Editing HEAVY OBJECT:Volume12 Chapter 1 (section)

===Part 11===

They had no idea what had happened.

“Owwwaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!?”

Quenser and Heivia dove into a nearby building as a violent gust of wind blew gray dust toward them. The building seemed to be a bank that specialized in the foreign accounts the wealthy tended to use. Quenser realized he no longer held onto Faires Appetizer, but now was not the time to worry about that. All of the glass in the city shattered and a downpour of transparent blades poured down toward them.

“Are you okay?”

Catherine Blueangel alone did not seem particular bothered.

That little bikini devil’s specs were on an entirely different level, but they did not have time to comment on that.

“Cough! Cough!!”

“Dammit… What was that!?”

They heard the deep, unpleasant sound of something bending. Quenser got up using the small hand Catherine held out to him and then he looked to the ceiling. Large cracks were running through it and they were spreading.

“Oh, no. Oh, no! Is the building going to collapse!?”

“Idiot! Don’t just run outside! It’s more dangerous out there!!”

Quenser immediately tried to run, but Heivia grabbed his arm and pulled him back just as an adjacent building collapsed. Gray dust spread like cotton candy and entered their building thanks to the broken glass.

“What? Cough. I don’t have any survival training. What’s the right thing to do!?”

“I don’t know either, dammit. Frolaytia! Hey, busty commander! Tell us what happened!!”

Beyond the thick curtain of dust, Heivia shouted angrily into his radio, but no one replied. Was the dust reflecting the signal like chaff, or were the people on the other end in no state to reply?

“Oh, good. My stamp card is safe.”

Catherine peeked inside the bag that held her special suit and gave a cheerfully out-of-place comment, so Quenser grabbed her small hand and started to move.

“Hm? Wait, big brother. I think my bikini is about to come undone again.”

“Which knot!?”

“The one on my left hip.”

They broke through the dusty air as he took care of that.

They wanted to see what had happened.

[[Image:HO_v12_056.jpg|thumb]]

They reached the elevator button, but it did not react. They climbed a few floors on the nearby stairs and entered an office full of computers that looked set up for investing. They approached the window whose reinforced glass had been broken by the shockwave and secured a view of the city.

“Wow,” said small Catherine.

It looked like the end of the world.

Several of the tidy-looking high-rise buildings had been knocked over and the giant villas on the rooftops had been slammed to the ground. One building falling must have affected those around it because the ordered cityscape had been crudely stained like an arrangement of dominos that had failed to topple properly. The residents and tourists had been evacuated, but they could still see fires here and there. There had likely been electrical or gas trouble. The resort island’s blue skies and sea breeze were surrounded by the color gray and simply breathing in the air made them want to go get a health checkup.

“The whole place is messed up. But there’s a pattern to the collapsed buildings. It’s like there are a few different craters.”

“Did the Princess fail to intercept the Supernova?”

“That thing was thermobaric and would’ve turned the entire city to ashes.”

“Then…”

Quenser and Heivia exchanged a glance.

“Don’t tell me that old man was right.”

“Did an asteroid really hit!? You’ve gotta be kidding me!!”

Quenser cut across the floor so he could see the ocean. His radio was useless, but he still wanted to see the Baby Magnum with his own eyes.

But…

“Hey, look…”

“What is it, Quen-…what the hell is that!!!??”

Only Heivia’s yell rang through the air.

The broken window gave them a view of the coast through the buildings. The Baby Magnum should have reigned supreme beyond that.

But its spherical main body had been badly torn apart.

The Object looked like an empty box of chocolates after it was stepped on.

This was medium to heavy damage. There was no chance it could move properly now.

“The Princess fought to the end.” Quenser blankly stated his guess as to what had happened. “But it wasn’t enough. She didn’t make it in time. The asteroid broke into a few different pieces in midair and fell on the city. And one of those hit the Baby Magnum!!”

