It felt good to be in the cockpit of Circe again. Bailey had neglected the girl for a good few months now, the cost of having a veritable replacement built to fly around with your girlfriend, really.

Ah, Hedone. Hold out for her…

…

Before Bailey could think any further about her second, currently purposeless mech, the vibrations of her squad’s mech suits landing near her ran across the snowy gtunround her Circe’s four legs stood on. PostTech’s transport craft may not have been the smoothest fliers she’d been lugged around by, but corporate mandates clearly drilled speed into those little pilots’ heads.

Two minutes ahead of schedule. Fantastic. An extra two minutes to waste when they got back to the Nightjar for a week and change of sitting on their asses.

Great.

Tiger: That should be all four of ya! How am I soundiiing?

An inhuman synthetic voice blasted through the high quality comms speakers inside Circe’s cockpit. Bailey knew its owner well, of course. Aoi Tarowaka, their comms girl currently sat in the spacious, floating interior of the Nightjar.

For the time being, though, only Bailey’s real name existed on the battlefield. Under Bailey’s command, Aoi was simply known as Tiger. Clever girl even got the codenames coming up on her real time transcription system. Bailey rarely gave anyone a high compliment like this, but she was the best.

“Loud and clear, Tiger. How about the rest of you, hm?” Bailey hummed into her mic, waiting for her three squad mates to respond and, ideally, stick to the codenames Bailey gave them. They weren’t even that demeaning this time. She was playing so nice for her little fellow rebels.

Caramel: I hear ya! Sounding even cuter than usual, Tiger~!

Caramel, known outside this wasteful diversion as Scotch, was the first to make her perky voice known. Bailey saw a standard junker and expected standard results. Scotch might want to be careful, though.

Toying with Tarowaka was her turf~.

Grouse: Mhm. Voice is going to take some adjustment, but you’re clear.

Second on the docket was Grouse, aka Minerva Amato, Kern’s second-in-command and supposedly commendable mech pilot. Flying something a third of Circe’s height didn’t give Bailey immense confidence in her ability, even if the red scarf tied around its neck was a cute detail.

Minnie here better impress her squad leader today, but Bailey wasn’t holding her breath. Mech jockeys died out years ago, and compound bows required a level of proficiency reserved for pilots in Bailey’s league.

And she only knew one pilot in that league.

…

Kitten: I hear you…

Bailey was fortunately spared yet more Nataliza thoughts by their final squad mate chiming in. Kitten, aka Sarah Ducor. Kern’s pet project, and Bailey’s walking, minor regret flying a slightly uncomfortable to look at Gen 4 Whitehawk.

Sarah was quiet, too. Was that because of last night, or the lingering effects of that neural dampening nonsense?

Who knew, who cared? Bailey had a time-wasting show to get on the road.

“Look at that, all so respectful of their leader. Got all that Tiger~?” Bailey let confidence, real and otherwise, ooze from her overpriced microphone setup, looking over the pathetic scav outpost in the distance with as much focus as she could manage.

This would be easy. Bailey’s ran more missions than any of these pilots have had real, non-printed hot meals. Circe could be operated blind by her by now. She’d done a thousand missions like this without Nataliza.

…

Focus, Bailey. Really.

Tiger: All nice and clear to me! Let’s go over what my drones have scanned before I let you run oooff!

Gods, if Bailey appreciated anything about her feisty little Tiger right now, it was that she worked fast and spoke even faster. None of the ego stroking bullshit from the Merc Guild.

No nonsense professionalism from a girl who was anything but outside the mech. A rare girl Bailey could enjoy the company of anywhere, but she could whisper sweet nothings into Aoi’s handcuffed form in person later.

Give her some good news, Tiger.

Tiger: Sooo, my drone sweep confirmed what Bailey told us from the file earlier. About twelve mechs, all mostly mismatched junkers. Easy-peasy!

That voice really was going to take getting used to, Grouse had a point there. Such a point was unimportant, though. Mission details came first.

“Noticing the word mostly there, Tiger. Don’t tell me one of these little flies could take me a whole thirty seconds to crush~.” Bailey could hear a slight groan on Grouse’s radio and smirked. Whine about it all you want, Minnie, but Bailey had more than earned some sickly sweet confidence.

She’d prove just why it was well-founded when they close this mission without a damn scratch.

Tiger: Thaaat’s the wrinkle. Their leader has something a little cleaner, even if I know you’ll kick its butt. But, there’s also one stock UA Sparrow guarding the place… Weird!

Tiger’s synthetic voice closed with a faux-cheerful pep, and before Bailey could give her own reply, Grouse’s radio chirped to life.

Grouse: Not too out of the ordinary, actually. Scavengers here on Orsus were left with two options when the corps left. Join with us or take deals with the UA to try and get off this rock. A lot of cowards chose the latter.

Look at that. Kern’s little birdie doing her little homework. Bailey was almost starting to feel like she was in the company of professionals, instead of a group of time wasters with no long term plan.

Almost.

Tiger: Makes sense to meee! Bailey, you wanna get things going or are ya still thinking? Can totally talk more juicy scav deets with Grouse if you are.

Bailey knew well that Aoi lived off of knowing things other people didn’t. While Orsus was a very isolated ball of doom by now, Aoi probably had every other known scavenger outpost in the galaxy charted on a map back in her bunk.

Would be a helpful chat if Bailey was still a merc for hire, but she wasn’t. This was a mission said info couldn’t help, and it was time to focus on it. Even if the real goal was still an unknown amount of days away.

At least that UA dog might know something, though…

“Oh, I had a plan before you even started meowing for me, Tiger. Caramel. Kitten. You two first.” Bailey’s tone occupied a zone somewhere between playful overconfidence and strict professionalism.

Tiger: Oooh, you got it, Nataliza~!

Cute.

Aoi was lucky that Bailey liked her. If Grouse had made that comment, they’d be calling her a casualty of a particularly fiery scavenger attack, correct tease or not.

“Caramel and Kitten, you’re going to bash through the fencing on the left and stick close to each other on my signal. Draw as much focus as you can handle. New Gen Whitehawks aren’t built for one-on-one fights, and I want to see Caramel show her glue guns off for me.” Bailey paused, making sure neither of her two weaker pilots had any interjections before verbally ensuring so. “That clear, rookies~?” Bailey earned one poke today. She was being so respectful and professional otherwise.

Caramel: Fine by me! Sweet Treat’s paired great with Kitten before, right, girl?

Kitten: Mhm… Pairs well… Got it…

Caramel’s cheerful, precious optimism was an odd match for the still somewhat vacant mumblings of Kitten. Bailey knew a newer Whitehawk paired well with close-range support units, though, so she simply appreciated that these two were out of her way.

She appreciated that Sarah was quiet right now, too. The less she thought about last night, the better.

The less she thought about Sarah’s vacancy when she tried to bring it up this morning, the better.

Grouse: Guessing you want me on you then, Bailey?

How presumptuous Kern’s little bird was. She may have gotten to pick her codename, but Bailey made that decision, and there were better places for her to be.

Bailey didn’t need a single one of these three up her ass today. The odd command from Tiger was about all she wanted to hear.

