Arson looked up at the sprinkler overhead and ignited her finger with a large flame.
Water burst from the sprayer on the ceiling as the fire alarm began to sound.
A second later Arson blasted the roots away with a fireball and leaped through to the other side,
the other two women following her lead.
The water cascaded off of the assassins and served to betray their location somewhat.
Jessica found her first target and gave her a devastating right hook that spun the woman around like a top before sending her crashing to the floor.
Arson had blasted two of the attackers with flame jets and left them smoldering on the floor.
As she turned to another, she was ensnared in a wire net of some sort that one of the women had thrown at her.
The assassin hit a button on her belt and a powerful electrical current coursed through Arson from the net.
Arson howled in pain and collapsed to the ground after the attack stopped a moment later.
She lay helpless as the woman moved in with her sword to finish the job.
“Get away from her you bitch!” Jessica yelled as she leaped from the breakfast table and plowed into the woman with her stone feet,
smashing her into the ground.
Jessica picked up the crushed woman’s sword and cut the net open to free Arson.
“You saved me.” Arson said weakly as she looked up at Jessica.
“Don’t take it personally, I just didn’t want anyone taking my chance to kill you,” Jessica said with a smile as she helped Arson to her feet.
Flower Child had the remaining two assassins wrapped in a tangle of thorny vines on the other side of the room
and was with Ataris trying to help the heavily armored team leader to his feet.
“Get any survivors to the holding cells,
no clothing,
I don’t want to take any chances with these women.”
Knight said as he took a seat to avoid falling over.
Jessica helped Arson to the couch and went with Ataris and Flower Child to lock up the surviving attackers.
“And someone turn off the water before I rust!”
Knight yelled after them
The base was running a clean sweep to get rid of the mess from the battle,
while Ataris was turning up the security programs on the base.
Jessica lay on her bed with her pillow over her face,
her body unwinding from the excitement of the afternoon.
“Umm, Jesseca, can I come in?” Arson asked from the doorway.
Jessica removed the pillow from her face.
“Come to mock me again?” she asked.
“Actually, I came to apologize and thank you.” Arson said.
“I never had a family when I was growing up,
I was abandoned by my parents when I was born, and by the time I hit fifteen, I was living in halfway houses.
It’s not an excuse for me to be rude,
but I just think the whole thing made me kind of a shut-in, and a bitch honestly.” she said.
Jessica nodded in agreement with her.
“When I was about sixteen,
I hooked up with some anarchist kids,
and we set fires and looted places,
tagged buildings,
all kinds of bad stuff.
Well, we wanted to do something big to gain street cred,
so we went to a factory owned by The Crey Corporation and planned to bomb it.” she said.
“As we were setting the last charges,
Longbow agents showed up and started to bring us down.
I was up on a catwalk and caught a laser blast to the chest that knocked me into a vat of chemicals.
The bombs went off while I was still covered in the stuff, and somehow the fire that engulfed me and the factory gave me power.
After that I went straight and joined the FPR.” she said.
“Doesn’t surprise me that you were a street punk,” Jessica said with a smile.
“Anyway, I’m sorry for earlier, and I appreciate you saving me even though I was a bitch to you.” Arson said.
“If we’re gonna be teammates, we should try and be friends too,” Jessica said.
“I’m starting to understand that.” Arson said.
“But I’m not changing your diapers,” she added with a smile.
“For right now, I’d settle for civility,” Jessica said.
“That I can do.” Arson said as she put her hand out to shake Jesseca’s.
The pair shook hands and smiled at each other.
“Now that we’ve got that taken care of, how about a friendly ass-kicking in the training room?” Jessica asked.
“I dunno, isn’t it almost your bedtime baby girl?” Arson teased.