BEYOND 3A: BloodRed and ScaleBlack

The Twenty-Eighth Feather: Peace Always Starts With a Bullet

The caller fell back on the ground, bleeding from her neck and unable to move, and looked at the investigator who had the cheekiest grin on his face. He exclaimed: "And the mole is L'étranger, ladies and gents! Do what ya want with her!"

In a horrible twist of events, all of her former colleagues had turned against her, with the exception of Hocho, who was utterly clueless about what was going on. She picked up L'étranger and yelled: "Oi oi oi! What the fuck?! What was that for?!"

Wakamol: "Woah, you're a big lady. Listen, you, were you paying attention during the play?!"

Hocho: "...I admit, I zoned out."

Wakamol: "Fair enough, I'll kill you for that later. But long story short; she's conspiring to overthrow Archimedes."

Hocho: "...Overthrow?"

Wakamol: "Oh my god, she doesn't know what 'overthrow' means... Everyone, do what you want to get the traitor away from the muscle woman's hands, dead or alive. Preferably alive for questioning and rehabilitation right after."

Hocho: "H-hey now, we don't have to go that far! Can't you talk this out?"

Sadly, Hocho's words fell on deaf ears. Everyone who was out to get her had too much to lose, the system upon which their world ran was ideal for them, and they didn't want to take a chance at a change from someone they didn't trust to begin with.

Hocho's immediate action was to work her leg muscles and flee. She muttered to herself: "Man, I can totally beat all of their asses right now, but they might play me for a fool and kill you while I'm not looking. I'll just sprint for now."

Over the hall speakers, Wakamol announced: "Hocho, if you know what's good for ya, you'll drop the bitch."

Hocho ignored the warnings and continued to run, encountering and bulldozing through many friends and acquaintances. Hocho also noticed that none of the two other elites were interested in this hunt, making things much easier for her, since they were among the people she couldn't stand up against. The high octane chase continued like a scene in a saturday morning cartoon until she eventually encountered the first powerful opponent she ran into, Penelope.

In the empty hallway, Penelope faced Hocho, crossed her arms, and with a pout on her face, said: "How dare you, Hocho?! Hocho, you party pooper! My beautiful play was perfect until the last second! Now I'm mad to the max! Max mad!"

Hocho: "Penny, I'll pay you back for the disappointment later, I've gotta run!"

Penelope: "Run where, huh? Run in circles?! You think we're in a horror comedy book or something? News flash, she-hulk, that chick is evil! She's 'conspiratorising' against daddy!"

Hocho: "Conspiwhat?"

Penelope: "Conspirisitizaitionalising!"

Hocho: "I'm starting to think you're making words up."

Penelope: "Compass!"

Hocho: "Okay, see, now I know you're coming up with words on the spo-... Hey, where did L'étranger go?"

Penelope: "Plan successful! Now we escape!"

Much like how Hocho predicted, she was outplayed by something simpler than the simplest tricks in the book. While she was distracted, a group of Penelope clones snatched L'étranger from the giantess' arms. The preteen shouted while running away: "Holy moly! I didn't think that'd work!"

Hocho: "Hey, that's cheap!"

Penelope: "You're cheap!"

Infuriated, Hocho put twenty percent of her leg muscles to work and leapt forward like an artillery cannon projectile, startling Penelope and her clones into sprouting wings and carrying her body even faster. The pursuit's pace increased significantly and made it difficult for Hocho to turn corners, something that Penelope was fully willing to exploit. The Penelopes pointed their arms in different directions and shouted: "Flesh of patience! Come!" causing several corridors to appear out of nowhere. The girls did a sharp ninety degree turn to go through one of her hallways, prompting Hocho to crash spectacularly through five damn walls before the brakes did their job. She then immediately turned half a circle and bolted back to the original tracks but as to be expected, she had no clue where the Penelopes went, so she just blindly guessed.