“Afraid not, Grouse. Got something even better for you.” Bailey paused, allowing her overbearing smugness to overtake her professional candor for a nice, joyful moment. The moment passed with a sigh from Minnie, and Bailey continued. “On my count of three, I want you to fire an explosive shot on that rusty warehouse to the right of the outpost. Caramel and Kitten will rush in while they’re distracted, and you’ll focus on covering them from a distance after. Got it, little bird~?” Yet more smug, batty words from Bailey followed an otherwise well-communicated order.

Bailey was more than a pretty face and a fancy mech, and she’d take whatever joy she could today by proving it. Gods, she needed something to distract herself from seeing a Whitehawk that wasn’t Nataliza’s.

Calm yourself and focus, Bailey.

Grouse: Right, I’ll keep my eyes on those two. Where’s that leaving you, though… captain?

“Me?” Mh, that little bit of hesitancy in Grouse’s voice was delicious fuel for Bailey’s confident teasing. That’s right, this was Bailey’s show, and it was her show for a reason. “I’m going right through the front gate, little bird. Any more questions~?” Bailey batted at Grouse with a nice, superior smile staring back at her in the reflection on Circe’s view screen.

She didn’t expect any groaning or moaning, fun kind or otherwise, though. Minerva Amato was a professional, after all.

Grouse: None that matter. Waiting on your signal.

And professionals did their job without bitching about it.

“Good girl~.” Bailey let one more unprofessional tease toward her new comrade slip through before her hands, all four of them, found their places on Circe’s spacious, overcomplicated dashboard.

“Three…”

Weapon safeties off…

“Two…”

Nanotech armor standing by…

“One…”

Thrusters ready to engage at max speed…

“Go!”

With Circe ready to pounce, and Bailey’s signal given, the ex-merc watched her squad follow their orders with just enough basic comprehension skills to impress her.

First and foremost, she watched Grouse’s Necāre pull out its large, low tech compound bow from its folded position on the mech’s back. The pilot took two seconds to switch to the explosive ball rounds to the right of the double-stringed bow, line up a shot, and fire towards the warehouse on the right.

Not a word.

As Bailey had instructed, and without even a hint of error, the explosive ball of tungsten turned the warehouse into a fiery, extremely loud distraction that got the outpost’s smaller infantry and larger mechs rushing near it.

Grouse: Target hit. Now show us what you’re made of, captain.

Grouse didn't waste a second basking in the afterglow of her perfect shot. She was on the move a moment later, already preparing her next shot.

Bailey could read through that stoic, leader-like professionalism, though. Grouse issued a challenge to Bailey. 

Grouse wanted proof that Bailey really was as good as the rumors claimed.

Caramel and Kitten needed no such statements, even as they began dashing in a coordinated unit towards their own target. 

They were known quantities. 

Bailey was a wild card with something to prove.

Whatever it was, it was time to prove it.

“Watch and swoon, little bird~.” Without another word or order to give her expectant superior/subordinate hybrid, Bailey sent Circe flying forward at a pace far exceeding that of the average quadruped.

Caramel and Kitten still had an inherent speed advantage on their own. Both were bipeds, and the former’s Sweet Treat mech seemed built to its core for speed, but Circe was close.

Damn close.

Close enough that, within thirty seconds, Bailey had smashed the hulking, sixty-foot body of her mech through the piddly, ten-foot gate serving as the outpost’s main entrance.

???-1: Shit, was the warehouse just a decoy?

???-2: Don’t know, absolutely don’t care. Deal with the bitch.

Scavengers were always so rude. You work with them, and they call you a gun for hire. You rip one in half, and they call you a series of slurs.

Better off dead in Bailey’s book!

???-1: But, isn’t that Bailey Clu—

???-2: Don’t give a shit. She’s one pilot. There are twelve of us. Do the math, dipsh-... What do you mean two more from the left???

Ah, and there was Bailey’s distraction band.

Caramel: We’re in! Got two on us already, so knock ‘em dead over there, cutie!

Cutie, eh? Keep talking like that and Bailey might have to show Scotch how cute she was.

After she did her job.

With a mech starting to close in on the outpost’s entrance, Bailey set Circe to a slow, idle hover until the first rust bucket was in her view.

???-1: Little far from home, aren’t you, merc?

Said rust bucket made no attempt to slow its movements as it dashed loudly and clunkily towards Circe. Like most rust buckets, its weapons were poorly matched and poorly built. Visible to Bailey’s eye was a rusted, heavy axe and a scattergun. The lack of shoulder mounted launchers or machine guns suggested either a shield or a lightweight build.

Either outcome suggested Bailey could kill this dumbass in one move.

“Funny you say that. I was hoping you and your cute little tin toy could give me directions. Mind coming closer for me~?” Bailey kept a straight line trajectory towards the rusted scavenger mech, borrowing a move from her old, pre-Hedone playbook and winding up a fake punch to lure her prey in.

???-1: How about I direct your corpse to the nearest landfill, merc?

Still with the angry utterances of “merc,” hm? Guess news travelled slow on a planet buried in snow and genocide. Precious.

Also meant their little UA mutt wasn’t keeping them clued in on any changes. Useful.

…

Alright, time to die!

“You can try, rusty~.” Bailey teased the scavenger one last time before their mechs had closed enough distance to almost make contact with each other.

She had a few moves in her arsenal. Could tank the hit with her nanotech armor, but she liked saving its strength for stronger prey. Could should bash it onto the ground, but even a weak axe might cause annoying damage on impact.

…

Ah, fuck it, dirty efficiency was always going to win today. As soon as contact was seconds away, Bailey dashed to the angry rust bucket’s left and let the slam of their axe hit the ground. 

It was a good thing Bailey didn’t go for the shoulder bash, that axe definitely would have at least chipped her paint. That would have been sloppy.

“Mh, what was that about landfills again?” Speaking of sloppy, the rust bucket’s poor balance gave Bailey enough time to both taunt her prey in its final moments, and give it a firm, powerful kick with her frontmost right leg.

With a kick delivered to its leg, the shoddy mech fell to the ground with a heavy, satisfying thud, and a series of grunts blissfully blasting through the speakers of Bailey’s radio.

???-1: F-Fuck… Fine, yeah, dumb move. Filthy m-merc like you isn’t about to make me beg, though!

Bailey smirked to herself, getting into a good position and pulled Circe’s flamethrower from the mechanical holster behind its back.

“Who said I wanted you to beg, rusty. Mh, mommy wants you to scream~.” Bailey spoke in a mix of confidence and thinly veiled rage before performing the ol’ Circe finisher on this rusted heap. A flurry of shoulder-mounted machine gun fire paired with the searing heat of her flamethrower. 

The former tore through whatever minimal armor a scav could find, and the UA clearly wasn’t helping there if the ease of said tearing was any indication. The latter melted the steel of the suit to the point of bending and, in this case, much, much worse.

Such delicious familiarity…

L̷͎̘̮͒͐͝ͅà̸̲͍͕͂̀̕ͅy̷̝͈̺͒̀̏l̵̛͈̻̻̝̓͝ả̸͚̪̙͆͜ ???-1:  Fuck... No... I... NOOOO-

Bailey paused to listen as the pawn of the UA burnt to a molten crisp, their screams turning to gargles before going quiet. As she did, something filled her mind. Something equally familiar. A fight with another rust bucket lingered in her head.

