So be true to your school now Just like you would to your girl or guy Be true to your school now And let your colors fly Be true to your school (Push them back, push them back) The Beach Boys - Be True to your School Sargasso, North Shore, Hightide Beach Sitting on a red motorcycle with a smoothie in hand and watching the surfers practice on the on the waves, Luca was trying to spend a day without getting himself too big into trouble, and decided that staying out of Barrier Island for the day was a good choice, since he knew Frank's men would be after him. He rode over the bridge that connected the island with the mainland, and was giving himself a break, watching inexperienced surfers stack from the carpark that was just above the beach. Running by him was a smaller individual, heading to a pylon on the northern side of the beach, decked out in an odd looking jumpsuit with a polygonal backpack and a toolbox. The kid had white-ish hair, likely either an oddbody or a greaseheart that bleached, tied into tassels in the front and a ponytail in the back. He nearly ran into Luca, had it not been for a last second juke - he was busy staring up at the sky. The man on the motorcycle almost reprimanded the kid for not watching where they were going, when they looked up as well, narrowing his eyes and shielding his brow from the midday sun. A few streaks, meteors clearly, could be seen pointing in the general vicinity of Sargasso. Or, more accurately, the beach. Blinking, he sat up and watched the meteors come closer and closer, wondering if this was another case of someone forgetting to secure their load correctly. The kid was banging on the pylon as it sputtered energy out and then didn't resolve. He could be seen throwing his wrench at the thing and turning back to Luca. "Hey guy! Get out of here, those things are inbound and I don't wanna be responsible if you get pasted!" Luca looked down at the beach and saw all the other people who had stopped to watch what was coming down. Many of them had forgotten to start running away, while the smarter ones were already running back to their station wagons with surfboards, towels, and their dignity in hand. "Nah man, I'm a registered brusher. I have to clean up whatever happens here." "I have NO IDEA what that means but whatever!" The kid called out, ducking behind the pylon as the meteors touched down. The impacts they made were surprisingly light for the car sized rocks, only extending about a yard from impact into the sand it glassed. When they hit the ground, people began running away. The kid peeked out from behind his place, reaching for a metal tube under his backpack. "Last chance to get out before it gets worse!" "You're not from around here then..." Luca got off his motorcycle, and grabbed something that was sheathed just between the handlebars and the body of his motorcycle. A shotgun missing a stock, instead boasting a lever action. He opened the action and checked that a cartridge was loaded before grasping the gun firmly with both hands. "Brushers deal with problems, and this is looking like one of those problems." "Suit yourself, mister!" The kid flicked the metal tube out, force it to extend and expand into a full bat. He stretched out his free hand and that became covered in a metal gauntlet with a circle set into the palm. The backpack itself pulled away the jumpsuit, revealing a bodysuit made out of some solid-looking material, and then projected a helmet over the kid's head. Of course, while all this was going on, Luca watched the rocks begin to move. Suddenly, they begant to form into loosely quadrupedal creatures, hulking, glassy, and spined as hundreds of little slates perked up along their forms. People begun running away screaming in earnest now that there appeared to be obvious threats to their livelihood. For most people, this would be a day ruined. Luca however, smiled. "Hello~!" He said, singsong as he raised his gun, looking down the iron sights and aiming for the centre of mass and firing at one of the quadruped things, sending a spray of buckshot at the rocky creature. "You better have slugs because you are literally shooting at rocks!" The kid told Luca, now the helmet had solidified - hardlight of somekind, probably. He ran forward, brandishing the bat - and then leapt. There was something in his jump or the way he moved that just seemed unnatural, manipulating gravity to his whims? But then he camed down into a spin with his bat on one of the two creatures. It smashed into it with an unreasonable amount of force, splintering off half a leg. Hot on the kid's heels, Luca jumped from the carpark and down onto the beach, rolling in the sand before standing up and firing again and again at one of the stony creatures trying to get closer to the kid. "I - ah - got slugs - just need to use what's in here