5 Undercover Adventure
"Augh, Armsmaster?" Bug-girl flinched when she found me waiting for her on the upstairs patio of the old ferry station, "Have you been working out?"
"Religiously." I responded and hit a pose in my newest power armor for which I utilized Dragon to screen for skulls, spikes, horns, and abyssal runes.
It's not my fault the work of my hands runs counter to the aesthetic of my organization. I am an artist who must be true to myself always, and I am always Brütal! The new power armor suit is less me, more hyper advanced sci-fi savior/precursor civilization. Just something to let the locals know that everything is alright now that I am here. You know subconsciously. Like a liar.
"I need to call in a favor." she stated.
"Good thing I finished my molecular annihilation nanites already. Getting rid of the body or bodies will be super easy, barely an inconvenience!" I informed her ready to clean up anyone she may have given the Lung treatment since I last saw her.
Every poison all at once is tight!
"I didn't kill anyone…" she gamely denied, creating that good plausible deniability.
"Riiiiiight." I nodded then shot her the finger gun, "You totally didn't kill anyone, and we're out here meeting at an abandoned ferry station instead of handling this over the phone because we both have a passion for failed business nostalgia. Nothing nefarious here."
"I should explain things first. First off, the Undersiders offered me a spot on their team. I took it." she told me and I consulted Colin's memory of who those people are.
"Neat." I contributed to the flow of conversation.
She took a big breath and then started to ramble "I've been thinking a fair bit about the conversation we had last Sunday. It seemed odd how you accepted I was a good guy as fast as you did. Would I be right in guessing you either have a lie detector built into your helmet or some power that works more or less the same way?"
"It's actually a small program in my quantum computer brain analogue processing specific data gathered by an incredible machine sensory suite." I corrected her assumption, "But it was in my helmet when we last met. Good catch!"
"Well, tell me if anything sets an alarm ringing, or if your instincts tell you I'm lying." Bug-girl pleaded, "I was a good guy then, I'm a good guy now. I joined the Undersiders because you said you were having trouble getting info on the guys. Now I know their faces, I know the names they're using, I have a pretty good idea about what their powers do, and I know where they're living."
"Wow! You really took it as a challenge when I told you to try not to die!" I grinned at the girl's audacity, "Strait into Cape undercover work and on a team with a suspected Thinker. Incredible! Your utter disregard for your life to bring me information on a group of C-listers who cohesively come together to make a B-Tier threat fills me with determination. I'm going to go Plus Ultra on the heroism now! So put the cards on the table, what do we got?"
"I can't." she slumped slightly.
"Can't what?" I asked kindly.
"I can't tell you…" she elaborated.
"Why does this meeting feel more and more like you just wanted to hang out seaside?" I spoke using my armored hands to demonstrate my growing incredulity, "You don't got any bodies that need annihilating, and you don't have any deets to share on the super undercover work you're doing. I'd say you're leaving me at half mast here, but unless I'm in store for a real surprise you're fifteen and it really bothers people when grown men have any chub at all because of you people."
"You people?" she recoiled back.
"Nice that we could work that bit in again!" I grinned then frowned, "And yes you people! Lines have been drawn. Now stop distracting me from you holding out information. Play it straight. I respect the grewling man hours it took to infiltrate a tight and effective villain team like the Undersiders."
"They messaged me on PHO and invited me to their hideout to join up…" Bug-girl deflated my pride in her hero work.
"Okay… definitely got some protagonist aura shining off you there…" I shrugged, "What's stopping you from spilling the tea on these guys?"
"There's one more thing I need to find out for you." she crossed her arms as she answered.
"You're going to want to pull back right there." I advised her seriously, "Life has a narrative quality to it, and I made that protagonist aura comment, but if I'm wrong about that you going back to do dangerous undercover work for one last bit of information is a major red death flag billowing in the wind as a team of strapping lads waive it back and forth desperate for attention. And as we established prior I'm an adult, so unless you're going to shock me with the sudden reveal that you're actually thirty, and just such a genetic outlier that you're throwing off all my biometrics, then I'm going to have to tell you hell no."
"What would you say if I told you I'm thirty?" Bug-girl tried to lie to me.
She failed.
"My lie detecting capabilities say: no. Smart to try to throw me off by posing it as a question." I offered.
"They're planning something. They want me to help them. I do this, maybe one or two other jobs, I'm sure I can get that last essential detail, and you'll have what you need to capture these guys." she wheedled and I shook my head.
"I don't know if you noticed, but I'm onto some new new that's going to blow people's minds." I hit the double bicep in my sleek as fuck power armor, "And you can tell something's up just on the surface, under the hood and a flash away I've got a mountain of incredible tech best in show. You don't have to get yourself hurt or killed to make this happen, Bug-girl."
"You don't understand-" she started but I cut her off.
"I do." I interjected, "I get it. For years I and the Protectorate, and New Wave have failed to make any headway against the villains here in the Bay. How could you possibly believe that we could get the job done after so much failure?" I closed the distance between us and put my huge armored hands on her carapaced shoulders, "But I'm asking you to believe. Not just that I've gotten good enough to change the status quo, but that YOU are good enough too." I let her go and continued, "I told you that you're going to go far kid. You've got power like a biblical plague, took down a weird fucking alien space dragon guy. We can't lose you infiltrating a Cape team with two murderers on it and a suspected Thinker calling the shots. This Tattletale girl probably already knows that you're joining up to betray them, and she likely has that as a part of her plans, or thinks she can flip you. You need to pull back and bring in the big guns."
"I…" Bug-girl looked up at me with her creepy as fuck mask on and shuddered, "I can't."
"Okay, we'll do it your way. Sounds more fun." I gave up trying to be the responsible adult trying to quell youthful rebellious adventure.
I feel gross for even trying. When I was a kid, my Space Momma led me to genocide a race of cyborg bug people. Builds character. Space Momma knows best, don't let anyone tell you otherwise.
"Just like that? Sounds more fun?" Bug-girl stiffened, but then relaxed, once again employing that crazy self control she's mastered.
Real comic books level shit there.
"Hell yeah!" I nodded, "Abandon reason, know only war!"
"Yeah." she agreed, though lacking my enthusiasm, "So I can count on you to vouch for me if anything goes wrong?"
"I've got it all handled on this side of the equation." I assured her, "Just remember that even if this all goes wrong and you get killed or worse, and everyone you love gets hurt, and everything you care about gets taken away or destroyed… I'll still be okay. Don't take yourself too seriously, Bug-girl. Even if you fail it's not the end of the world."
"Okay… WHAT THE -"
"Hey hold that thought. I'm getting a call patched through." I held up my hand and connected the call.
"This Armsmaster." I mentally answered, my computer brain translating my thoughts to audio on the other end of the call.
"Help me Armsmaster. You're my only hope." A little girl voice pleaded.
How could I help myself but laugh out loud? It was a call to adventure.
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Bros... I ran into a game breaking bug at the Moonlight tower. Killed Guardian Gigantus and the main quest stopped working. Phaesus and the crew won't ascend, the elevator won't go up. Grigori will not be slain, the cycle of Dragon's Dogma is denied by bad scripting.
Damn you, Itsuno.
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