Amelia, Worm AU [Complete]

Amelia, Ch 384


Our side of the Japanese gateway was already pretty heavily populated around the portal. Real construction equipment, one of Dragon's industrial bases. More than half of Avalon's population lived within a couple hundred miles of this portal.


Even before Lily's unmasking, the promise of a nation founded on the goal of becoming a truly modern society had resonated with the younger generations of Japan who blamed traditionalism for everything. Sometimes correctly, and sometimes for reasons that made no damn sense. So even with Japan now holding its own portal to a new world, we were still getting huge amounts of Japanese immigrants.


I shunted over to atop a helipad. There was only one person there waiting. A very attractive Japanese woman. She reached her hand out. I shook it. "Good evening, Empress. Sorry for troubling you. I am Akaihana, and it's an honor to meet you."


Her English was almost flawless, enough that what little accent she kept only served to make her seem exotic. I had to imagine that was her goal. As was her costume, a form fitting bright red outfit that I guess was something like an evening dress mixed with a kimono. Showed her arms and legs, so it certainly wasn't traditional. To say nothing of being low enough cut to confirm that no, she was not wearing a bra. I avoided looking, keeping my eyes straight on hers instead. Too busy worrying about Taylor to enjoy the view anyway.


It was likely none of that hid the light blush forming on my face. I shook her hand, separated by the gauntlet of my armor.


The strange thing about the Japanese hero culture was that most of them tended to have public identities. Or, at least, their faces exposed for all to see. They kept to the same tradition as the western culture in having hero and team names, but they didn't hide their identities. And those with the physical durability to afford it would tend toward revealing outfits. By that standard, Akaihana had to be a tough as hell.


Really, they weren't all that different from how New Wave functioned. Hmm, if I think of it later, I'll have to ask Aunt Sarah if she got her inspiration from the way the Japan was doing things.


I let go of her hand, and it was definitely me that let go. I got the feeling she'd have been happy if I hadn't. "It's good to meet you, too. I've heard nothing but impressive things." Absolutely true. The total of three sentences I know about her are impressive. "Speaking confidentially, I think this captive of yours has to do with a current mission a number of my team is on. Sorry for the inconvenience of it landing in your lap like this."


She smiled wonderfully. "Not at all. Things have been quite peaceful around here after that tussle with the Yangban, and Lily unofficially joining our team. This is the most excitement we've had in weeks. Personally, I think that every so often it's good to, umm, spice things up? As long as everyone enjoys themselves in the end."


My suit's social analysis tech highlighted a few details in her phrasing and behavior, and kindly informed me that this woman was flirting with me pretty blatantly. Unfortunately, it couldn't tell me if she was honestly attracted, or just trying to manipulate me in some fashion. Maybe both.


Either way, I wasn't going to let it work. "Honestly, I've had a bit too much spice in my life lately. Please take me to your 'guest'."


During the debriefing, I'll have to mention all of this to Lily and see what her opinion is.


She smiled knowingly. "I can only imagine." Then turned and led into their base. Swaying her hips enough to remind me that she was, indeed, leaving the implied offer open.


I put my efforts into watching the base itself. It looked more like something out of a scifi movie than anything practical. Seemed pretty well funded considering this was a country that was reduced to functional Third World status. Dozens of ordinary looking people in body suits comprised mainly of copper, silver, and gold colors, each less common than the last. Some kind of ranking system, I had to guess. A lot of them stopped to gawk at me. I found it a little uncomfortable.


"When you said 'successful', I didn't think you meant it was like this." I subvocalized the words for Dragon to pick up.


Text went across the screen of my HUD. Most of it's just for show. The computers are over a decade old, and the majority of supposed workers are using the internet for purposes of amusement or college level student projects. Some are just playing video games.


She looked up at me. We were probably the same height if standing barefoot, but the underlayer to my Dryad left me standing at over six feet tall. "Is something wrong?"


Should I tell her that I know this display is a fake? Or just bite my tongue on the subject? Neither seemed to be an especially good idea if I wanted her to trust me. I opted for a middle ground on the subject. "It must be cultural, but about your offices back there seemed odd to me."


Her laugh was musical. "Oh, no, those aren't offices. Not any more, at least. Japan once held ambitions of a state controlled force, much like the Protectorate in America. After Leviathan, that ambition was forgotten as all but the most stalwart of our parahumans, as you say, fled for greener pastures. We acquired this building some time later and repaired it. The top two floors are now an internet cafe. It has proven profitable enough pay for the upkeep of the building. And it's nice to be able to talk to our fans."


Well, that makes a weird sort of sense. "Hmm, never would have thought of something like that. Clever."


She never stopped smiling as she led me through the hall, pressing her hand to a panel. The wall opened and I followed her through. "I must admit that I am impressed. Most visitors don't notice anything odd about it at all. You have a keen eye." And she's back to flirting with me.


