Hydra Heart

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter 15: Free Master Peace

"How did it get this bad?" Shay asked. "Alogos, I mean."

Molly, trying valiantly to sleep, replied, "Give me your pillow and I'll tell you whatever you want to know."

Shay rolled her eyes, but obliged. Molly conked out. Shay slapped her on the leg, then left the bedroom to see what Maro was doing. The young man was sitting in his special chair, practicing the same motion over and over again, and had obviously been doing so late into the night. He nearly jumped out of his seat when Shay tapped him on the shoulder.

"Hello, Shay!" he set his things down. "My rigorous training can take a break, what do you want?"

"Tell me about Alogos," she replied. "I don't feel like reading or doing research."

Maro looked at Shay with a face that said, I'm glad you asked! "Well," he started. "After the war, Alogos was a massive city on the ocean with no port. Hirudinea, being a lot bigger and better than us, offered to build the whole thing, and they did it good, too! But, they did it in exchange for some... benefits. Military presence and special trading privileges kinda spiraled out of control. Now we're here."

Shay nodded. "Cool, cool... so, what are you doing in the game?" As a closeted Never Reachers II: Reach Even Less fan, she pretended to be disinterested with his exposition.

Saturday

Tenra explained the plan in front of some visual aids. "Maro wants to stage a city-wide revolution the same day we attack the plant. Which means we have a hell of a lot more planning to do. However, we have three main strengths.

We know what Bruta's Kit does, which I'll get to soon. We also know she's in Alogos, because the KCD headquarters are here.

We have a city full of angry, desperate people, who will burn the place to the ground if they get the chance.

There's a storm coming. I don't mean that in a cool, 'Tenra is pissed and won't be stopped,' type of way, I mean there's a tropical storm showing up tomorrow.

We have blueprints of the building we are sieging.

"So, we have a real shot at pulling something off, and I'll tell you I am pleased to be doing some real work for the first time in years."

"So," Molly said, "Tell us. What's Bruta's Kit?"

"Counterfit. It manifests as ever-shifting armor that predicts attacks, even before she would have any way of knowing about them. It can stop just about anything short of a massive explosion, or a free-fall."

Vesta's eyes went wide, "How are we supposed to fight that? I can take on as many agents as need be, but I do not know how to beat armor that can stop any attack."

"Well," Tenra uttered solemnly. "I've had over a decade to think about this. The only way to win is to either wear her SOLE out by making her change armor several times, or to get her to attack herself. Besides that, nothing but a nuke is gonna get her off our back. Except for my Kit, of course!" He smirked. "Her armor manifests out of the plate on her chest that is Counterfit, like Molly's multi-tool, Vesta's boomerang, or Shay's shoulderpads. She has a glaring weakness; I can take that metal plate and expose her, if I can just spot her before she gets us..."

"So, anyway, that's the plan if we run into her. Wait for me to use 4sight and then we strike her down. And, I shouldn't have to say this, but Shay, you're not coming at all."

"I'm sorry, what?" Shay spoke to her father for the first time in a few days. "What do you mean? There's no armor in existence that can stop me from using Curtains on her. How can you know how her Kit works and still tell me I have to stay back?"