weight.]
A high pitched whine escaped Svetlana as she tried not to tip over. The one robot was at least close enough she could more or less direct the car to fall at it, even if she couldn’t throw it. Unfortunately, she needed a breather to recover from the strain and the second robot was already about to punch her. Make that was already punching her as she flew through the air and also the wall of the nearest building.
“Ow again,” she groaned, managing to sit up in time to see the robot charging her way.
She spent a moment wondering if she’d be tackled or trampled when a rocket hit the robot, exploding and sending it falling backwards.
The rocket was explained when then Augusta landed in the parking lot. She was wearing her combat fatigues, a jetpack on her back, a rocket launcher in her arms, and several other weapons dangling from her at various points.
“Are you quite alright, mon chéri?” she asked, before firing a second rocket at the alien robot.
Augusta was a jerk sometimes, but her efficiency in battle was certainly attractive.
“Um, shouldn’t it be ma chérie? Or.. .wait, does chéri not conjugate with gender?” Svetlana asked as she got to her feet, trying to remember her high school French. “No. It’s mon amour that stays the same right?”
“Oh. You’re still on this… femininity thing?” Augusta asked, her tone dismissive (beyond her Parisian baseline standard level of dismissiveness).
“Yes, I’m still on the—let’s focus on the robots first,” Svetlana said with a sigh.
Vivian had helped lead the restaurant’s occupients to safety. That was only half of the issue, though.
“Alright, everyone!” she shouted, getting the attention of various mildly dazed people who’d no doubt not been prepared for their evening to go quite so sideways. “We’re a safe distance, but we really want to keep going.”
“Why? I want to see what happens?” a man replied.
“Becau—” Vivian started, before she heard a distinctive siren rolling in.
Turning, she saw a half dozen black sedans with tinted windows and sirens on their roofs driving in from every available angle.
“Because you all didn’t want to get caught up with them,” she groaned.
“Who are they?” a waitress asked, stepping close to Vivian.
The nearest car opened up, and a man in a suit and sunglasses emerged. It was hard to describe him beyond that as he was the most nondescript man Vivian had ever seen. She was fairly certain he had brown hair, but that was only when she was looking at him. When she looked away she forgot even that. He was somewhat pale, but, with the large sunglasses, she couldn’t guess if he was of European or East Asian heritage.
“I am Agent Lee. By the power invested in me, I need all of you to stay for debriefing,” the man said, flashing his badge with authority while his voice carried not even the slightest trace of emotion.
“Wait, does that say FEMA? Isn’t that American?” a cook asked. “And don’t they respond to, like, hurricanes?”
“We’re the Federal Extra-terrestrial Monitoring Agency,” Agent Lee replied.
“Shouldn’t that be FETMA?” someone else asked.
“Five letters is too clunky for an abbreviation. If you were as educated in the matter as the consultants we hired you would realise that. Now as I was—”
“Lots of abbreviations are five letters,” another patron of the restaurant pointed out.
The agent stared at the woman. “Do you really think you know better than our $73 million consultants?”
Several people muttered ‘seventy-three million dollars?’ to themselves in the ensuing pause.
“As I was saying,” Agent Lee continued, as if he’d merely paused to take a breath. “You will all need to come with us for debriefing.”
“What happens if we refuse?” someone shouted.
“That’s classified,” Agent Lee replied.
“Wait, that’s classified, but you can tell us you hired consultants for $73 million?” the same person asked.
“Yes,” Agent Lee said. “Now. In the cars,” he added, gesturing as the various other vehicles opened their doors.
Vivan let out another sigh, not wanting to deal with the bureaucratic nightmare of Agent Lee’s posse again. A feminine cry distracted her, and she had time to turn to see Svetlana’s armour clad form flying her way. Svetlana crashed into the pavement a few metres from Vivian, gauging out a small impact trench before she came to a halt.
“Things going about normally, then?” Vivian asked, walking over to her girlfriend.
“Yes,” Svetlana groaned, not extracting herself from the earth quite yet. “It’s very rude of them. Can’t they see I’m a cute girl now? They should be gentler.”
“That would be sexist, though,” Vivian replied with a quick chuckle as she pulled Svetlana to her feet.
“I think receiving a little sexism would be very gender affirming,” Svetlana replied with a laugh of her own.
“Mr. Fujikawa? Is that you?” Agent Lee asked.
“Ms. Fujikawa now. Or Svetlana, if we’re on a first name basis… but, yes it’s me.”