“That’s a big deal, but what do we do now? They aren’t going to blame us for failing to stop the asteroid, are they!? I don’t want to spend the rest of my summer doing construction work to restore an enemy nation’s resort island. And all of these villas have to have been expensive!!”

The two idiots exchanged a glance, but blonde braided Catherine was innocently – if not cruelly – unfazed.

“What are you going to do, big brother?”

“If that was the last explosion, we don’t have to worry about any more glass shards raining down on us, right?”

“But entire buildings could collapse after a delay. Wouldn’t it be best to stay here until things settle down?”

“You have a point. …But what if this bank itself falls over?”

Silence fell.

Heivia scratched at his dusty bangs before answering.

“I guess that’s not an option. Let’s get back to the maintenance base zone.”

“Is that fine with you, Catherine? Do you want to get back to Malta?”

Quenser and Heivia cautiously stepped out into the gray city. Catherine seemed to be enjoying herself as she followed them, or maybe she was giving the boys an appraising look.

The oppressive sun was entirely gone now. A thick gray curtain covered everything instead. But this was not a normal raincloud. It was all the soot and dust produced when the asteroid had exploded in midair. Closer to the ground, dust rapidly expanded like dirty cotton candy near the collapsed buildings. All glass had been shattered, the buildings were tilted, and devices the size of vending machines – transformers for the underground power lines – were bent and emitting sparks. Thick cables dangled down onto the ground and even into the spider web of canals.

“Looks like we should give up on using a water scooter.”

“I wouldn’t even know where to find one. Did they sink or were they washed away by the waves caused by the shockwave? Dammit.”

Luckily, most of the people had been evacuated to theatres and stadiums. The entire area was covered with glass, but they did not see any bloody people groaning in pain. If the place had been as busy as it normally was, they would have seen a true hell.

That was when they heard a low rumbling.

Quenser looked up and grimaced.

“Wait, really…?”

He felt something cold on his nose.

The next thing he knew, rain was pouring down on them.

“Damn. That was originally water vapor and dust, so can it really make rainclouds? And the broken transformers are sending sparks everywhere!!”

This was not over yet.

Traveling had been easy enough when using a water scooter in the canals, but it took much longer once they had to walk through the ruined city on foot. And that was true even from the south side, which was closest to Malta.

Heivia wiped sweat from his brow and groaned.

“What the hell? The raindrops are dirty…”

“They’ve got the asteroid’s dust in them. It would be best not to let any get in your mouth, Catherine.”

“I won’t do that.”

Large raindrops poured down. It was a truly unnatural downpour produced by clouds of dust. It sounded like radio static and the three of them could only drag their heavy bodies along like zombies.

“We can’t get through here with the building collapsed…”

“Big brother, the way is clear over there.”

“We can’t use that because of the broken transformer. See how the area is soaked with rainwater? We don’t know how far the electricity is getting, so it would be best not to approach.”

“Hey, the building collapsed, but there’s still a way through in the center. We can’t just sit around. It would be faster to cut through.”

They walked down that path to return to the maintenance base.

Each step felt like a gamble. It was like betting the chips of their lives on information of dubious accuracy. They took each step slowly and cautiously, so when a bridge was out, it could take an hour to find another way across.

By the time they were close to the maintenance base zone, it was already growing dark. They had known this was a midsummer resort, but the constant barrage of raindrops had a way of sapping their strength. It felt like they had soaked inside a hot bath until the heat had permeated the core of their bodies.

And as they made that nerve-racking journey, something changed.

“Wh-what…?”

Quenser looked around while dragging along his uniform that was heavy with water.

“There’s a ton of people here. I thought they were all evacuated.”

“Don’t ask me, dammit. Don’t tell me this wave of people is-…yeah, I was right. They’re headed for our base, aren’t they?”

A lot of them had nothing but the shirt on their back. Some were young women in rain-soaked swimsuits or bunny suits and some were macho men in thin armor made from light aluminum or something. Normally, those people would probably ask a tourist to take a commemorative photo with them and then charge an outrageous fee. The people in berets and carrying art sets did the same thing after painting someone’s portrait. Some people were holding their surfboards up to keep out the rain and others were using several café parasols to create a hemispherical tent.