Obviously it was because that little animal put up a better fight. That was all. It was a fond bit of nostalgia for a fight she remembered well.

Nothing more. Bailey refused to allow it to be. Familiarity was good, and obsessing over the only rebel she’d set ablaze was pointless. Move on.

Focus on the mission.

Caramel: Two pilots down on our end, Bailey! How’s the gate crashing going? You alright?

Good, only Scotch seemed to be speaking into the squad comms for her and Sarah both. But did Bailey sense concern in her voice?

None of Bailey’s business. The mission came first, even if it was a worthless one.

“First little rat is dead. Let me do my thing, and maybe I’ll crash your gate later, hm, Caramel~?” Bailey moved on, turning around to continue her assault after a flirt to mask any stray emotions escaping the deepest corners of her brain.

Caramel: We’ll keep doing our thing then. Might hold ya to that, though, cutie~!

Ah, now there was the good kind of familiarity. Cheap flirts with easy sluts and a cockpit operated on efficient muscle memory.

The only familiarity Bailey wanted right now.

With whatever that lapse was behind her, Bailey cruised Circe past the molten remains of her first victim and hunted for her next targets. A look to her left a few moments later revealed two far more ordinarily busted mechsuits. Caramel and Kitten’s first victims of the morning. Not bad.

Bailey could do better.

The ex-merc was given targets aplenty to prove such a claim a moment later. Two similarly rusty mechs to her prior prey burst out from behind a storage building to her far right, acting like the stature of a sixty-foot mech could be stealthy on a battleground like this.

Amateurs. Either former soldiers, flunkie mercs, or poorly trained lifelong scavengers.

???-3: Look at that! The Guild’s favorite little refugee!

???-4: What happened to subtlety? Immigrant or not, she was still their best ranked pilot. Idiot.

Bickering, ignorance, and thinly veiled bigotry. On a different day, perhaps even with Nataliza, she’d have basked in slowly embarrassing these two to death.

Today, they weren’t even worth that.

???-3: Who gives a shit? Come on, Earth Girl, where’s that big mouth of yours?

Reserved for people she cared enough to waste the breath on. That was where.

Bailey knew these two could be downed in one move, and with a growing smile on her face, she calculated her best option while slowly cruising towards them.

Two stocky mechs, probably rebel CF models at their cores. Pilots seemed slow, their kitbashed frames seemed slower. Worse, poorly maintained.

Though, both of them seemed to have the same boosters as Sasha’s CF1-Robin, so a brief burst of real speed from them had to be kept in mind…

…

Yeah, she had it.

“Do me a favor and stay right there for me, scumbags~.” Bailey spoke softly into her microphone, pairing it with a slam of the brakes on Circe’s boosters that locked the mech’s four legs in place.

After locking her mech into position, she began firing slow, concentrated volleys of bullets from her shoulder-mounted machine guns. Each and every shot was hitting its target down to the millimeter, or rather, missing them down to the millimeter. Only stray shots were making contact with the two basic, bipedal frames towards her. Bailey’s shooting was putting more of a dent in the heavy snow beneath their war machines than either target.

Just as planned.

???-3: Funny. I was hoping you’d do the same for us, Earth Girl.

???-4: Just shut up and focus on fighting, please. The UA bounty on this chick could set me up for life.

???-3: Set us up for life, ya mean?

Ah, they were both taking the bait so adorably, weren’t they? 

While the two grew silent after their standup routine, Bailey had managed to silently gleam a little information from them. She was next on the UA’s shit list, huh? 

Good, all the more reason for her to drop by and take back what was hers.

…

Mh, right, these two were now using their limited boosting capabilities to zoom towards her for a cheap double hit. Time to die!

Bailey kept firing shots primarily around her targets, dinging them here and there to maintain the illusion this wasn’t incredibly poor bait. With the two closing in, Bailey engaged Circe’s boosters to dash backwards at a significantly slower speed than her two targets.

Hm, they both had low-power plasma swords. Even a pair of dolts like these two would know to go for two different parts of her mech suit. The mouthy one on the right was going for the chest. A kill shot despite the bounty on her? Dumbass.

The one on the left seemed a tad bit smarter, lining up a slash to part Circe’s body from its legs so they could try and claim her alive. Fat fucking chance.

Bailey did a few more silent calculations in her head, knowing that the best time to cease her boosters and line up a perfect lash of her whip was—

SCHLK! SCHLK! SCHLK!

???-3: H-Hey! What the fuck just happened to my mech???

???-4: Gh, she baited us!

Bailey’s bait had technically worked, but the cause of the two mechs stopping in place a dozen feet in front of her certainly wasn’t her.

No, the vast globs of searing hot glue sticking her prey to the ground beneath their frames’ feet belonged to none other than Caramel.

Caramel: Just passing through. You’re welcome~!

“Look at you, being useful and refusing to do what you’re told. Good girl~.” Bailey, in truth, never held much appreciation for other pilots butting into her kills. She could handle herself, but her desire to drown unwanted thoughts with teasing beat the urge to chew Scotch out.

Besides, made killing these rats easier, hm?

Caramel: Keep calling me that and maybe Tiger and I can make room for you in Sweet Treat sometime~! Good luck, captain!

Mh, that plump dessert cake was getting more fuckable by the minute, but Bailey could ponder turning Scotch into an éclair oozing her and Aoi’s cream later. 

Best to get this over with before that yellow, sticky glue cooled. 

Back to the original plan.

Back to splitting these rats in two.

“Holding still for me, after all? Maybe I’ll make this quick for you good little rats, then~.” Bailey’s words were as smooth as the undamaged paintwork on her beloved BC1-Circe, practically humming out her last tease as she reached for her heated plasma whip.

???-4: Wait IMGHFKHH-

Bailey kept her promise to the slightly less moronic pilot glued to the left of her. With the same smooth haste that it was pulled out with, the deadly custom whip lashed through the first scavenger from top to bottom. It split the machine in half like a steady kitchen knife slicing through a ripe, juicy tomato, and the split mech suit fell back as far as it could.

The two halves weren’t able to hit the ground, the glue still firmly attached to the machine’s legs prevented that. 

The two former halves of the pilot had no such luck, though. Beneath the mech and by the pile of glue was a heap of loose, melting gore that was formerly the seemingly begrudged friend of the scav to Bailey’s right.

…

Ah, well. Time to rinse and repeat with the mouthy one.

???-3: H-Ha… Fuck you, I ain’t scared. That bitch of yours would be lucky to die like this right now!

Bailey’s planned vertical lashing of her whip froze for a few seconds. Several annoyingly slow seconds that made her look down at the gore the less mouthy pilot was formerly comprised of.

Vivid images invaded Bailey’s mind without her consent, but they were just as quickly cast aside with a rapid, horizontal flog of Circe’s whip across the middle of the rusty mech in front of her.

Like she’d seen a hundred times before, the mech was split in half. The legs remained upright in their casing of hot glue, while the upper body slid to the side and crashed onto the ground below.

???-3: C-Crap. Ough…

The immense thud the collision with the ground made was joined by a few screams and instinctual utterances of profanity from the mouthy pilot.

Bizarrely, even to Bailey, it wasn’t joined by a comment from her. She had nothing to say. She was drawing a blank.