first." He explained, producing green shotgun cartridges from one of the pockets by his side and slipping them into the gun. The wounded one made a swipe at the kid, but claw was met with boot, sending the kid flying like he had jumped off the thing itself. He reached out with the gauntled as he landed, coasting gently into sand before shards of the thing lifted into the air and pulled themselves into a cloud in front of the open palm. The rock shrapnel fired, slamming into the beast. "What are you packing?" Luca asked as he watched the younger looking guy sail through the air like a leaf on the wind when it suited them. A quadruped thing tried lunging towards him, and he rolled out of the way, kicking up plumes of sand. As he recovered his balance, he fired into the side of the beast, blasting one of their front legs off just below the shoulder. While the kid and Luca were fighting the strange, rocky beings, news drones had arrived to watch the unfolding situation. A creature saw one flying close, watching it before growling with the sound of stone grinding against itself and leaping at it, trying to swat it out of the air. "Gravity! Lots of gravity! And a special something I'm going to test right now!" The kid said, launching himself into the air with a pull of the gauntlet. And then, another pull later, he was sailing at the creature again, footfirst. "SEIYAAAAAAAA!" He shouted, the foot making contact with the beast and shattering half its body outright. "Saves force and stores it for later, kinetic shoes!" The creature that was missing a leg tried to have another go at Luca, balancing itself on its remaining leg and using the force of its back legs to leap at him with rows upon rows of sharp looking rocks analogous to teeth. The man in red hopped out of the way again, and lunged in with his right fist. The kinetic kid could see the man's apparently bionic arm light up and emit a whirring noise. As his fist impacted with the neck and cheek of the stony abomination, there was a sharp crack of lightning and a white flash. When the stars got out of the kid's eyes, he could see that Luca had managed to punch the beast so hard they had their head knocked from their shoulders, skipping along the sand before rolling to a stop. "Gravity?" Luca asked, as his right hand was smoking from the attack and he raised his shotgun again to finish off the headless beast. "So you're covered in gyros, dynamos...?" "Centrifuges," the kid said, looking at the husk of the creature that was attempting to reconsitute itself from what little of its body remained. A strange orb could be seen in the middle of it all, and the kid leveled the gauntlet at it and pulled the thing out. The rocky husk stopped moving. "Seiren's the name. You've probably heard of me - I'm a big deal around here. Genius, entrepenuer, owner of the best candy company this side of the Directive?" "Uuuuhhh..." Luca pondered as he watched the thing Seiren was gesturing at freezing. He took the opportunity to go trap shooting, firing a slug at each of the creature's legs. After each slug struck the thing, their splattered limb was held in place by the suspension of gravity. Otherwise, it would've fallen away and landed on the beach. "Not really." He replied as he started pushing cartridges into his shotgun again, noticing the numbers of rocky things had begun to thin. "I'm just glad it was two this time. Last time I saw one of these, there was around ten." Seiren added, not miffed by Luca not knowing him. "Two what?" Luca asked as he watched the smoking stones start to go still, and lifeless. If nothing else, Hightide Beach had just gotten itself a new pair of stones to adorn its sands. "I think the official classification from the Units are Abominations, but I just call 'em rockies." Seiren held the pulsating orb up to his eye, still hovering thanks to the gauntlet. "This is their brain." He said. Luca watched the swirling thing, raising an eyebrow as he relaxed his stance. At the top of the beach, he could see the police and Units arriving at the scene, late to the occasion. "Ah, about time they showed up." Luca said, giving one of them a wave before trying to remember where he kept his Brusher license. "So, you fight these abominations for a living?" Luca asked Seiren as he fished through one of the pockets in his jacket. "Hell no, I make cool stuff for a living. The abominations thing is recent. I've noticed these things coming about this neck of the woods and I've decided to become a hero." He replied. "That, and there were some guys who held up my shop the other day so I decided to punish 'em." Seiren brandished the bat for emphasis. Luca chuckled. "How old are you...?" He asked as police begun taking witness statements and scanning news drone footage. As this was happening, a Unit which appeared to be a floating