Zebraverse: Episode 1 (for Eti and Emi in particular but any Go-Busters welcome)

[red_pleather]

Neesan isn't happy with me at all, but I have a duty.

I'm an adult now, and I'm the only one who can do this. I'm the only one who can be Red Buster. It's time for me to join the rest of the team. Time for me to help fight Vaglass.

I hustle out of the hospital, Nick by my side. His face doesn't move, but it's obvious that he's happy, along with all the urgency. He transforms, and I climb on.

...five minutes later, I get him to turn around, and we check the map.

A few minutes after that, we're walking into EMC.

Comments

[deliberately leaving some vagueness to allow whatever we want later]

[loveenetronkurorin]

The children -- the Busters -- all file out and fall into place. I return their salute, and quickly, concisely, explain the situation and what I need from them. For some, this is all old knowledge, for others -- Hiromu in particular -- it will be somewhat new. A refresher doesn't hurt for any of them.

As I finish, the alarm goes off, and Morishita advises of a Vaglass reaction. I eye them all evenly, calmly.

"Busters. Move out."

[black_buster]

We've all gathered, finally. I note that Hiromu isn't alone in being fairly new to the operation. Our last operator with a focus on subdimension monitoring and data transfer left recently due to his wife having a child, so Miss Nakamura Miho has recently been promoted into our ranks. Her salute matches Hiromu's almost precisely, which makes me smile.

The last thing I expect at the end of the commander's lecture and explanation of the mission and our duties is for the alarm to go off. My eyes widen and I turn my head just slightly to look at the glowing emblem on the wall. Surely it's just a drill?

No, Etienne's gone all tense, and it was foolish of me to assume that they would startle us with something like that.

This is real.

Our first real mission.

We salute as one (I note that this time Hiromu's salute is timed accurately with the rest of us) and I break with the rest of the group, heading automatically for the shooters.

They weren't originally designed to be used by more than one person at a time, but Etienne and I aren't permitted to separate in case of a malfunction, so I slide in first against the back curve of the shooter and wait for Etienne to join me as I draw my sunglasses out of a pocket and slip them on.

[white_buster]

Emi presses himself to the back of the shooter, and I step in to the other half, my front to his. Since we're facing opposite ways, my elbow smacks his as I too pull my sunglasses from their pouch and put them on. The shooter door slaps shut behind us with a hydraulic hiss, and I have just a moment to smile thinly at Emi, literally in mirror image of the small smile he's also offering me, before the monitor light in the compartment goes out, the shooter engages, and we're thrust on our way.

The ride is not a comfortable nor smooth one, but Emi and I are used to riding it together. We brace ourselves against each other and the shooter compartment's walls, and wait for the thump of our feet hitting solid ground at the deploy point. Talking is pointless right now - we know what we need to do.

[red_pleather]

I misjudge the timing of the shooter door closing. It's not a big deal, I'm inside it already, I haven't done anything dangerous. I just expected it half a second after it actually happened.

I'll get used to it.

Sunglasses on to protect my eyes, I wait to land, then I run forward with the others by my side. Oh, this is a mess on first glimpse, but we'll pick it apart together, deal with all the knots of Vaglass, all the threats.

Ryuu-san and Yoko-chan are closest to the biggest group of civilians and immediately start protecting them to get them to safety.

I can see a small girl cowering behind a pillar behind a clump of Buglers. I'm peripherally aware of Ryuu-san, Yoko-chan, Emeric, Etienne, and I trust them to do their jobs. I'll step in if necessary, just as I also trust them to step in to cover me if necessary, but right now? I'm going to help that girl.

[black_buster]

My feet hit the ground running in the same motion and rhythm as my brother's. I'm not sure how we've always managed that in training exercises, since for all intents and purposes, shouldn't he need to exit first, as I had entered first? Shouldn't one of us have to go first? But we never have, and we never do. Somehow we manage to twist time, space and reality to make sure that once we're on the field, we're in perfect tandem.

Not that we've ever been on an active field before. Buglars everywhere, terrorizing innocent civilians.

I lift my dominant arm, in my peripheral vision (or at least awareness, the more I think on it, the more I'm sure I can't actually see him, I just know he's doing it) my brother mirrors my motion. We activate our Braces easily, as easily as any of the training exercises we've undergone before. This might be our first active mission, but so far it's no different from training, and I'm grateful for that.

We move in tandem to a group of civilians, diving into the fray with very little regard for our own physical well-being. We have better protection than the civilians do, and more experience.

This is our job.

I summon an Ichigan Buster and use it to take down some of the straggling Buglars between groups. As I'm firing, I notice Hiromu diving off... somewhere. And I briefly worry about him being alone like that, but then the Buglars close in and I have to concern myself with protecting the escape of the civilians.