A phone rang.
“Yes.”
“I thought we had an agreement.” The voice was deep and gravely.
“…You shouldn’t be calling me here. This isn’t a secure line.”
“We were to talk to each other, to find the best time to dispose of our pawns. And yet, I lose three of them in a short time.”
“You’re one to talk. One of my own is in a coma. We hadn’t discussed that.”
“Amet was… Over-enthusiastic. But you can hardly blame him, can you? He wanted to avenge Ipsum.”
“Ipsum wasn’t killed by us.”
“He wasn’t…?”
“Defender Red defeated him, true, but he teleported away along with Scarab. And according to my people, his wounds weren’t life-threatening.”
A pause.
“Bizarre. My own people had told me he had been struck down in combat. Why don’t the two stories match up?”
“And, speaking of Amet, which I assume is the one we call Sapphire Beetle. He’s still alive, too; he was captured by us, after being defeated by an unknown Defender.”
“An unknown Defender?”
“Defender Silver. And she was the one who convinced Scarab to leave with her, for parts unknown.”
“How is this possible? Besides us there should be no one with the capability to build morphing devices.”
“No, there is another. Think about it.”
Another pause.
“Winters.” The word was almost growled out.
“Of course.”
“How can it be? I thought we had killed her.”
“Apparently not.”
“There is much I have to think about.”
“I’ll always be here. And remember, we’re in this together.”
“…Of course.”
A phone rang.
“Hello?”
“Good afternoon sir! I am trying to reach Mrs. Weber, is she in the house?”
“I’m sorry, she’s out. I’m her nephew.”
“Oh, that’s a shame. Would her husband be available?”
“No, I’m sorry, he’s out too. I’m alone here.”
“That’s perfect! It means we can discuss things without being interrupted.”
“…What do you mean?”
The voice shifted tone. “How are you doing, Clyde? Is everything okay at base?”
“What? Who is this?”
“Is my sister getting along with everyone? I hope she is.”
“Your sister? Who is this?”
“Say, does your leg still hurt when it rains? Where I cut you during sparring? It was a nasty wound as I remember, took you out of commission for a while.”
A long, almost deafening moment of silence.
“…Mark?”
“The one and only. We have much to discuss, my friend.”
I have a bit of bad news, though: I'll be taking a couple weeks off to properly write and edit the final chapters, to ensure they are up snuff. I don't know when this story will resume yet, but it'll likely be early-to-mid April. But after that, no more interruptions: it'll be a straight line to the end.
Thank you for being with me so far, folks, and I hope I'll see you there :)
Patreon
Not too surprising both the Repulsoid emperor and Ryder are in league with each other.
Emmy(Emma?)/Mark bringing Clyde into the fold is neat. I wonder if she'll have Clyde release Amet, or if Ryder will be the one to let Amet "escape", possibly pinning it on someone.
Given how Mae seems to be pretty brutal and under Ryder's direct command, I wonder if she'll side with or against Steph and Em once the curtain is pulled back and Ryder is revealed as being a traitor. She could go either way-she really hates the repulsoids, but she might hate Ryder more for being a traitor and dragging the war out for longer than it needed to be.
Actually...did Ryder leak the morpher tech to the repulsoids and that's how they got it? That seems likely since they hadn't been able to develop it on their own before Winters made the morphers first
Take your time with finishing the story and making sure it's to your satisfaction, it'll be something to look forward to once you're done with it
I would think Mae would oppose Ryder if she knew. She is brutal but her actions honestly make sense from her perspective they are at war with aliens who repeatedly go after civilian targets no reason to not target their leaders.
Glad that it seems like Clyde is going to be part of the solution
Okay, so apparently my theory that General Ryder and the Repulsoid Emperor were the same person was wrong. But I was close!
welll ... sh*t so mark is defender silver?
Going by the clues dropped over the series-Mark, now Emmy/Emma, is trans like Steph is, discovered Ryder was a traitor or something to that effect and was going to go public with the info with Winters before they were ambushed and they both faked their deaths. Em and Lorem fell in love with each other and that's part of how Em figured herself out.
It seems like Winters has super advanced tech to help transition and used it for/on Em since she'd still been presenting as Mark before they faked their deaths and no one else noticed. Let's hope she does the same for Steph once they get a chance
@FallingLeaf and here i was thinking the assasination/defection was because of the assassins class defenders
@dalewarrior I don’t think that would be it. Maybe part of it, but Mae assassinating repulsoid leaders seemed to be part of Ryder and Rep. Emp’s plan, or at least casualties allowed for, possibly when the leaders were starting to slip the leash of the Emp’s control or doubt what the Repulsoids were doing.
I think the big reveal would be Ryder’s collusion with the Repulsoids and dragging the war out. After all, he’s got a *ton* of political and economic power since he’s the top commanding officer responsible dealing with the Repulsoid invasion. If he keeps the war going on without end he won’t lose that power as long as it seems like they’re making steady progress or at least holding firm.
I half wonder if he’ll secretly have a morpher for himself, possibly made by the Repulsoid side since Winters wouldn’t have been willing to make him a morpher
@FallingLeaf i think ryder still has the process and means to create morphers and build a special one for himself. I guess the actual reason they didn't create a new one for steph was because it might be very costintensive. Also to draw out the war indefinetly seems to not have been the plan, it seems like ryder might be plotting to take over the world with the repulsoid emp. Thats why they wanted to get rid of their pawns at a convenient time, so the defenders oder the leaders wouldn't interfere. Another interesting detail is that the repulsoid emp thought ipsum was killed by red, but we know that scarab didn't kill him, we know that red didn't kill him and before now i thought the emperor killed him because he failed. So since it propably wasn't em, it was either mae (which is unlikely since she would have reported the assasination to ryder) or an as of yet unknown repulsoid.
@Ms.Appelpie ipsum was killed by scarub for killing mark check Feb 22 interlude
@dalewarrior ups i forgot that gues that solves that mystery.