“Ah. Apologies. The Federal Extra-terrestrial Monitoring Agency is supportive of diverse gender identification options. I did not mean to misgender you, Ms. Svetlana Fujikawa,” Agent Lee replied, in his same emotionless tone.
“Uhh… no problem, Agent Lee,” Svetlana replied.
“Are you ok, Kevin-dearest?” Plynx shouted from the rooftop.
“IT’S SVETLANA!” the heiress to the imperial throne shouted back.
Agent Lee produced a megaphone (from where, Vivian couldn’t guess) and pointed it in Plynx’s direction.
“We have a weekend workshop on avoiding deadnaming trans coworkers if that interests you,” his amplified emotionless voice called out.
“What does that even mean!?” Plynx shouted back, before having to dodge another robot.
“Just a few of them to clean up. We’re almost done,” Svetlana said to Vivian, as Agent Lee read out the definition of deadnaming through his megaphone to a Plynx who was ignoring him.
“That’s good,” Vivian replied, slightly louder than she’d have prefered as Agent Lee had moved on to explaining possible legal ramifications of persistent misgendering in the workplace.
“Sorry about our date being ruined,” Svetlana said.
“It had been a while since we had an alien attack. I figured it was 50/50,” Vivian replied.
Svetlana lifted the visor of her suit, before going up on her toes to give Vivian a quick peck on the cheek. “I’ll make it up to you.”
“You’d better,” Vivian replied with a smile as Svetlana ran off.
She then turned to Agent Lee, who was still yelling something with the megaphone. “They’re not listening, you know that?”
“They should. This is important,” the agent replied, in his ever matter-of-fact tone.
Svetlana balanced an ice pack on her forehead as she, Vivian, Augusta, and Plynx sat in the FE(T)MA interrogation/interview room. Well, and O’tmyil, but she was more or less dormant at this stage.
“What are we even waiting for? It’s been hours…” Svetlana groaned.
“Maybe for you-dearest to come to your senses and come with me to get things fixed,” Plynx said.
“I said before,” Augusta cut in, “You’re not taking him off world until I’ve married him.”
“Didn’t you-rival say your ‘Pope’ wouldn’t marry you to a girl? You can not marry Kevin until we turn him back,” Plynx countered.
“I don’t want to—” Svetlana tried to add.
“I have thought about that,” Augusta declared. “You, Vivian, do you know some… the English term is ‘drag kings’, no?”
“I might be able to find one or two… why?” Vivian asked.
“They could get Kevin to look like a man again, yes? Then I can marry him. It wouldn’t technically be lying to Il Pape,” Augusta replied.
“You’re going to make me crossdress in front of the Pope!?” Svetlana blurted, before wincing at the pain yelling caused her head.
“It’s not really crossdressing, as you’re actually a man,” Augusta replied.
Svetlana settled for glaring at her, since yelling hurt right now.
“You’re not marrying him first. The position of the Emperor’s first wife goes to the most important bride!” Plynx hissed. “You-rival do not even control the continent your family claims. My family has command of five hundred gate systems!”
“Kevin is human, his first wife should be from Earth!” Augusta shouted back.
“Can we not shout,” Svetlana grumbled. “Especially not when you’re misgendering me?”
Plynx and Augusta drew their blades and began to clash, shouting Issiod’ran and French insults at each other as they clashed. Svetlana groaned at the noise of metal on metal.
As both women hopped on the table in the middle of the room, the door opened. Agent Lee walked in, sitting down across from Vivian and Svetlana, apparently ignoring the two women having a sword fight on the table.
“We have some forms for you to fill out, then you will be free to go,” the agent said, ducking slightly to dodge Plynx’s blade at one point, but showing no other interest in the fight.
“Why did we have to wait three hours to fill out paperwork?” Vivian asked, as Plynx chased Augusta off the table with a particularly determined thrust of her sword.
“We were running tests on Ms. Svetlana Fujikawa’s blood, to determine how the—change worked,” Agent Lee replied.
“How does it work?” Svetlana asked, perking up with curiosity.
“The results are classified.”
“It’s my blood!?”
“It’s our laboratory,” Agent Lee replied flatly.
Svetlana let out another groan, before reaching over to grab the papers and pen off the table. She filled out the forms, then woke O’tmyil up, asking to be given some sedatives to get past her headache. O’tmyil complied, and Svetlana drifted peacefully to sleep while Vivian tried to get the other two to stop fighting and fill out their papers.