That wasn’t like her. She was fine a second ago. She’d been called slurs in the battlefield that would make one of those Earth fascists shake their heads in fake shame. 

UA mutts had threatened Nataliza plenty when posters of the two of them started appearing across Ansa.

Fuck, did that annoy her. Upstarts.

…

Control yourself, Bailey.

This bitch wasn’t worth getting angry at, Bailey.

???-3: D-Dammit. Can’t believe I’m goin’ out before that A-Ansa transfer. Shit I would have done to your fucktoy after they broke he-

“Shut up! Shut the fuck up!” Bailey snapped. There was no response she could produce right now other than pure, unbridled, bottled up rage. “Little fucking scumbag!” Her voice lacked the control and confidence it typically oozed, replaced only by various expletives as rageful instinct took over.

Circe was bent down before Bailey even realized her hands were back on her dashboard. Circe’s left hand gripped the shoulder of the legless mech, while the other hand balled into a fist.

There was no build up. There was no clever jab or sly remark signalling the pilot’s imminent death. Over and over, Bailey rammed Circe’s fist at full strength into the chest of this mouthy bitch’s pathetic rust bucket of a mech.

Dent after dent.

Smash after smash.

???-3: P-Pathetic, ain’t ya? What do you th-think the… ha… b-body count is already, e-eh? Bet you c-could fit y-your fist insi-

The bitch went on and on, but Bailey had stopped listening by now.

Punch after punch.

Crunch after crunch.

Eventually there was nothing but silence from the torn apart half-mech Bailey spent a hazy, unknown amount of time bashing against the ground until it was barely recognizable as a mech at all. 

Blood oozed against Circe’s formerly pearl white fist during the final few punches, and lucidity slowly returned to her. She had no clue when the pilot died, or how long they’d been silently dead for. All Bailey knew was that, barring stray bones and flesh in the bashed open, low-tech cockpit of that rust bucket, the pilot’s remains were now nothing but a stain on Circe’s fist.

Whatever. Wasn’t her job to clean scum off her mech anyway.

Bailey returned Circe to an upright position, looking through her view screen to see that Scotch’s own precious scrap heap mech was still standing there. The dessert cake saw it all.

Caramel: Are you… ya know… okay, Bailey?

Poor little Scotch. There was fear mixed with concern in her voice, and Bailey did her damndest to try and not appreciate the latter. The former was all that mattered.

Good. Everyone should be fucking scared of her. It’s what’s kept her alive at the top of the food chain this past decade and a half.

It kept Nataliza safe, too…

And now…

Focus.

In through the nose.

Out through the mouth.

No more distractions.

Right?

Tiger: Hey, just between us, I heard everything there. You’re totally sure you’re okay? She was kind of a dick!

Wrong. Aoi chimed in through a private channel. Said upbeat, synthetic chiming almost lured Bailey into saying she was not, in fact, fine.

A lie, of course. She was fine. She was in control.

Bailey Cluanaire was perfect.

“I’m fine. Get back to work, Caramel.” Bailey’s less playful reply than usual directed its scorn solely at Scotch, and that too was done for a reason unknown to Bailey.

Annoying, but it got her and her little Sweet Treat moving again. Good.

Back to work.

Tiger: Think you’ve almost cleared out all the outpost’s mechs. Great job~! One sec, though…

Aoi’s fake, synthetic voice sang her words into the ears of her mostly undercover crew, pausing for a moment before once more speaking into Bailey’s private comms.

Tiger: Between us again. Kitten’s slowly setting up the outpost’s boss and the UA mech for an ambush from Caramel. They’re juuust outside the back of the place, if you wanna get there first!

Bailey smirked to herself, the private info from that precious, fangless Tiger of hers giving her energy she sorely needed… and an odd feeling she didn’t quite recognize…

Camaraderie? Probably. Who knew, who cared?

Back to work. Business as usual.

“Grouse, keep your eyes on Caramel and Kitten, and if you see anything other than a mech suit or an anti-mech weapon fleeing… let ‘em go.” Bailey gave a firm order to Grouse before engaging Circe’s boosters and beginning a mad dash through the middle of the outpost.

That mutt was hers.

Grouse: Got it.

Good. A little bit of rebelling against Bailey’s orders looked good on a pretty treat like Caramel, but Grouse knew her place. Grouse trusted her.

A lot of people seemed to nowadays. Strange.

…

Bailey cast away another thought before it could even begin to form, locking her vision and focus both on the fence her Circe tore through like tissue paper before seeing her final two targets in view.

Leading the pack was a notably fresher, out of place mech clad in red and gray steel. No rust. Assembly line weapons. It seemed to be a standard-issue United Arcadium Raptor mech.

That was the mutt, alright.

Behind it was a battle worn biped with none of the Arcadium can’s cleanliness. Rust aplenty. A mismatched arsenal of a submachine gun, steel blade and a single, old-gen missile launcher on its left shoulder.

Based on the age of its parts, that was the outpost’s leader.

Based on the trail of smoke billowing out from its back vents, Sarah had already done a fine number on it.

She was a good Kitten, but it was time for a real professional to finish this off.

Bailey, taking advantage of the accidental distraction Sarah was serving as, and the near-silence of her Circe’s boosters, began tailing the outpost’s leader. It was a process that might have taken a minute or so, if it wasn’t a race between the best active pilot in the system and a meager scav.

Within ten seconds, Bailey was already within range to kill the fucker and slowing down enough to land a good, easy lash of her whip.

“On your six, cutie~!” Bailey spoke cockily into her microphone, watching with a feeling of deep, exciting satisfaction as her target not only turned around on the spot, but slowed down their boosters too. They may as well have had a giant indicator telling Bailey where to strike for a one-hit kill.

Adorable. Clearly, this outpost wasn’t quite the meritocracy the UA pretended to believe in.

???-5: I’ve been flying as loGHKKK-

Bailey heard whatever boring speech the gruff outpost’s leader was going to recite cut off just as Circe’s whip tore through the center of their mech.

“Hey, mutt…” Bailey’s words calmly spoke into her microphone, said calm being contrasted by Circe’s hand pushing the outpost leader’s dead mech out of its way before it could even fall to the ground. “You’re next~.” Bailey growled in a mix of sensuality and ferocious bloodlust before engaging her thrusters at full speed again.

This time, though, she had to play things a little smarter. Scavengers, especially on a planet as dead as Orsus, were primarily untrained people at the ends of their ropes. Deeply unthreatening to a pilot like Bailey and a mech like Circe, especially in a group raid like this.

The UA’s dregs weren’t in the same league as Nataliza or Bailey. Hell, they weren’t even in the same ballpark as Sasha or Lark. An assembly line rebel was flying circles around this pathetic, imperial cur.

Pathetic.

But, pathetic or not, they were trained to fight and fed stims that kept them fighting. The difference in challenge for Bailey was akin to the one between boots with laces and boots with self-fastening straps, but the difference was there.

The difference might keep this one alive a few seconds longer than her unmourned scavenger comrade.

UA-Raptor-OS37: Think I’m scared of some grieving widow?

The first words out of the pathetic mutt’s mouth made Bailey pause for a moment. More than a moment. Longer than any battlefield insult ever had before. Slurs regarding her heritage and insults about her rather open identity never froze her like this.

