When Saschia issued an emergency mission for the available agents, BB, for once, actually raced outside of the building to get to work as soon as possible. After Joei had expressed interest in joining GLYPH, she’d been given a tour of the place, and hadn’t left BB’s side, but with the mission, BB was able to find an excuse to leave, while Joei had to remain at HQ to complete her tour and interview.
The mission was supposedly potentially quite dangerous, with a fight likely to break out, so Ryder and BB were put in charge, being the most combat-capable, given that Hiroto was occupied with another mission at the time, while Warren and Mira were told to hang back for a time and only step in to provide support if need be.
Based on intel, GLYPH had reason to believe that they had missed two entire BUBBLEs in the past day – not only was it strange to have so many BUBBLEs appear in such a short time frame, but a BUBBLE vanishing without GLYPH agents infiltrating them meant only two things: either that FORMA had been lost from this world, or someone else had retrieved it. And there was only one other organization aware of and capable of entering BUBBLEs in the same way.
Ryder and BB arrived at the designated mission site – Byron Bridge; which connected Braver City’s island to the mainland US. And awaiting them was a BUBBLE, located right in the middle of one of the lanes. The GLYPH scouts who’d spotted it had been quick to set up a barricade, directing traffic away from it, luckily.
“What’s this shit?” BB grumbled as she stepped up to the BUBBLE, referring to what appeared to be spectral green chains wrapped around the distorted field. She reached out with the tip of her bat and tapped on them, leading to a ringing of tinny clink clanks.
Ryder joined her next, reaching out between the chains to stick his hand into the BUBBLE, but found his fingers pressing against a solid green wall, and one that, upon closer inspection, appeared to be made of tiny little numbers and letters. His cold blue eyes followed the chains until coming across what appeared to be a padlock of some kind with what seemed to be 3 card slots. “Is this BUBBLE locked? Did we do that?”
“Huh? What kinda bullshit…” BB looked over towards Samir, who was standing off to the side dressed in a construction worker get-up, directing traffic away from the BUBBLE lane. “Oi! What’s with this shit?”
He jogged over to the field agents with a puzzled shrug. “I…I’m not sure. It was like this when I got here. I told HQ about it, but they didn’t know what it was either.”
“We can’t get in if it’s locked,” Ryder said, grabbing hold of the padlock-like part holding the chains together. “Looks like this need cards to open.”
“Psh, yeah right,” BB grumbled, shoving the boys away before readying her bat. She held down the trigger, empowering the bat with blue flames before taking a powerful swing at the padlock.
The resulting clash sent her flying backward several feet onto her ass, with the padlock completely unscathed.
“Ow!”
“Hmph. Still a stupid gorilla, I see,” came a voice from afar.
BB’s head whipped around. “Eh?! Who said that?!”
The GLYPH members turned around to see two (unfortunately) familiar faces approaching them – the CIPHER agents Twin and Trey, and once they did, BB found her question answered. She pushed herself back to her feet and snarled at him. “I know you ain’t talkin’ shit, Booster Seat!”
With a growl, Trey flung his left hand forward, throwing a fireball at BB’s face, though she was able to easily slip her head out of range of it. The flame collided with the locked-down BUBBLE, disintegrating on contact.
Ryder stepped up beside her. “You guys lock this BUBBLE then?”
With a flick of her long black hair, Twin replied, “Of course. As if any other organization is smart enough to pull this off.”
“Hell’s the point, you bums?” BB asked. “Yer just makin’ the thing stick around longer than it needs to. Just snatch the damn card quick and it’ll go away.”
“The lock isn’t to keep the BUBBLE around, moron,” Trey said. “It’s to keep you GLYPH dogs out of it.”
“Speak up! I can’t hear ya from all the way down there!”
“Shut up, ape!”
Ryder, exhaling through his nostrils in annoyance at BB and Trey’s childish argument, focused solely on Twin. “So you sent one of your own inside and locked it behind him, then? To keep us out?”
“FORMA aren’t just GLYPH’s for the taking,” Twin said. “They’re for whoever is strong enough to take them. Your organization just uses its ridiculous wealth of resources to get to them before the rest of us can. But with our new CAGEs, you no longer have a monopoly on them.”
