School Days

Military: Skirmish

Shunk   Whirrrrrr   CRASH!   The doors buckled inward as a spear from the Angler-Nine hit them full on. Glass sprayed into an empty room beyond as Ryō Bō (the) Kappa stepped through the ruined doorway and observed his surroundings. The visor on his head flickered and hummed, but picked up no life signs. There was no one here.   "You've shoved me into another dead end, huh, Saiba?"

Sensing no danger, Ryō Bō leaned up against the nearest metal lockers and pulled a thin roll of paper full of seaweed from his belt. Some of the other kappa liked to smoke these things, but he'd never had the knack. He tossed it, wrapper and all, into his beak and chewed. A little something to take the edge off.   "That doesn't make sense, Bō." A tinny voice sounded from Ryō Bō's mechanical arm. "The data we collected is undeniable. There's a Masamune somewhere in this building."   "Guess I'll have to search more than one room, then, to find 'em. What a headache." With a creaking whirr, Ryō Bō spun the winch on the A9 with his free hand. The heavy fishing line spooled up, dragging a heavy spear with it until it holstered on his arm with a heavy "clunk." Hunkering down within his heavy shell, speargun at the ready, Bō stalked further into the unfamiliar building.   Fluorescent lights up above lit polished wooden floors and generic white paint. Bō paused at a glass case affixed to a nearby wall and peered in. A number of papers had been stuck to a corkboard inside. They all looked official, more or less, but the text was just gibberish in squiggled lines. Even the autotranslator module within his visor couldn't make any sense of it. Ryō Bō spat a wad of chewed seaweed on the floor at his feet. "More dream-nonsense," he grumbled, then stalked away up a nearby flight of stairs.   Above, he found himself in a landing much like the room downstairs, albeit without the rows of metal lockers. A bland hallway extended out on either side of him, doors inner wall and windows the outer. Each entry had a placard above it, defaced again with those same nonsensical squiggles.   "Bō!"   Ryō Bō slammed his webbed hand down on his prosthetic arm, silencing it. "Shut up. I hear it," he growled. Down the hall to his left, behind one of the identical doors, came the faint sound of chatter and giggling. "That's our target."   Moving stealthily, careful not to bump his shell against the walls or let his claws scrape on the wooden floor, Ryō Bō crept down the hall until he was right in front of the door in question. He took a steadying breath, swallowed the last of his seaweed, made certain the weapons on his arm were loaded, and stepped forward.   "Think fast, dipwad!" Ryō Bō shouted as he pulled the sliding door violently to the side. And yet it was he who ended up needing to think fast. A chalkboard eraser, caked with dust and hidden in the eaves of the door, fell right at his head. That thing would wreak havoc with the delicate circutry of his visor if it made contact. At the last moment, Ryō Bō managed to catch the projectile on his arm, hissing as he did so. The black felt left a caking of white dust on his scales, but otherwise fell away harmlessly. But now he was open, vulnerable! He raised his arm and fell into a crouch, ready for...   The four occupants of the room were still inside, staring at him like he'd just interrupted their conversation. Three were girls, generically beautiful with similar faces and hair of different shades. The last was no doubt his target. Wearing a black button-down with a pair of stylish glasses set primly on his nose, this boy's dark hair swept up in an unrealistic waning moon-shape upon his forehead.   "Date Masamune, I presume?"   The boy laughed, an elegant sound. "Yes, and who are you? The new janitor?"   "Eat mud." Bō fired the A9 directly at the boy's sternum. He didn't move, instead allowing one of his sycophants to jump in front of the spear. This girl, petite and blonde with her hair in twin tails, screeched as the weapon blew through her torso. There was no blood; there never was in these things. She simply tore into several parts and wisped away, blazer, skirt, and all, as though she'd never been there to begin with. The other two girls turned and bared their fangs.   He couldn't afford to reel in the A9 now, so Ryō Bō leapt forward. "At your nine, Bō!" Saiba called. Whipping his head around, the kappa realized the black-haired girl had flanked him with preternatural quickness. She crouched low, eyes narrowed and teeth gnashing, before launching herself at his side. Bō managed to turn and align his prosthetic arm just in time. A vent in his palm opened and, with a sound like "shoop," the Saiba Net was deployed. The tiny net wrapped around the black-haired girl's face as she bounded forward, stopping her in her tracks and sending her crashing amongst the desks. He turned his attention away from that enemy. Anyone could tell you it was a death sentence.   But he'd been careless. The final girl, with a blue bob cut, had climbed up on his back and gotten her claws under the lip of his shell. Ryō Bō swung back and forth, trying to dislodge the passenger while she pulled with all her strength at that sensitive area. "Get off, crabmeat!" he shouted. He stumbled until he was between the desk at the head of the room and the blackboard beyond it, then grabbed the former with his prosthetic arm and pushed. The pressure under his shell let up instantly as the girl on his back was pressed between carapace and wall until she was little more than mushed dreamstuff.   Masamune! Where was the Masamune? Had he gotten away?   Bō activated his visor, scanning the room, but it was too late. The svelte boy, still wearing that calm grin on his face, was already next to him. With one slender hand, he grabbed the steel fishing rod attached to Bō's prosthetic arm and bent it backward. "You're out of weapons, Mister Janitor," he leered. "And I'm the protagonist. Give up. You don't stand a chance against–"   Date Masamune's monologue was cut short by Ryō Bō's free fist slamming hard into his jaw. The boy's jaw dislodged and he staggered back, looking up with rage in his eyes...only to be met with Bō's palm, vent already opened. "Buddy, you're pond slime." A second Saiba Net shot out at point-blank range, wrapping around Masamune's face and carrying him to the ground. He managed to get his fingers around a few links of the tiny net, but it was useless. A few moments more, and the boy stopped struggling.   "Don't just stand there, Bō! The dream is failing!"   Indeed, the walls of this room were already beginning to buckle under encroaching reality. Normally this wouldn't be a problem, but Bō was pretty far above the ground on a floor that wasn't going to be there a few minutes later. "Saiba, there's a pool out back, right?"   "Er, yes, Bō, but it won't be there much longer. I can't recommend–"   Ryō Bō was already running. Turning his shell toward forward, he blasted through one of the room's dissolving windows and flew out amid a shower of twinkling glass. The acrid scent of chlorine and shimmering blue waters rose to meet him.