Could Nataliza be dead? Were they too late?

…

Fucking stupid, Bailey. Ansa was The Devil’s playground, and that bitch didn’t have the balls to off a captured Lark, let alone the second-best pilot in the galaxy. Of course she was alive.

Focus and annihilate this bitch, Bailey.

OS37: Gonna put you down quick.

The imperial scumbag had turned around from chasing Sarah’s Whitehawk on a dime. Whether she was saying bullshit to get under Bailey’s skin, or had gotten misinformation from her Handler, it was obvious this pilot wanted a real fight.

“Here, girl. Come on. Make it quick for us~.” Bailey wanted one, too. Anything that could get the blood pumping and the mind focused squarely on combat.

No distractions.

No thinking about Nataliza.

Kitten: G-Good luck, c-captain.

Certainly no thinking about the weird pit of presumed guilt in her stomach.

Put this dog down, Bailey.

OS37: Aren’t you a little far from home? Figured you’d be looking for your fossil back on Ansa.

Bailey let the pilot yap away while preparing her first move, already pondering the imperial pilot’s few words.

Nataliza’s capture was no secret within the UA, that was clear. The likelihood this cheeky, soon-to-be-melting bitch knew much about her fate wasn’t zero, but it was much more likely she was trying to get under her skin.

Good fucking luck.

“Mh, figured I’d take a little ski trip before I rip your boss’s head off, mutt. Don’t worry, though…” Bailey’s smirk was back, and her voice once more radiated the smug dominance of the battlefield she prided herself in always maintaining. Always. “You’ll be too dead to watch~.” Bailey was focused again, truly.

She always was, after all.

…

With Bailey’s closing jeer spoken calmly and cloyingly, she began maneuvering Circe a small distance away from the Raptor mech speeding towards her. Rushing headfirst into sixty-foot death machines was all well and good against untrained scavengers and poorly paid corporate worms. The difference in build quality alone made those fights utterly worthless and one-sided.

Reckless shit got a pilot killed against a proper soldier, though, and performing a well-kept, high-boost backpedal was the best move for chipping away at a relatively low-armored Raptor; a process Bailey had already started a second later by concentrating her shoulder-mounted machine gun fire on the approaching machine’s body.

OS37: There’ll be plenty to watch when I’m through with you. Shouldn’t have dropped out of the Merc Guild, interloper.

Wow. Interloper. A four syllable word and an insult she hadn’t been called in a while. Cute. This little fascist might even be able to read!

Alas, Bailey didn’t have the time to immediately fire a comeback at the mutt, already needing to dodge two homing rockets fired from the Raptor’s shoulder with laser precision. An easy dance, really. The tracking tech in those things was pure crap against a mech with a solid turning radius.

The trickier part was what came after. A few stray shots from the Raptor’s assault rifle dinged against a fragile and minute portion of Circe’s body. Typically, that was a lucky shot, but all five bullets seemed to have been aimed right at that invisible weak point. The small spot that occupied her cockpit’s view screen.

Thankfully, the few shots that hit meant very little, and with knowledge that her opponent knew of Circe’s weak spot, she could focus her dynamic nanotech armor on keeping her cockpit clean and pristine. A few cracks, dents, and holes could be buffed out. Sierra was good for some things, after all.

Still, that was good shooting. Shooting even the best bounty hunters hadn’t managed to nearly trip Bailey up with in her merc days.

Clever little dog, this one. Someone did her homework.

Or, more likely, someone’s Handler did her homework for her.

…

Bailey had words for you, OS37. Right after she made you feel like the helpless, worthless animal you were compared to Bailey Cluanaire.

“What can I say, it was getting so boring being too good for those crummy pilots.” Bailey hummed into her microphone, already weighing up her next move as she began a slow, evasive circling of her opponent. Ideas flew fast in her brain. “Speaking of boring, crummy pilots, how about you make this quick for us, mutt~?” Playful insults flew faster.

Insults weren’t the only thing Bailey was offering, though. The circling gave Bailey precious moments to gauge OS37’s movements. Whoever was in her head right now clearly had a strategy devised for Bailey, and Circe in particular. Distance was being kept with great intention, exploratory advances towards the Raptor mech prompting backpedaling of OS37’s own.

The rhythm was obvious, keep Bailey’s positioning predictable with timed barrages of missile fire, and pick away at any weak points Circe had with their rifle. Smart. Even with Bailey’s dynamic nanotech armor, keeping the joints of her mech’s limbs and her cockpit covered at the same time was difficult.

Not impossible, obviously. Bailey’s taken on whole squads and wiped them out in seconds, but her typical tactic of picking away at a target from miles away until they got bored was riskier here. In her merc days, maybe she would have relished that risk, but she had something to fight for right now.

Something she wouldn’t let stick in her mind.

OS37: Stay right there for me, interloper. I can make this quick.

Bailey let the snide voice of her opponent prattle on while she devised a strategy of her own. Picking away at this bitch with machine gun fire was leading to a few stray, successful hits, but few they were. A lowly-armored Raptor with a plan needed to be dealt with up close.

Bailey kept her circling up for another few moments, analyzing the exact reload time of the Raptor’s rockets by letting the mech get two more shots off near her before taking a deep breath. She bided her time, sighing as a few final rifle rounds scratched Circe’s paint before seeing the opponent’s mech fire off two rockets each from both shoulders.

Go time.

“Mh, was about to say the same thing.” Bailey kicked her boosters into overdrive, sweat lightly trailing down her brow while she rushed towards the Raptor at the quickest pace her high-tech boosters could allow. “Stay still for mommy~.” The confidence in her voice remained, but Bailey knew she was taking a real gamble here. She was burning through fuel and twisting her machine around the battlefield to get those rockets off her trail, under the assumption her custom boosters could beat a factory assembled biped.

Bailey hated assuming shit, and, in theory, Aoi was but a button press away from giving her the Raptor’s exact blueprints. Assumptions were the mother of all fuck-ups, but she could do this alone. She didn’t need anyone.

Not even…

OS37: Clever bitch…

Bailey didn’t have time to finish that thought, and she was thankful for it. Her theory was correct. The top speed of Circe’s boosters trounced what the Raptor was capable of. Would that last? Absolutely not. Assembly-line boosters were built for sustainability; garden variety soldiers weren’t supposed to be making daring moves no other could. They were meant to follow orders and kill in a group.

Predictable little cannon fodder.

“Aw, what’s wrong, mutt? Did your owner not tell you my mech was faster~?” Bailey couldn’t resist prodding at the now fleeing dog while she closed in on their mech.

With enough distance gained, Bailey’s whip was once more grabbed from its left leg holster and lashed in the Raptor’s direction. OS37 had some good instincts on her, though; barely managing to slide back and to the side to narrowly dodge each slice of Circe’s deadly plasma whip.

That only managed to benefit Bailey even more. Each dodge required Raptor’s boosters to kick back into high gear with a second or so of delay. Each delay made getting closer much easier. Each delay brought Bailey within inches of grabbing this little punk.

OS37: Should have slithered back to Earth if you wanted to fight hounds, freak! I’m not a fucking dog! You hear me?