Stomping her foot on the ground, BB barked, “Grrrrgh! You guys are so fuckin’ annoyin’! We nab those stupid cards to keep ‘em away from scumbags like you! And didn’t we already beat yer asses last time?! Just stay down and take yer goddamn L!”
Trey flicked his left wrist twice, and the flames around his hand quickly swapped from blue mist to green electricity. “We’re not stopping until GLYPH is dead and buried!” He then held his hand out and shot a stream of lightning at BB, who quickly rolled to the side to avoid it.
Ryder quickly drew his revolver and fired in Trey’s direction, but Twin had suddenly appeared in front of him, drawing her ninjato and deflecting the bullet with ease.
As the battle broke out, Byron Bridge quickly turned hectic, with drivers scrambling to stay out of the way and hurry away from the fighting, though with how busy it was, and how the bridge had already had to shut down the lane with the BUBBLE, it quickly turned into a traffic jam, despite Samir’s best efforts to help direct the cars away from danger.
Trey dashed towards BB, flicking his right hand until a red axe manifested in his grip. He chopped down at her with it, though she was ready to block the attack with her baseball bat.
As their weapons clashed, BB pulled the trigger, and a blast of blue flames shot out from the rocket panel on the bat, giving her a thrust of force to push her away from Trey, freeing her up to switch into her own attack. Her bat came up from a low angle, bashing the axe away, although she instinctively knew to immediately transition into a slip and sidestep, as Trey’s other hand was ready to swipe at her with electricity. She’d been caught by that very counter attack the last time they’d fought, and wasn’t going to fall for it again.
She threw a punch into his face, and prepared to bash him with her bat as a follow-up, but she was forced to lean back to avoid the incoming volley of shuriken coming from the side.
Twin, having leaped off of a car to get a good angle to throw her ninja stars at BB, then turned her attention to Ryder, who had the barrel of his revolver locked onto her. And with her in mid-jump, tracking her trajectory was easy.
But as he fired two shots, Twin’s PLUS power – Seeing Double – kicked in, and a perfect shadow clone of herself manifested in front of her, twin ninjato in hand ready to deflect both of Ryder’s bullets.
Twin then planted her foot into her clone’s back and pushed hard downwards, shooting the clone towards Ryder while giving herself an extra vertical boost to leap up to the top of the bridge. As Ryder was forced to avoid the clone’s furious sword swipes, Twin had enough breathing room to retrieve a FORMA card from her pocket, holding it outward.
With a pulsation of energy, the [Car] FORMA kicked into action. Twin targeted the car closest to the BUBBLE, and forced it to suddenly swerve to the right. BB, in the midst of clashing weapons with Trey, then found herself struck by the vehicle, cracking the windshield as it sped up towards the edge of the bridge.
The car crashed right through the barrier on the side, taking both its shocked driver and BB off of the bridge, plummeting down towards the ocean.
Luckily, as if accompanied by his heroic theme song, HYPER HAWK appeared, flying in from the island and catching the car, flying them back up to the bridge and setting them down safely. “Whoa! You okay, Beeb?” he asked.
BB shoved him aside and rushed back towards the fight. “You bastard-ass bitches!”
Before HYPER HAWK could inquire further, Twin put the [Car] FORMA to use a few more times, sending speeding cars towards BB and Ryder. Trey, thinking quick, flicked his hand into the ice mist form, and conjured up several ramps, which Twin used to launch the cars up into the air.
“Oh, shit!” The hero quickly flew across the bridge in all directions, catching every launched car and returning it to safely, all while ignoring the errant bolts of lightning Trey would occasionally shoot at him. “Haz! Can you stop her?!”
The Red Phoenix Spirit appeared atop the hero’s back. “Ugh. Fine.” He leaped up and shot like a missile across the sky up towards Twin’s vantage point atop the bridge. He locked onto the FORMA in her hand, and as he approached, he quickly snatched it from her.
“What?!” Twin gasped, watching as the card vanished from her grip and flew off, given her inability to detect Hazird’s presence. “Invisibility?!”
