View source for 2023-07-24: Sister Act

{{Cutscene
|cast=Gamia NX-1, [[Cascade Vermilion|Gamia NX-2]], Gamia NX-3
|location=Fujinomiya City
|summary=The three Gamia sisters, together at last. Takes place immediately after [https://srtmoo.net/mediawiki/index.php/2023-07-24:_DecuFes_%2797:_Gun-Pla_Dream].
}}
{{PhaseAndTurn
|phase=1
|turn=3
}}

Cascade and 'Tarni' exited Fujinomiya City's convention hall at a quick walk. This was not remarkable; there were students going in and out for the GUTS event, and while it wasn't exactly packed there was enough traffic that the two of them fit in. Cascade walked ahead; Tarni, who looked a couple years younger with long black hair pulled into two tails, trailed behind while carrying Cascade's gunpla box. They didn't talk to one another but they at least looked like they were together.

They came to a waiting car, one with Britannian plates despite being in Japan; the privileges of minor nobility. Tarni got into the front passenger seat; Cascade slid into the back, expecting it to be otherwise unoccupied. But instead there was - 

"Hello, One," Cascade said, her voice carefully neutral.

Gamia NX-1, sitting on the far side of the back seat from Cascade's entry point, looked exactly like the Gamias of a bygone generation: tall, curvaceous, and blonde, with the appearance of a woman in her twenties, her hair kept in two long tails that swept out sideways from her head by several inches. Cascade resembled the older Gamias, certainly - similar build, some similarity in the facial features, though she kept her hair very different and didn't dress the same - but Gamia NX-1 could have been their clone. NX-2 also knew that she had not looked quite that identical when she was first activated. She'd intentionally tried to mimic them, but that bringing this up was dangerous.

It actually was enough to make her job harder. NX-1, Cascade knew, rarely showed up where she could be seen because she alone of them could be identified by sight. No wonder she was staying in the car with tinted windows. She did private work for Dr. Hell and Count Brocken and the rest that even the other Gamias weren't privy to the details of. She was very ruthless and very reliable; probably for that reason she was also the favourite, which she was not shy about making clear to the others. 

"Two," NX-1 looked over at the other Gamia with barely concealed disdain. She said nothing else.

Cascade took the initiative. "What is the meaning of this? With the two of you here it would be easy to ruin my cover. You know this. That's why we don't meet like this."

NX-3 spoke briefly to the chauffeur in the driver's seat. The Iron Mask trooper (though as he wasn't wearing the iron mask, could you even call him that?) nodded, and the car pulled smoothly away from the curb. Only after that did she turn back to Cascade, almost glaring. Her expression was different now that she wasn't playing Cascade's little sister. So was her voice, having lost much of its cheer in favour of a slightly irritated edge. If Cascade was being rude, she might have described it as the edge of whining. "Your cover is awful. For a spy, you have not really done much, have you? Oh, you have managed to 'fit in'," she made the finger quotes and everything, "but you are not providing much useful information. ''I'' have managed to acquire several useful items, and One is doing her job, but what have you done lately?"

NX-1's lips curled into a not-terribly-cheerful smile. "It is true. Three has her own problems. But at least she does what she's supposed to. You provide nothing. You were supposed to find the identities of 'Mafty' or 'Zero' and you have not. Instead you have successfully infiltrated a civilian school organization which literal children enter every day."

Cascade found herself flushing, and didn't know why, since that kind of reaction should be completely under her control - so she stopped it, though a faint hint of red on her cheeks and the tips of her ears remained. It hurt. "I am also a member of the Black Knights," she said, as steadily as she could, without letting the emotion she would like to have put into those words show. "I provide military intelligence for Amalgam on that front. Additionally, Ashford Academy and the GUTS organization have a disproportionate number of military and paramilitary members and this should be investigated."

"There are other operations in the Black Knights that don't need you. You are hardly unique there, either. As for the Gathering to Unite Transnational Schools," and NX-1 said the entire name, though she made it sound like something unpleasant, "this is true. But you have not provided as much information there, either, nor have you disrupted their activities." NX-1 turned aside, looking toward NX-3 in the front seat. "What was NX-2 doing today?" NX-3 simply held up the gunpla box in response. "Ah." NX-1 turned back to Cascade. "I see. A good use of your time. I am sure Baron Ashura will be thrilled to hear it."

NX-2's anger grew. "Insinuating oneself into a difficult situation is more than just walking in and talking! And with NX-3 showing up to interrupt it could have gone very badly. She broke cover by naming me as Two, though I believe I covered it up."

NX-1 looked up toward NX-3 again. The question was wordless, but NX-3's answer was not: "She called me Tarni. I do not wish to be Tarni. I do not know why she picked the name either. But I obtained more information on the one calling herself 'LiSA' in my brief time there than NX-2 had the entire time she was there." She sounded smug, Cascade thought, which was a mistake; NX-1 didn't respond well to anyone sounding self-satisfied when they were talking to her.