Perhaps because this was a world-class seaside luxury resort, a lot of people were carrying expensive cameras.

“This is Monica, the idol reporter who can both dance and sing! It’s fine, it’s fine. I can review the five-star hotel in my bikini later! And how many times are you going to wake me up to try to scare me!? I’m getting awful tired of it!! An asteroid hit? Let’s document that! We can figure out whether or not we can sell it to a communications company later!! Um, we are in front of the Legitimacy Kingdom maintenance base zone and…”

“!!!”

“Hm? What is it, Quenser?”

“Oh, nothing,” said the student as he ducked his head down. He had apparently spotted someone in the crowd who he wanted to avoid.

Also, some in the crowd were using their portrait art sets in an odd way.

“Hey, some of them are holding up signs.”

Once the little black bikini devil pointed it out, Quenser and Heivia finally noticed. The crowd grew denser as they drew closer to the base and that was due to more than confusion over the sudden disaster. There was definite anger there and it was focused on a single issue.

“What’s going to happen to us now!?”

“S-Second Venice is a manmade island. Without food and water, we’ll wither away!!”

“The military needs to take responsibility and protect us! I have a baby to look after!!”

Heivia looked puzzled.

“Tch. What? They’ve started protesting?”

“But Heivia, it’s true that food and water are a serious issue. How many people are there here on Second Venice?”

“Myonri said nearly 130,000.”

“Our unit can’t feed that many.”

“Are you serious about that? First off, our battalion has 1000 people. We keep enough supplies to feed us all for 30 days. And that’s assuming three meals a day. Put up with some hunger and limit ourselves to one meal a day and that number triples. That alone gives us enough for 90,000. And don’t forget that the Rush’s Oh Ho Ho has her unit stationed here.” Heivia sounded exasperated. “Besides, this isn’t a desert on the moon. It’s a Mediterranean resort. The Legitimacy Kingdom and Faith Organization’s home countries are right there. Surviving on our own might be tough, but transport ships can reach us in a matter of hours. No matter how long it takes to recover, we’ll have plenty of supplies if we can last a day or two. We might actually head back fatter than we arrived.”

“Is that…how it works?”

“It is. Not to mention that Second Venice is known as a spy’s paradise because the wealthy of all four world powers can relax here and forget all about war. No one’s going to abandon this place. In fact, it’s a great opportunity to do some favors to make some debts. Hand over our tasteless soap-like rations now and we might get gold bars the same size in return.”

Heivia was entirely carefree.

And once they started listening, they could hear a voice answering the shouting crowd. A familiar voice was amplified by a handheld megaphone.

“Don’t push! Please don’t push! We have food enough for everybody, so please wait your turn!”

“Myonri got the short end of the stick again, did she?”

Quenser relaxed when he heard that awful friend’s voice.

But then he heard the unique dry sound of bursting gunpowder.

A fireworks-like smell mixed with a rusty flavor.

The crowd ground to a halt like a malfunctioning machine and then it tried to scatter in every direction. But that caused them to run into each other, knock each other over, and trip each other up.

Meanwhile, a high-pitched voice came from beyond the human curtain. The scream passed over everyone’s heads and could have been a male or female voice.

Whoever it belonged to, it said the following:

“Like I said!! Hurry up and hand over the foooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooood!!”

''Oh, no,'' thought Quenser.

The discomfort of the pouring rain vanished from his mind. This was no time for that, so his brain automatically narrowed down his information to the absolute essentials.

He could sense an invisible pressure approaching through the gaps in the crowd.

He felt someone's eyes on him.

A large and enraged man in a tank top had tears and snot covering his face as he aimed their way with a gun that was clearly not a civilian model. It looked like the fusion of a semi-auto grenade launcher and a close-range handgun. And he did not seem to care how many other people were around.

“This is really bad…!!”