torso and arms approached the two. It appeared to recognise Luca, scowling at them a little. "Oh? Uh, somewhere in my twenties." The kid said, putting his bat on his shoulder. But then he gestured to the pylon. "I'm just really disappointed my shields didn't work. But these things came out before they were ready, so. . . I guess it's to be expected." Luca was holding his tongue as the Unit evaluated him and Seiren, floating above the ground on a gentle pulse of hardlight. "I suppose bounty is in order for community service." The Unit stated. It turned its attention to Luca, who had a card with a gold stamp in his hand. "Your Brusher license is not necessary. We already have the details." "Fair enough," Luca said, putting the card away and leaving his shotgun by his hip with the safety on. "Anything else?" "No." The Unit stated as another approached, carrying some banknotes and passing them to Luca and Seiren. The total was 50000 each, cash in pocket. "You may go." The Unit said before turning around and talking to a man whose surfboard had a bite-shaped hole in it from one of the rocky things. Luca weighed the money and nodded - he wouldn't have to worry about groceries tonight. "So, Seiren." He asked. "You build gadgets, you fight these things," he listed the qualities he'd seen in their short meeting so far, "you fought well, too." "And I make great candy, too. My shop's outside my factory." Seiren said, grabbing the money and pocketing it in his backpack. That bodysuit of his was slimming, alright, Luca would not as he turned around to do this. Now that he thought about it, Luca was feeling a little hungry. "Candy?" "Yeah. Here," he reached into his bag, tossing luca a large round thing the size of a baseball, but coloured like a garden world. "That's a core cracker. Hot item of ours. Eat a planet! The kids love it." Luca caught and evaluated the thing, looking at it as he started heading back up to the car park overlooking the beach, walking up the stairs. He squeezed it, causing one of the candy glass sides to rupture slightly, leaking out some form of goo. He paused, and gave the gooey candy a lick. "Huh. Can't really say I had time for sweets," he replied as he approached his motorcycle, "but where are my manners - I haven't introduced myself," he turned around after stowing his shotgun. "The name's Pavone. Ex-UDD, ex-EAD, still fighting." He then thought for a moment about what his day job was. "I do odd jobs, and get in fights." "Oh neat. So like a biker, then? I heard airbikers are usually vets." Seiren said, tucking the bat into its smaller form on its back holster. Luca shrugged. He didn't really keep tabs with his former companions with EAD. "Sorta? I just like bikes." Luca said as he mounted his machine, getting settled in. "They go fast, and I like the feeling of wind in my face~" he nodded, smiling as he reached for something in his pocket and passed it to Seiren, while putting the candy globe away in an insulated carry bag. Seiren had a contact card in his hands, giving him a phone number. "Say, if you see any more of those abomination things, give me a yell if you need reinforcements." On the other side of the card was an address for a warehouse on Barrier Island's Midway Beach. "Or, if you have something interesting for me, head to my office." "Huh, will do. I've got a report of 'bigger ones' I've been meaning to check out, so I'll keep you posted." Seiren said, waving Luca off. "See you then, Mr. Pavone!!" Luca waved at the kid, saying "bye" as he started his motorcycle up, getting the engine revved up and pulling out from where he'd parked. "Want a lift?" "Nah, don't worry. I'm good at getting where I need to be." And then, as if to emphasis this, he pointed his gauntlet at a nearby building and began flying towards it. Seiren could be seen flipping himself onto the roof at last second before continuing onto the next building. With Seiren now on their merry way, Luca rode away from the beach and towards the CBD. He had some ammo to buy with the bounty pay he'd received. Elsewhere... "Hm, they've made contact? That's interesting. My projections didn't have that happening for another two weeks..." a black-and-white painted girl said, sitting in a chair and analyzing a hundred monitors in front of her. They all displayed news footage of Luca and Seiren. She flanked by two small dog-people known as Man's Best Friends. "Oh well, that means I just bump the timetable. Well within the margin of error. Wouldn't you say so?" The dogs barked in acknowledgement. The girl affectionately scratched one of them on the head, behind the ears, leading to much tail wags. "One piece at a time, we'll make them." She stood up and clapped her hands, looking at the freeze frame of the News at 1 on one of the many monitors with a grin. "We'll make something magnificent~"