Which gave her an opportunity to puncture that bubble, which she immediately took. "Human people don't call themselves by numbers," NX-2 explained. Then she thought about that, and specifically about the Ichiro in one of her classes, and corrected, "Usually. But it wasn't established for me or my family. Calling you Three would have been out of character." She didn't press about LiSA, to avoid turning it into a worse argument she could only lose. 

NX-1 did not deign to answer immediately, her face expressionless. The car drove on for a time, making some turns through the city streets. Then: "Three, you should not have done that, though your comment on Two's failure is acknowledged. Two, do not call her Tarni again. She will not come to visit you while you are undercover."

"You aren't my superior," NX-2 said, at exactly the same time NX-3 said, "You are not my superior." The two of them glared at each other for several long seconds, the tension increasing. Cascade was the one who broke it, looking away first and out the window as the street slid by; NX-3 smirked at the side of Cascade's head, but not at an angle that Cascade couldn't see it out of the corner of her eye, anyway.

NX-1 let it happen before gracefully continuing as if neither of them had said or done anything, dismissing the whole event. "Now," she said, "I have been sent to you because you need to start to ''act''. Ashura expects a complete report within the next two weeks of everything you know about the Black Knights organization. I do not think it matters what you know about Ashford Academy. It is irrelevant. But very soon we may need to take action within the terrorist groups."

NX-2 said nothing for a few moments, thinking about her options and whether to volunteer something new - something that would keep NX-1 off her case. But she couldn't think of anything else immediately, so: "I will do it. There is an operation within a week that I should participate in. I will use it to get an up-to-date tactical and combat assessment of as many units as I can. Then I will work from there."

"Excellent," NX-1 said. "As long as you do so. That is all, now that we are sure you are not defective in some way. We will drop you off at the pickup for a bus."

Cascade fought back the instinct to redden again. Defective! How dare she? But what she actually said, in time, was, "I will serve as best I can. May I have my gunpla back?" Cascade asked. She was thinking of it for cover; she might run into LiSA again.

NX-3 reached back with the box of gunpla, but it was NX-1 who took it, blocking Cascade from reaching. She looked at the Venus A box, turning it this way and that, thoughtfully, as she scanned the description and the contents.

Then, with a blur of motion, her hair lashed out. One of the blonde tails simply snapped forward, shining golden in the light. It passed over - through - the gunpla box, and then she was holding a handful of debris; tiny strips of cardboard and slivers of plastic, the entire thing cut through many times over by something sharper than the sharpest knife. Most of it drifted to the floor of the car or the seat between the two Gamias; the handful she was still holding, she flicked at NX-2 dismissively, making it flutter like confetti.

"Denied," NX-1 said, as the car smoothly pulled to a stop. "Get out of the car."

----

Five minutes later, Cascade Vermilion, Ashford Academy student... was waiting for a bus.

She looked, to onlookers, like someone who had had a very bad day. Her expression was stormy, and she mostly looked at the street rather than up at anyone's face. Even putting on her music and trying to tune out the world hadn't helped. (Fortunately, NX-1 either hadn't spotted her headphones tucked in her purse or hadn't cared enough to destroy them, too. Cascade wasn't sure which - both were out of character for NX-1.)

And truthfully, well... she ''had'' had a bad day. She'd never gotten along with her sisters. One was ruthless to the point of being malicious, and never failed to rub in her superiority; Three was grasping, always trying to make herself look better than she deserved, someone who stole credit as much as she stole valuables. If she was being honest with herself, she wasn't particularly pleasant to them either; neither of them seemed able or willing to understand her, so she'd pushed them away and not exactly treated them with kindness. They'd always been encouraged to compete, but especially lately, their competition had become cruelty. She was furious by NX-1 assuming she was the boss, as usual, and at being treated like a lesser - like a ''failure''! - by NX-1 and -3.

But deep down, she couldn't help but wonder: was she?

Being Cascade Vermilion was harder and harder. It had always felt like a mask, something she needed to intentionally put on - but now it felt like an ill-fitting mask, like she couldn't press herself into shape. She felt stiff, even constrained; she knew her acting wasn't as good as it was when she joined Ashford Academy or the Black Knights and she didn't know why. She wondered, day by day, if Rin or Kallen or the others who knew her suspected something about her. Maybe that was why Rin had spoken about her family to her, and had asked about Cascade's own.

But Gamia NX-2, too, was a mask that didn't fit. She'd had to intentionally try to act like her in the car, and she didn't think she'd done a good job with that either. It felt wrong - not that she shouldn't do what she was doing, but that she couldn't. 

Maybe they were right. Maybe she was defective somehow. Maybe she was broken and she didn't even know it. And if they ''were'' right...

Cascade got onto the bus when it finally came, still lost in her thoughts.