But Bailey was no fool. Enraging her opponents had a nasty habit of making them desperate little animals, and OS37 was no exception. The Raptor mech ceased its backpedalling and dropped its assault rifle in a fit of annoyance. With every ounce of speed the factory mech could likely produce, OS37 reached for the plasma dagger holstered behind her raptor and charged Circe with only one target in mind.

The cockpit Bailey was comfortably nestled inside.

Comfortably nestled inside a comfortably familiar scenario. Though, the last pilot who bum rushed her cockpit without thinking was at least a little more interesting. Noble, even, as Bailey had come to see.

Bailey could ponder the rare kill that stuck with her another time. She had one to add to the pile of forgotten inferiors first, and with a quick catch of the Raptor’s left wrist, she was almost ready to do just that.

OS37: Fuckin’ Merc Guild mutt. Should have known your place!

So spiteful for a UA grunt, but spite bred strength. Bailey’s nanotech armor had been activated over Circe’s chest on instinct, and it was a good thing those instincts were still so sharp. While the dagger of pure plasma hadn’t directly made contact with Circe’s single weak spot, it was far closer than Bailey would have liked. Staring at the pathetic ruins of a cheap, impersonal mech tended to get her going during an interrogation far more than staring at the end of a blade.

…

Well, a blade other than that knife Nataliza loved playing with when she really got her going.

Yes, truly, she preferred doing it outside a mech. Info tends to flow out of a girl when she’s bouncing on your cock better than when she’s teetering on the edge of death with you.

These were pleasant thoughts, but Bailey needed to focus. Kinky thoughts about Nataliza needed to be saved for her return.

Her inevitable return.

…

Before Bailey could get a word out, she heard a mech approaching from her right. For a less experienced pilot, that may have been cause for concern, but Bailey had long since grown familiar with the sound of a Whitehawk’s movements. She flew one of the damn things for a bit, after all.

Bailey watched in a mix of light frustration and smug complacency as the arm she was holding onto was sliced off of the Raptor’s body.

OS37: Couldn’t beat me on your own, huh? Pathetic bitch!

Bold words from a dog who likely still had its trainer in its ear. Bolder still when one considered that Bailey had already wrapped this fight as soon as her whip was pulled out.

Pathetic.

Bailey wasted no time making those bold words even more foolish sounding by ramming the Raptor to the ground with Circe’s strong, bulkier body. The grunts and sounds of OS37 rattling around in that cheap, tight cockpit were music to Bailey’s ears. That music’s potency intensified when she made Circe step back a few feet so she could lash her whip against one of the Raptor mech’s legs, slicing it clean off.

OS37: Well, come on, fucker. Finish the job!

Not even a little stutter for her? The truly loyal UA animals were never any fun.

“How about after a few questions, hm? I came all this way just to talk to a UA dog like you. You can humor me, right~?” Bailey licked her lips rather audibly partway through speaking, neglecting the helpful little Kitten and her Whitehawk standing by her for a few seconds while relishing the power and control she had right now.

OS37: Go to hell, interloper!

Still so mouthy, this one.

“I’m sure I’ll meet you there after this, mutt~.” Bailey fired back before remembering the silent pilot still standing beside them. “Good work, Kitten. How about you fly back to Grouse, and I’ll join you in a few. Just have to pry some info from this dog here first~.” Bailey’s voice went from cloyingly rude to almost sickly in its sweetness. Oddly to even Bailey, she seemed to mean it, too.

At the very least, it wasn’t intentional.

Kitten: M-Mhm. Thank you, Bailey…

Nor was the little smile on her face at Sarah’s fawning response.

Nor was the pit in Bailey’s stomach as she recalled what she did last night…

Focus, Bailey.

…

Bailey watched the Whitehawk fly away towards a distant Grouse. The explosions nearby had died down during Bailey’s fight, and it was likely that her squad was already regrouped and waiting to leave on her signal.

They wouldn’t wait long. 

This would be quick.

OS37: Go ahead. Ask me whatever you want, I’m not telling you shit!

This mutt had a little more fight in her than most, Bailey had to give her that. Typically, the threat of slowly burning to death was infinitely more effective than actually burning them to death. Torture could be fun, but it was a poor form of information gathering.

“Oh, you will. Question is whether you’ll do it before or after I burn my way straight into your cockpit~.” Bailey deserved a little fun, though. Burning some bitch with potential links to Nataliza’s kidnapping sounded really fucking fun right about now, and when she moved the barrel of her flamethrower towards the Raptor’s cockpit, Circe’s trigger finger seemed noticeably itchy.

OS37: F-Fucking try me! You won’t get shit out of me before She—

???-?: Allow me to take over for a minute, bird.

Bailey jolted slightly as an unexpected, vaguely familiar voice interrupted a reverent OS37’s utterance of the word “she.”

The voice being bathed in static didn’t help Bailey’s comprehension of her mystery caller, but the image beginning to manifest on the screen in front of her very well did. Neither the audio nor video were clear, but she almost looked and sounded like that bitch Sasha wiped all over the pavement.

Was Lark really telling the truth? Did she somehow survive that?

???-?: Spread Your Wings, Phoenix.

Bailey didn’t have to wait long for an answer. The words Bailey used on Sasha and Lark less than a week ago were uttered with a confident, putrid tone of familiarity. Like those words were akin to breathing.

But before Bailey could even process that, The Devil of Radix spoke again.

???-?: Sleep for me.

Bailey was curious what that could have meant. She assumed briefly that it may be a knockout switch in OS37’s—

No. Phoenix’s brain.

BANG!

Phoenix wasn’t so lucky. Bailey jolted again as the distinct sound of a single shot from a standard issue P540 handgun blasted through Circe’s speakers.

The mutt, or perhaps bird, was dead silent. The sound of that gun hitting the floor being audible a moment after it fired made it all too clear that she had, indeed, blown her brains out on command.

Bailey’s stomach churned in a mixture of disgust and guilt.

One stupid, wrong move and that could have been Sarah last night…

???-?: There we are. That should give us plenty of space to chit-chat, yes, Bailey Cluanaire?

Bailey couldn’t wallow in guilt about what she did to Sarah for long. The Devil’s voice grew clearer, and the formerly hazy, static-filled visage projecting itself onto her screen was now clearer still.

There was no mistaking it, that was Sasha’s former Handler, alright. All that joking about not being a good enough shot to kill her the first time flooded Bailey’s brain at once. On her and Sasha’s second fight, she saw that bitch die. They recovered her body, or what was left of it, at least.

It was like a ghost clad in a fancy, laughably stereotypical red military coat. Or a demon with a shitty, overbearing haircut.

Gods, that stupid fucking haircut. Pure, white, long hair that was as pale as her skin with orange streaks at the bottom. Embarrassing.

Pathetic.

That idle smirk on her face.

Pathetic.

???-?: I must say, it is quite an honor to meet the former star of the Mercenary Guild. How long did you manage to hold their top spot in the ranking, hm? Ten years, was it not?

The Devil’s tone was already pissing Bailey off beyond belief, and that was ignoring the anger already stored from Nataliza’s kidnapping these past few days.

There was rage for something else, too. The little she knew about her treatment of Sasha and Lark.

Although, was Bailey any better than sticking a gun in a girl’s mouth with the safety off?

…

Shut. Up. And. Focus.

