D-1

The ground was wet with blood when they returned to the resort. Ciel still felt the sting around her wrist from the ropes. Alice had pulled her to their current location, hiding behind a building. Poking her head out from behind the wall, Alice scanned their surroundings.

The head of her Technoid had regenerated from the neck up, leaving Alice obscured behind the glass.

A weight fell on Ciel's hands. As she looked down, she realized Alice had given her a gun.

"This suit came double equipped, so keep this for protection. If you think anyone wants to hurt you, just press here. Shoot first and worry later," Alice paused for a moment, "This gun won't work on me though."

Ciel nodded and stayed vigilant.

Memories of earlier resurfaced in her head.

Alice had told her that Onik was on lockdown because a pirate ship had appeared on the outskirts of the planet's atmosphere. This wasn't a coincidence.

As it so happened, in order to remain a Void, you had to accept a mission once a month, and the mission Alice had accepted had to do with wiping out a certain group of space pirates.

Space pirates were people who would take over ships and sometimes board them in order to kill the passengers or plunder goods.

This group in particular had gone from only plundering once or twice a year to almost three times a week. They became top on the list for organized crime in a matter of months. Realizing that the pirates had delivered themselves to her doorstep, she'd taken good care to tie them up and hand them over to law enforcement.

But this group was also known for doing something not many other organizations did.

On the Voyager Forum, it had been mentioned that someone had killed one of these pirates and found a chip in their neck, but had quickly disposed of it. A few others had also killed people from this organization and lamented not paying attention to the chips, but since the pirates had only become infamous recently, the number of people who had killed them and lived to see the day was relatively slim.

Hearing about these chips, Alice had checked and found some in the dead pirates on board. She'd taken a gamble.

Supposing that the chips would be either something the pirate group would want to collect if the pirates died or that the chips were trackers, she'd baited the rest of the pirates over.

It was a cruel but efficient strategy, and Alice believed that in doing so she was in the right.

The hotel Ciel was arranged to stay at was currently under fire, being surrounded by people with guns. As Alice looked around the resort, she didn't see many people. They must've already moved to the bunker at the center.

"Alice," Ciel said from behind her. Alice didn't look over.

"What?"

"I shot someone."

Alice turned around to see a man on the floor.

"He was sneaking up on us," Ciel said, "he didn't think I had a gun so I shot him."

That was only half the truth.

In the short amount of time Alice had looked away, a man had silently jumped from the building they were hiding behind and tried to cover her mouth, pressing a gun against her head. She didn't know whether the gun Alice gave her was silenced or not, but deciding to deal with it later, she managed to bend her knees to escape direct contact with the gun. Then she'd lifted her gun up to under the man's head and shot. He wasn't breathing.

Alice inspected the man who was now on the ground. What was surprising to her was that the man was wearing a Technoid.

That meant he was either an Ante or he'd robbed a ship that was delivering Technoids. Since a small girl had managed to kill him, there was little to no chance that he was an Ante, and ships that delivered Technoids were usually guarded by Voids. She crossed those two options out. It'd be near impossible for this pirate group to have access to Technoids.

Unless someone was supplying them.

Alice crossed that out of her mind too; the risk was too great. She'd worry about it later.

The silver suit the man wore stripped itself back until it was in a block shape, similar to the shape of Alice's own Technoid. She picked it up.

"It's a D-1, good for training newbies. Not available in the market, but usually used for students just starting training to become an Ante," Alice looked up, throwing it to Ciel, "it's for training so it should regenerate on its own, but it's pretty weak. If you wear this, you can follow me. If you don't, I don't think I can get you into the bunker at this point, so you'll have to hide here."

"I'll follow you."

Alice nodded, "Smart decision. I'm guessing this is your first time using one of these so listen to me closely. You can activate that by crushing the block you're holding. It'll make you faster, but you may have trouble getting used to seeing things moving that fast. I'm going to need you to get used to it quickly. All I need is for you to catch up and stay close, you should be able to dodge regular bullets. And judging by your performance so far you shouldn't have that much trouble keeping yourself safe. Now, go ahead, I'll stop you from running into anything."

Ciel took hold of the Technoid in her hand and immediately crushed it. It disappeared from her hand, the familiar appearance of ribbons flying out around her. Her clothes fused into it as she disappeared behind the silver.

She tried raising her hand.

Bam! It smacked into her face. She fell to the ground from the force.

"Deep breaths," Alice said, "if you can't overcome this now, I'll need you to stay here."

Ciel took a breath.

The effect of the Technoid wasn't only increased resistance. As she soon found out, it increased sensory reflexes as well. Everything was crystal clear. Every insect, leaf, and natural eccentricity was stamped into her mind.

Ciel didn't move her hand this time, just her fingers. She focused on the movements and measured how far they'd go and how quickly in her head. She tried to stand but crashed back into the ground. She cursed in her head.

She closed her eyes. From falling she'd managed to gain some information. She could hear the footsteps of the pirates she was hiding from, the chirping of the birds, and the ever so slight crunch of the leaves Alice stood on. She was deserted on an island of noise.

Next, she let another sense bring her just to the brink of being overwhelmed. She could feel the cool dirt against her legs. The wind brushed against her like it was directly touching skin. But the pain around her wrists and waist had been numbed, and so had her taste.

"You'll have to get a higher leveled suit for taste and smell. The Ante Educational Requirements dictate that a D-1 suit can't increase pain, taste, or smell because it'll overwhelm your brain too quickly before you adjust."

Ciel nodded.

Finally, she opened her eyes once more. She wasn't saturated with colors this time, blinded by the influx of information coming at her all at once. She moved her arm, finally successfully. She didn't feel like she was moving too fast, just that everything was incredibly slow.

She managed to stand up.

"Good," Alice said, "not the fastest I've seen someone get adjusted, but I see you've grasped the general concept. Try walking now."

Ciel followed Alice's instructions. She ran some warmups: walking to running to jumping. Alice only had to stop her from smashing into trees the first few times. It had almost felt like she'd returned to her own body.

After the souls had given her power, it had taken weeks to get adjusted to her increase in strength and speed. Thankfully, this time she hadn't taken too far of a leap from her original strength. Instead of gaining the strength of millions, she'd only gained the strength of around two men.

The man she'd killed before was most likely not nearly as adjusted to the Technoid as he should've been, which was probably the cause of her easy escape. Otherwise, Ciel would've had to result to a significantly riskier tactic.

She'd learned the technique of singling out her senses as she'd adjusted to the souls in her last life. With every sense and the add-on of memories being brought to the extreme, she had to have managed to find a way to adjust amidst everything. If she hadn't, she would've ended up dead.

After spending around twenty minutes letting Ciel adjust to her new capabilities, Alice gave her the go-ahead.

"Here's the plan. Since the pirates I can see from here aren't Antes, the main ship would've either had to dock or is still in the atmosphere supplying smaller shuttles to reach the ground. Either of these options is good for us though because we just need to get into that ship and hand the captain over," Alice explained, "some of my teammates contacted me and should've made it to Onik by now, so first we'll meet up with them before discussing tactics further. And under no circumstances do you give them your name, understood?"

"Understood."

"If you need anything from me, try to refrain from calling me Alice. They may be able to use that information later, so just use my codename Queen, that should do the trick."

Ciel told her she understood once again and after divulging the specifics of the plan, they both began to run.

They were going to steal a bus.