“…the fuck is that?” I questioned, as Anis and Rapi brought a large bundle into the Counsellor’s Room, some sort of liquid threatening to leak through the cloth and dirty the floor.
“A problem.” Rapi said under her breath.
“Something’s off with Neon.” Anis stated, going right for the meat of the issue.
I looked between my two beautiful gynoid lovers and the strange bundle with the leaking patches, and back at them again, not understanding the connection between the absent Counters member and the bundle.
“Does it have something to do with what you are holding?”
“You aren’t going to believe that Neon did this.” Anis scoffed, as she and Rapi lowered the bundle with a wet thunk!, the heavy sound startling me.
They each grabbed a corner, and pulled the cloth covering whatever it was back, and upon seeing the grisly mess contained within, I gasped in horror.
“Neon did this?” I asked, not believing our Neon was capable of such an atrocity.
“Our Neon?”
“Do you know any other Nikke called Neon?” Anis snarked, as Rapi began to dig through the mess and show the other horrors buried within the goopy mess.
Neon was an avid worshipper of Firepower, and was thus in charge of maintaining our spare weapons and munitions. All Nikke knew how to service and maintain their own weapons, but few cared about any gun but their own, so Neon had been the perfect fit, as her own intense passion for the art of Firepower seemed to ensure top quality in how she maintained them.
……but this was an atrocity, a crime against Firepower.
I may not have Neon’s fanaticism to the concept, but given the Ark’s fetishism of war and prevalence of Nikke throughout the Ark, and that I was raised by the Central Government’s Academy, I was not immune to the thrill of explosives and weaponry.
And while I was not an Adept as she was, she had been quick to take me under her wing when I’d taken an interest, and her passion and love for all things Firepower was infectious.
“But why would Neon do….this?” gesturing at the ruined weapons.
An assault rifle had a cleaning rod stuck in barrel’s rifling, either due to being clogged with an absurd amount of lubricant, or some other unseen horror that would take a thorough autopsy to even give us a chance of what was causing the clogging.
A grenade launcher had been pulled apart, the ammo case for the grenades ‘opened’ to make them bigger and thus unable to actually turn, more excessive lubricant near its breech as if the lube would help the ballooned case turn.
A shotgun had a damaged breech from blatantly wrong cartridges being repeatedly forced in, half hearted cuts done along the barrels as if the mutilator had tried to make a sawn off barrel but just couldn’t decide on where to cut into the barrel.
…and unlike the Assault Rifle and the ‘nade Launcher, the shotgun’s handle was ‘clean’ of lube, but upon touching it and feeling it was strangle damp, had been covered in something.
Bringing it to my nose, a faint but intense smell that definitely didn’t smell like something used for weapon maintenance was all I could discern, and as I brought my finger to my lips, and the strange taste I found there was something familiar, yet I couldn’t quite place it.
Metallic and bitter, but not ‘metal’ metallic, more like tasting blood, but not quite. Something about the taste was arousing me though, it niggling at memories that made no sense.
“Dunno, but as our Commander, it’s your problem.” Anis stated, wiping her hands of her squad mates issues.
Before I could object, as Neon was also their friend, Rapi piped up, having also examining the horrorshow of weapons and figuring something out that I had missed.
“I think Anis is right, Commander. I think this is something you need to do, without our help.”
“…why?” I squinted at my two lovers, confused at Rapi following Anis’ lead.
This sort of thing was often what Rapi dealt with, as de facto straight laced squad member, who could be trusted to settle things fairly for both sides.
“You’ll figure it out once you talk to her, if she’s still doing…..this.” Even the normally stoic Rapi made a disgusted face at this abhorrent behaviour.
“Where is she?” I sighed. If neither of them were going to budge, guess I had to do my job.
“At her private range, out back.” Anis turned to leave the room, a queer look in her eyes as she seemed to realise something too.
I didn’t like this; that these two who were my trusted subordinates and lovers were keeping something from me.
But I trusted them, so there must be a reason I needed to figure out on my own what was wrong with Neon, as it was probably something really important that I needed to learn how to see without having it pointed out.
“Right.” I started toward the door, before realising something very important that I still hadn’t finished that needed doing.
“Rapi, could you ple—“
“Yes, Commander. As you are about to be busy with Neon for a while, Anis and I will clear out these reports for you.” Rapi said, much to the surprise of Anis, who hadn’t been expecting to do admin work.
“Why do I have to help?” Anis exclaimed, starting to get huffy, but not bolting out of the room as she would normally do to shirk a job she wasn’t willing to entertain.
Sitting in my chair, Rapi looked up from the report I had been reading, looked her in the eyes and without breaking eye contact, raised a hand to indicate me, then moved it towards the vague direction I knew Neon’s private range to be, then back to me.
After a few moments, something clicked for Anis, and she groaned, heading over to the mini-fridge and stealing one of my sodas, before grabbing a different pile and starting work.
I wanted to be alarmed at seeing Anis willingly choose to do paperwork, but Rapi was now staring a hole into the side of my head, so I took the hint and went looking for our resident ‘spy’.
==============
“I hate you for this.” Anis whined, the reports becoming word salad as her brain struggled to parse all the useless military jargon that needlessly made reports tedious to deal with.
“No, you don’t.”
Cracking the stolen can of the Commander’s soda open, Anis acknowledged the lack of teeth in her remark with a vague grunt.
As she tried and failed to read another report, a different way to while away the time that the Commander needed to give what Neon wanted.
“Those debriefs are how you trick the Commander into sex, right?”
With a sudden SNAP!, the pen Rapi was idly toying with inbetween uses flew apart, the blushing Nikke having not expected Anis to ask this.
“I have no idea what you mean.” She said, after having taken a breath to calm herself.
“…so that means I can ask join?” It was rare for Anis see something break that hard emotional armor Rapi buried herself in, so she couldn’t resist a jab at the unexpected opening Rapi had just left in her lap.
“…as they chose you first, you have the right to take part in the debriefings.” If not for the fact Anis had been friends with Rapi for a while, she would’ve missed the slight melancholic tone to Rapi’s words.
Fuck, I shouldn’t have said that.
Anis sighed, getting up from the couch she was lazing on, and giving her friend a big hug.
“While the distinction doesn’t matter to me, I know it matters to you: I initiated.” Anis whispered, lowering her own emotional armor.
“The Commander didn’t choose me first, I just got there first.”
“Which means you two are exlu—“ Rapi started, before Anis pressed a finger to her lips to stop her, before pulling her deeper into the hug.
“Nope, no exclusivity. I was just greedy.” Anis couldn’t contain the raw emotion that was starting to leak into her voice, but given it was only Rapi her, she accepted it was happening.
“I may be selfish, but I know how much our Commander means to us all. I wouldn’t ‘claim’ them without talking to you both first.”
Rapi’s end of the hug intensified.
“Once the Commander and Neon are done, we should all talk about what we are to each other.”
Given her a friendly kiss to her temple, Anis was first to break the hug.
“I call dibs on Fridays.”
Momentarily confused, Rapi gave a small smile as she realised what Anis was trying to imply.
“You get through those reports, and we can discuss the possibility of exclusive shifts.”
“Fiiiiiine.”