“Good for you. You can type letters on a keyboard and search something on the internet. Did they give you one of those medals for that, too?” Bailey’s patented teasing left her lips with more frustration than was typical of her. This bitch earned it, though. “Know plenty about you too, Handler. Those prized lost birdies of yours get real chatty when they’re with a real woman~.” But frustration could mix with a creamily delivered punch to The Devil’s gut all the same. That was just Bailey’s nature.

The Devil: Ah, yes, Valkyrie and Lark. The weapons your nest of rebellious filth plundered from me.

For some strange reason, Bailey felt like she could have puked from just those two sentences alone. Perhaps it was hypocritical, but even Bailey knew those two were more than weapons.

Was she even good enough to judge, though?

…

The Devil: Quite a setback. Fortunately, it is one you know I am in the unfortunately necessary process of rectifying. Isn’t that right, Bailey?

That thought too didn’t have time to linger, being replaced by an immediate searing anger right in her heart. Wherever that was in her body nowadays.

“So she is alive.” Bailey spoke briefly, doing her best to mask the immediate, rageful effect The Devil’s poking was having on her.

The nerve of this bitch.

The Devil: Even if I had any desire not to utilize her as the exemplary asset of a pilot she is, even I would not survive the wasteful move that killing her unceremoniously would be. Surely you know better than anyone the value one can exploit from a wounded animal, no?

Bailey wasn’t appreciating a second of this. She was wracked with enough confusing, unfamiliar emotions at the moment as is. She should have called this fucker words she hadn’t even heard before, but tactical sense won out.

This was a chance to glean info, and sell their cover story. You could do this, Bailey.

In through the nose.

Out through the mouth.

The Devil: Nonetheless, I am noticing a certain lack of your rebel allies with you. You’re with a squad, that much is clear, but nary a sign of your comrades. No Ume or Steel Fortress? No Ina Ymari?

Finally, something that Bailey could work with that didn’t just make her want to curse this bitch out. She paused for a moment. Something unnerved her about Ina being the only named entity in her grab bag of allies.

…

She could only hope that was nothing, and Bailey didn’t even know why she was hoping in the first place.

Do your job and focus.

“Mh, what can I say. We had a little falling out. They didn’t want to rock the boat and get your attention. I…” Bailey paused, letting a small growl join her final word before continuing along. “...Am going to rip your fucking throat out. On my own.” Bailey’s growl made her feel like a billion dollars, a feeling that lasted a few scarce seconds when she noticed the unchanging expression on The Devil’s face.

Smug bitch. Bailey would be hanging that head of hers on the wall of her and Nataliza’s bunk when this was all said and done.

The Devil: Simply logical, of course. I imagine they’re wise enough to know any bolder attempt to resist this would depend strongly on Valkyrie and Lark, my finest and soon-to-be returned weapons. They’re lowly rabble with a single capable hacker in their midst… and formerly you, of course, Bailey.

Typically, such praises of Bailey’s skills, and at the expense of others’ pride no less, would have earned a smile from the former merc. No smiles were worn this time, and she felt an odd sense of offense at the insults thrown towards her comrades. She and Aoi were the best of them, obviously, but even Sierra had her uses.

Would have lasted longer in a fight with her than that bird with the hole in her head, that was for sure.

Despite the pit of annoyance, Bailey only responded with a locked, confident gaze on the sickening visage of The Devil. Much like Bailey, she loved the sound of her own voice. Bailey knew how exploitable that could be.

She knew she had to be careful of her own confidence, too.

“Flattery only gets the pretty ones places, you know. If you have a point, make it.” Bailey kept her insults carefully constrained and her words limited. Defending her, admittedly, inferior comrades had a chance of giving the game away.

Don’t give the game away, Bailey.

The Devil: Your former nest targeted a weapons factory on Ansa today. Valkyrie was there, and she seemed to be following orders from that Ume girl. Logical. What feels less so is your presence on Orsus. Far from home, are you not?

Bailey knew this was an attempt to get some juicy info to slip out. She’d used this tactic plenty herself, albeit usually with more drinks and fewer clothes in the equation. This was, however a good chance to distance herself from the rebels in this demon’s mind.

She just had to be calm.

Calm, but in character, Bailey. Do it for Nataliza.

“Mh, good for them. In a few years that might lead to them finding a few of Nataliza’s decayed bones somewhere.” Bailey felt the slightest pang in her stomach as she forced out an insult towards the very women who, despite failures and incompetence, were very much on this mission with her. The pang subsided, and a smug, somewhat fake smile remained. “Said it yourself, though. I’m the best merc there is. Few birdies told me info I was looking for could be here. I’m sure you can fill in the rest, genius~.” Bailey added another growl to her voice at the end of her sentence and kept herself calm.

She was calm, and she was in character, but Bailey wasn’t liking this. She had kept herself out of situations where the UA prodded her for information for good reason, and this conversation felt eerily like a mirror. Were her and this pale, smug bitch staring at her even that different?

Of course you were. Shut up and focus.

The Devil: Rather easily. Nataliza has been a wealth of information on your exploits, past and present. Quite the reserve of thoughts on you, she is.

Bailey knew almost immediately that this was bait.

“Bullshit. It’s been, what, five days? Shut up.”

She still took it anyway, replying with immediately present venom in her previously collected voice.

The Devil: All weapons are the same, Bailey. All of them crack under the right, consistently applied pressure. There is little special about Nataliza beyond her ability to pilot. Consider her broken alr—

“Shut up! Shut the fuck up!!!” Bailey snapped before she could even let the mirror monster in front of her finish her rancid little sentence. A first slammed against her dashboard with more than enough force for her radio to pick it up, and Bailey’s amber colored eyes were filled with a fiery, ember-filled rage. “I’ll fucking bury you alive before she breaks. What gives you the fucking right to talk about her like that?” Bailey’s words were lightly shouted and as clear as ever.

The smug, capable and unshakable pilot had become a screaming, grieving girlfriend; yelling at a woman whose every syllable made Bailey feel like they were the same, awful person.

Shut up, Bailey. She was lying, Bailey.

Focus, Bailey.

The Devil: The same right you’ve had the past fifteen years, Bailey, but that is beside the point. Nataliza is cracking both mentally and physically ahead of schedule. She is an animalistic weapon, and I know those better than you could ever hope to.

Bailey breathed and breathed, but this wasn’t anger you could breathe away. Deep breaths couldn’t stop her mind from warping the image of that fucker on her screen into that of her own.

In through the nose.

Out through the mouth.

“Only thing that’s going to crack is your fucking windpipe in my hands. I’ll do it with her before we fuck off from whatever factory or warehouse or whatever you’re holed up in. You’re dead, bitch.” Bailey’s anger had moved from outburst to calculated threats, but the seesaw dividing those two side of her rage was The Devil’s to swing.

Bailey could only try to weigh down the toxicity bubbling inside her.

The Devil: Unlikely. But even if you did manage to crack my windpipe or shoot me or whatever, where would you and a broken shell of your lover go, hm? The Mercenary Guild wants your head, and you left your band of foolish little birds, yes?

She shoots, she misses. Petty banter looked unbecoming on a demon putting on airs like hers, and as much as Bailey hated every word that came out of the ghoul’s mouth, petty insults came across stronger from a pretty face like her own.