Down below, her clone, was still engaged with fighting Ryder up close, rendering his revolver useless. He took a few slashes to the arms and shoulders as he tried avoiding her attacks, but kept his cool and ignored the pain.
He managed to grab hold of one wrist and twist it, forcing her to release her grip on one of her swords. She kicked him away, then channeled her inner spiritual power into her hand, aiming to empower it enough with a black shadowy essence to punch right through Ryder’s chest.
But as her palm thrust made contact, she felt barbs and blades pick into her hand, causing her to lose concentration and pull her hand back instinctually. The razor wire Ryder kept wrapped around his body when fighting strong opponents did its job, buying him a fraction of a second to counter.
And he took advantage of that moment to grab hold of the Twin clone’s throat and push the barrel of his revolver into the side of her head, blasting through her brains with two bullets. She fell to the ground, dead and practically headless, before vanishing in a mist of black energy.
Before Twin could return to the battle, she felt the receiver in her ear ring, and the voice of her fellow agent Dual called to her, “I’ve retrieved the FORMA. Awaiting unlock of the CAGE.”
The CIPHER ninja’s hands expertly and swiftly maneuvered into a specific sequence of signs, allowing her to instantly teleport from the top of the bridge to the lock of the CAGE. She then pulled out two more FORMA cards from her person, sliding them into two of the slots on the lock. With a scowl, however, she turned back towards Trey. “Hey! I need another ‘C’ card! I lost mine!”
Trey created an ice wall between him and BB, which had the added benefit of blocking Ryder’s sightlines towards them. He pulled out a FORMA card from his jacket and flung it towards Twin, who deftly caught it and slipped it into the final slot on the lock.
The green chains shattered, and the lock disappeared shortly afterward, allowing Twin to snatch up the three FORMA cards she’d used to open it. And from the BUBBLE came Dual, holding another FORMA in her hand just as the BUBBLE shut down behind her.
The tall, muscular agent took a glance around the bridge. “Seems you two are having fun.”
“There’s three of them,” Twin said as she felt her Plus power return to her, allowing her to quickly conjure up another clone. “Including that hero. He’s the big threat.”
“I’ll handle him,” Trey said, spitting out some saliva and blood. “Just take care of the annoying ape.” He nodded back towards BB.
“Fine,” Dual said, bringing her massive meaty fists up and cracking them. She reached out and tapped on Twin’s shoulder. Her own Plus power – Twofold – kicked into effect, allowing her to copy a fellow CIPHER agent’s power for a short period of time.
As Dual walked off to face BB, Trey snatched one of the FORMA cards from Twin’s grip. “Gimme that.”
Twin narrowed her eyes at him. “That’s not the one you lent me, that’s mine.”
With a snarl, he stomped past her towards HYPER HAWK. “Take it from me, then, if you’re strong enough.”
Rolling her eyes, Twin let it be, at least for now, to focus on dealing with Ryder once more.
BB stood firm as Dual approached her. “Tch. The little baby boy’s mommy gonna fight for him now?”
“As I recall, the last time GLYPH and CIPHER battled,” Dual began, cracking her knuckles again. “You broke my beloved husband’s jaw.”
“You sure you don’t do that every time ya kiss him, big girl? Surprised this bridge ain’t collapsin’ under ya.”
“The only thing that will be breaking today are your bones, girl,” she said, before activating her temporary copy of Twin’s ability, summoning a clone of herself.
With all of the endangered cars caught and returned to safety, HYPER HAWK hurried back to join the battle, though he found himself being approached by Trey down below.
Before any words could be exchanged, Trey held the FORMA he’d swiped from Twin aloft, and a pulse of energy shot out from it.
HYPER HAWK suddenly found himself plummeting down to the bridge, landing on his feet and leaving cracks and dents in the asphalt below. “Whoa, what the-?” He readied himself to fly back up, but strangely found himself unable to do so. Not only that, it felt like…he couldn’t even…run, either?
With a smirk, Trey stuffed the [Walk] FORMA into his pocket. “They said you were gonna be the hardest to deal with,” he said, flicking his wrists until his red axe returned to his right hand, cold blue icy mist came to his left. “But now that you can’t fly or run around like an annoying bird, you won’t be a problem at all.”