I tried not to enjoy it too much. The suspicion that it was all an act, coupled with worry for Taylor made that fairly easy to do. "What about the uniforms?"


"Oh, that was Hoji's idea. A theme from some scifi show he keeps trying to get me to watch. All in good fun, as they say."


Japan is weird. "And it does create the illusion of a well equipped staff, whenever guests come by."


She smiled coyly. "Well, yes, there is that. Appearances are important, whether we like to admit it or not. Which brings me to our captive. I promise you, my people aren't responsible for what you're about to see." The lie detector confirmed she was telling the truth. Not that we could completely trust that. Especially not around a Trump with an unknown set of abilities to draw upon.


Another door opened, revealing the man. To my surprise, he was caucasian. His face was badly damaged, and even from a distance I could tell his cheek was crushed. Based on the damage, I wouldn't be surprised if his eye was destroyed as well. "Don't worry, I believe you."


The part that convinced me this wasn't their doing was the stitching that had been done along his jaw. Someone surgically repaired him.


I stepped forward, and his one good eye focused on me. "Uhm tell you dey alive. Ship broke. Use shu- shu- thingy. Dey took thingy! Give it back!" He attempted to lunge from the chair, and when he couldn't he started to cry, his tears were pink with blood. "Uh need thingy. Ish impotant." He sobbed.


I looked over at Akaihana. "What 'thingy' is he talking about?"


"He was wearing a full body suit when we found him. Our scans showed some unknown Tinker tech. We have it and a couple other objects in storage."


"Need it! Need thingy! Keep promise! Scawy girl said if ah give thingy, you fix! Need thingy so you make pain stop! Hurts so bad. Please give it." He wept as he struggled desperately against his bonds. I almost cried as well, it was horrible to watch.


Why did they do this? I stepped toward him, and the men guarding the prisoner looked behind me, then stepped back and let me approach. My armor was designed to shift and expose my hands if I needed them to. I subvocalized again. "Dragon, if anything seems off, I want you to disable me. We can't rule out a trap completely."


The armor folded away from my palm and I put my hand on the poor man's scalp. The obvious damage was pretty bad. Bad enough that I started drawing raw material from the Yggdrasil to provide mass for healing.


The brain was another mess entirely. Someone had somehow pushed things into his skull without actually doing any external damage. Whatever they used was still alive. I took the time to examine the material, eventually recognizing it as pine needles. It was a fucking partial lobotomy done entirely by pressing pine needles up against various parts of his brain. Including the part that understood pain. I knew it had to be Clarice's work if only because no one else had this kind of skill. Probably using Lily to get the needles into place. A clear message that this unfortunate was sent by the two of them.


It was also easy for me to dissolve the needles into harmless nutrients for his blood stream, showing a clear understanding of my powers. I put the Yangban member to sleep, mended the damage I could with some of the spare biomass I had from my suit, then stepped back and turned toward Akaihana.


"I suppose the question now becomes what to do with him, and with the equipment he had. Atropos clearly trusted you enough to send him here. Is her good will enough for you, or are we going to need to negotiate you turning him over to our custody?"


Again with that beautiful smile. "I think we can settle for knowing we've done a good deed. But I wouldn't mind if, perhaps, you could build some of those power enhancing suits you for me and my team. I understand you've given them to your close American friends. I would hope that we could be close friends, too?" She managed to pout without it looking stupid, in much the way she somehow made her costume not look trashy.


Is this what all the flirting was for? A set of armor? "Just so it's clear, I can't promise that. The generic armor sets are one thing, I can promise a number of those. But to create a suit designed to run custom off of your armor, our Tinkers have to run several tests. Learn every detail about how your power works, and then maybe they'll be able to build something that compliments your powers. Not all powers can be improved. The first question is always if you're willing to be tested in the first place."


She smiled. "I think I can agree to that."


She led my to a storage locker, where the armor was stored. My suit's scanning tech started analyzing what it could.


Dragon relayed the information. It's a shunt drive without the keycode wiped. I can use it to adapt our own dimensional tech to access Khyber through their barricade tech. I'll need to examine it in our base. I am already contacting Tir, I'll need his help reverse engineering the equipment.


I smiled broadly. They didn't take down the barricades, but this was as good or better.


Akaihana smiled as well, her eyes glinting. "I take it your visit has been satisfying."


Despite myself, this time I blushed. The relief of knowing Taylor was safe and I'd be able to see her soon made me let my guard down. "Yes, very. It means we can stop the CUI from ever stealing any more worlds. And I can..." I stopped myself.


She smiled. "You must love her very much."


=============


A/N- Briefly considered Akaihana succeeding here. But that woulda been pointless drama that didn't fit the character development as it stood in the story thus far for her to seduce Amelia.