Plus, this was a chance to use the bitch’s sense of superiority and inability to be wrong to Bailey’s advantage. A good lie could keep The Devil on the exact track they wanted. The track where she believed Bailey and the rebels were two different camps on two different missions in two very different locales.

Keep your cover for Nataliza.

Keep it for your… allies, Bailey.

“It’s a big galaxy, isn’t it? Plenty of places we could fuck off to that your masters have no control over. Got the connections, after all. Thought you knew that, dumbass~.” Bailey kept her cool. She let the rage bottle itself back up inside herself so she could trick this fucker properly, and she was managing to avoid smirking while she did it.

She looked serious, she could see that in the reflection on her view screen.

The Devil did, too. Another reflection Bailey liked seeing less.

Calm. In character.

The Devil: I don’t doubt your abilities to find a shack somewhere you can waste yourselves away in, Bailey. That was not a question of your skills. In fact, there could be a way I could use those skills and give you a place of your own. A place with your Nataliza never to be able to leave your side again, hm?

Bailey figured something like this was coming the moment she pictured meeting whatever monster, Devil or otherwise, that kidnapped Nataliza. A cushy role where she could pilot for fascists and have her lover under her heel for the rest of her days. The kind of deal that leads to you watching the love of your life become a soulless husk unable to make you happy, or watching an ally kneel to a fascist to spite you.

There was no control in that, and no appeal, either. Bailey Cluanaire kneeled to no master, she made that choice back on Earth.

She had only a few choice words for a deal like that.

“Shove that idea up your ass. I’m coming for you, and it won’t be to shake that gross little hand of yours.” Bailey smiled, feeling her confidence in herself return as she stared down the very deal and devil she’d pondered these last few days. “Count your fucking days, because when the right one comes, I’m gonna blow that fucking smile right off your face, got it?” Bailey’s smile grew, but The Devil’s didn’t even seem to falter in the slightest.

Good. Bailey wanted to wipe that away with a .45 caliber bullet. Keep smiling, cunt.

The Devil: Predictable, but a shame nonetheless. I will ensure Nataliza is left presentable in your final moments. Until then, Bailey Cluanaire.

As suddenly as the ghoul had manifested herself in her comms, she was gone. The Devil’s face left her view screen to be replaced by nothing but a clear view of Phoenix’s mech. Her mech suit was nearly silent, barring the low rumbling of Circe’s efficient engines.

Her new nemesis, debatably her very first one, had manifested by carelessly ordering a woman to shoot herself, seemingly reappearing from the dead, and leaving Bailey with a disgusting stew of thoughts she didn’t want.

Nataliza had to be alive, none of these gambles worked if she wasn’t. Bailey was confident in that now.

But, was Nataliza even Nataliza? Was Bailey even worth her, or just the monster she saw in the mirror today? The kind of monster who could demand an underling shoot herself and not even flinch?

What kind of demon was Bailey Cluanaire?

Was she—

CRHK!!!

“Ungh!”

Bailey cut off her train of thought and rageful stewing by smashing one of her cyber-arms into the glass of her view screen with all the force she could muster. The arm took no damage, and the durable glass of said screen took a noticeable hit, cracking against the steel of Bailey’s cybernetics, but fortunately not breaking outright.

The view was still clear, and she could see through it fine; staring at the scenery straight through her cracked reflection.

…

If Sierra asked, it took a bump during the mission. She didn’t owe her shit, let alone an explanation of her unwanted emotions.

Bailey took a few more breaths, bottling her rage and feelings both before setting her comms channel to a private one for only her and Aoi’s use.

“You there, Tiger?” Bailey’s tone showed no signs of those emotions having existed in the first place. She may not have been smiling, but there was no anger, nor any lingering, self-reflective melancholy.

She was calm. 

She had to be.

Tiger: Uh-huh! Was getting worried, though! You weren’t answering your comms, and apparently you’ve just been standing there doing nothing. Think Caramel was gonna try prying your cockpit open to see if you were alive if that kept going!

The fake voice Aoi was hiding behind may not have been quite as comforting as the girl’s usual, cheerful singing, but even behind a layer of musically leaned robotic audio, comfort was there.

It was the only voice, real or digitally masked, Bailey had any interest in hearing right now.

“Ah, all’s okay. Just had a little chat with that Handler fucker Sasha kept talking about. Uglier than I thought she’d be, honestly~.” Bailey mused to Aoi, hearing her robotic voice laugh a little, even if she couldn’t quite laugh herself for some reason.

The laughing didn’t last long either way.

Tiger: So she’s alive then. That sucks!

Aoi’s bluntness almost managed to get Bailey to laugh, but she didn't, simply smiling instead despite it all.

“Lark was right. Should reward her for that when we get home~.” Bailey let a flirt slip out of her smooth, soft lips to get herself feeling more like her before continuing. “Tell the other three I want this place burned to the ground. Just in case. You can check Circe for bugs before we get back to base. Might even stay in here with you, hm~?” That was more like it. Casual order barking and even more casual flirting.

That was the Bailey she liked being.

Tiger: Lucky meee~!

Aoi took it exactly as Bailey expected, but before she could close this conversation, the pink pixie continued.

Tiger: You sure you’re okay, though? I know talking to her probably reaaally sucked. Sucked for Sasha, after all!

Mh, that’s right. Each one of Sasha’s chats with her old mistress was basically life and death for the poor birdie.

Bailey wasn’t Sasha, though. She was fine.

She was fine.

“Mh, you know me, Tiger. More than okay! I’d just like a little time to my thoughts after listening to her drone on. Such a boring little dead woman~.” Bailey replied without as much of a hint of something being wrong, getting her Circe back into gear a moment later and preparing to do a little fiery, destructive healing of whatever was secretly eating her.

Tiger: Fiiine! See you laaater!

Aoi signed off without as much as a push, and Bailey always liked that about the girl. Be it ignorance or simply learning how to have boundaries from Sasha, Aoi knew how to back off.

When she wasn’t asking for weird sex, at least.

…

That was Bailey’s last thought regarding that matter. Her comms were quiet, and they stayed quiet for good reason. Her movements in her mech were slow for damn good reason too. She needed time to herself.

No Aoi.

No Sarah.

Just quite time burning down a few loose ends with a squad she didn’t have to hear.

Bailey needed some time to recoup after that mess, and she had nine pointless, irrelevant fucking days to do it.

Nine days of Nataliza being broken further, followed by however many remained after that mission for Dr. Lavern.

Bailey’s alone time bred many a thought. Was she any better than the mirror monster she spoke to?

She had to be. Even if she wasn’t now, she had to be better than that. Right now, she could barely bring herself to judge The Devil, and that was unlike her.

She hated it.

…

For the first time, Nataliza’s insistent naivety about Bailey’s ability to change hung over the former merc like a dagger dangling over her head.

Bailey needed to be better than that bitch. Better than Kern. Better than being someone who sticks a loaded gun in a drugged girl’s mouth and almost fires it.

That would inevitably linger on Bailey’s mind these next nine days. Guilt. Perhaps she could try telling Sarah she regretted that. She was a good Kitten. She deserved that.

…

That thought took its leave for a bit, and Bailey closed out with only one thing truly on her mind.

What were those monsters doing to Nataliza Rayfield?