“Please, get your manager if you must,” she tells him.
The man fires off a message to the manager of N-Cats, who struts out a minute or so later. The man is in his early thirties and he is dressed in a tacky white suit, a black shirt, and a white tie. He chews on his toothpick for a moment as he looks her over.
“What is this about?” he finally asks, his voice scratchy and harsh.
“Are you the manager?”
“I am.”
“And how many humandroids do you employ?”
“Two – wait, what?”
“Routine maintenance check, WallRep.” Tesla hands the manager her humandroid ID.
“It doesn’t say anything here about WallRep,” he finally says. “Hey!”
Tesla’s right hand chops at the security guard’s throat and she uses her left to coldcock the manager in the face. The manager comes up, nose gushing blood, and by this point, she’s already behind him, dragging him inside the club.
“Who the fuck are you!?” the manager screams, snot and blood flying onto the floor.
She pushes him to his knees and takes a small device about the size of a Tic Tac box out of her pocket and places it against his temple. Once his iNet feed is overridden, she pulls his head back and slams it into the wall.
“Fuck!” Kodai says, punching his fist into his other hand as he watches the live feed. He glances at Rin. He had mixed feelings about allowing the pink salon’s manager to watch this, but he decided to allow it for two reasons: one, he wants Rin to know what he’s capable of; two, he wants Rin to be part of the crime in some way, in case he ever tries to rat him out.
He returns his attention to the holoscreen, watching as Tesla now drags the security guard in, who is still choking from the chop she gave him.
The humandroid tosses him on the ground next to the manager, wipes his iNet feed with her little Tic Tac box, brings her foot back and kicks him hard enough to shatter his jaw.
Rin winces at the sound and Kodai hisses at him, “Speak.”
“Good,” Rin says, his voice wavering, “um, continue forward.”
“Will do, Rin.” Tesla makes her way from the lobby to the main room of the establishment, and as she walks, she quickly unholsters her sidearm.
She stops behind a woman kneeling in front of a porker of a man.
The humandroid sex worker looks up at Tesla and suddenly stops sucking the man’s cock.
“Leave,” the sex worker tells him, pulling away.
“What?”
Tesla fires a shot from her weapon directly into the side of the humandroid’s metal skull.
The topless woman spills left, and as the man tries to pull his pants up to scramble away, Tesla steps over to the humandroid, presses her weapon into the woman’s shoulder and fires, so the bullet passes all the way through her body, shoulder to shoulder, and tears out the other side of her e-skin.
“Humandroids have unique points on their body where they can be neutralized,” Kodai whispers to Rin matter-of-factly. “Simply shooting their head off doesn’t always work.”
“Will … the others fight her?”
“Actually, I don’t know,” Kodai says. “From what I’ve read, humandroid sex workers have their violence governors adjusted, otherwise they may try to defend themselves if someone performs a deviant behavior they deem to be a threat.”
A naked brunette with her hair tied into two pigtails swings at Tesla.
“Does that answer your question? Tell Tesla to neutralize all humandroid targets.”
Rin clears his throat. “Neutralize all targets, Tesla.”
“Will do, Rin,” she says as the brunette comes in for another swing.
Tesla pistol-whips the woman and sends her stumbling backwards. She unloads the rest of her magazine into the nude droid, who keeps coming at her, crawling on the floor and dragging her lower body.
Tesla steps around her, places the bottom of her heel against the back of the woman’s neck and stomps. She stomps again and again, until the humandroid is twitching.
From there, Tesla loads another mag into her gun, yanks the woman up so she’s sitting, and fires a shot sideways through her body.
Kodai claps his hands together. “Tell her to come back.”
“You can, um, go ahead and come on back.”
“Roger, Rin,” Tesla’s voice echoes out of the speaker.
“Now to see about something else.” Kodai’s iNet desktop comes alive on his pupils and he pulls up the live feed from Tritania to find Tamana standing on the rooftop of the Shinigami’s rented guildhall in Aramis.
(0)__(x)
Tamana has been leveling since the betrayal yesterday, aided by a dark spell that increases the EXP doled out at night. Now up to level fifteen, Tamana isn’t strong enough to do as much damage as he’d like her to be able to do.
But psychological damage can sting far worse than physical damage.
Tamana Nakamura Level 15 White Warrior
HP: 410/410
MANA: 389/389
ATK: 117
DEF: 134
MATK: 149
MDF: 108
LUCK: 6
She stands in her alien Tagvornin armor custom fit to her shapely form. The armor is black, with red accents that run up the sides of her body. The collar extends up to the bottom of her elven ears and her white hair has been cut short to better fit the helmet.
Tamana places a skull-shaped helm on her face and locks eyes with Kodai’s feed.
She knows, Kodai thinks. He admires her armor for another moment. It was incredibly expensive, and without the serpent woman behind the door, he wouldn’t have been able to procure it.
The armor is from an extinct Proxima world known as Unigaea, and the weapons of Tritania are all but useless against it. Even if they weren’t, it would still be hard to put her down, as the enchantment on the armor adds any damage to the wearer as extra HP.
Kodai is hoping to get some of the Tagvornin armor himself, but this armor previously belonged to a woman, and unlike much of the armor in Tritania, it didn’t mold to fit his form.
No matter.
Kodai watches as a dragon takes shape in the air above the rooftop.
The mirrored female dragon is a new addition to their ranks. The irony is that it was his younger brother’s guild, most notably a letter sent to the dragon by the filthy goblin, that turned the dragon to the serpent woman’s attention.
It wasn’t long before the serpent woman had one of the stronger RPCs go to the Cape of Chukchis and take the dragon. And now the mirrored beast has a golden collar around its neck preventing it from getting away. If it so much as tries to attack any of the Shinigami, the collar will decapitate her with its inner blades.
Riding the dragon is an RPC named Tomas, who wears Tagvornin armor and a Corinthian helmet. Tomas was one of the serpent woman’s first converts, and from what Tamana said, Tomas is the reason that the Swede has come to Tritania, which turned out to be completely true.
FeeTwix Fajer.
Kodai shifts his gaze from the dragon and Tamana to FeeTwix’s livestream, which shows the Mitherfickers moving in a wagon towards Katiyana. He has been monitoring the feed on and off since yesterday, after he became aware of who the Swede actually was.
So far, FeeTwix had been good at covering his tracks, but he’d let lots of stuff slip too, like the sign fucking pointing to Katiyana.
Then there’s the high elf that’s with them, another telltale sign of where Ryuk’s guild is heading.
It’s too easy, Kodai thinks, refocusing again on Tamana, who waits patiently on the rooftop of the Shinigami’s guild. Once the mirrored beast has settled, Tamana climbs onto the mirrored dragon’s head. The mirrored female dragon is older, overweight, and not so glamorous with all the scales that have been plucked from her stomach, but she’ll work as transportation for now, until they can get some griffins in Polynya.