<div style="text-align: center"><a class="link link--external" href="https://i.pinimg.com/originals/e6/81/48/e681485fb7423221cd9ef0f2460e3510.jpg" rel="nofollow ugc noopener" target="_blank"><i>Eastern Bay</i></a><i>, <a class="link link--external" href="https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/falloutfanfic/images/1/16/Commonweaths.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20110723223827" rel="nofollow ugc noopener" target="_blank">Eastern United States Unified Combatant Command</a>, United States, Year 20XX<br/>
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10 Years After the Great Aurora Burst &amp; The Metahuman War</i>​</div><br/><a class="link link--external" href="https://cdn-japantimes.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/n-ogasawara-a-20161206-870x1175.jpg" rel="nofollow ugc noopener" target="_blank">Koichi Takahashi</a>smiled warmly that evening at all his executives on his way to the penthouse office at the top of the world’s tallest building, Phalanx Tower. That was the<a class="link link--external" href="https://newyorkyimby.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/kt00.jpg" rel="nofollow ugc noopener" target="_blank">headquarters</a>of<a class="link link--external" href="https://i1.wp.com/chrismlegg.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/phalanx_final-1.png" rel="nofollow ugc noopener" target="_blank">Phalanx Defense Systems</a>, a crown jewel of the Takahashi Zaibatsu ever since he’d acquired it in a bankruptcy sale shortly after the end of the Metahuman War and made it the largest private security company in the world. Once he got inside, though, the happy facade fell away into a stone-faced gloom, and not even the giant zen garden his drone was raking for him could put his mind at ease.<br/><br/>He’d gotten sloppy in his old age by allowing his granddaughter<a class="link link--external" href="https://tokyofashion.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/NK-2017-10-01-002-006-Harajuku-D58-3037.jpg" rel="nofollow ugc noopener" target="_blank">Alexa’s</a>absence to go unnoticed over the weekend. After all, she’d requested him to “call off the dogs” because she was having “a girlfriend” over all weekend, and he’d tried to respect her wishes and privacy this time, knowing that at least she’d be staying in her apartment.<br/><br/>Once Phalanx Special Forces agents discovered it was trashed on Monday morning, however, all bets were off. Alexa’s social media accounts had been mysteriously deleted and her bank accounts cleaned out, but witnesses had claimed to see a woman in a dark hoodie with a shock of white hair enter her apartment through the window on Saturday. With that information, he knew who had seduced and then likely kidnapped his little mochi cake.<br/><br/><a class="link link--external" href="https://i.pinimg.com/736x/83/72/ec/8372ecd915325966175ea2f7c0021410--cosplay-costumes-cyberpunk.jpg" rel="nofollow ugc noopener" target="_blank">The Crow</a>had been the bane of his existence for a number of years. Whether she was a meta or not was impossible to say, but entire teams of his finest heavily armed commandoes said she certainly fought like one. She was one of the few vigilantes who had not either been brought to heel by the world’s governments (and contractors such as Phalanx) or terminated.<br/><br/>He didn’t like to handle metas for any assignment, preferring that his underlings do so, but he needed to quietly neutralize the Crow once and for all, or it would be all over the news that the CEO of the most powerful defense contractor couldn’t even protect his own granddaughter from a ghost, and then he would be ruined. Plus, some of his meta employees had mysteriously gone missing. And so he’d personally called the one known as Newton out of retirement to oversee this operation, and their newest star player, Sunflower. She was green, but her spate of successes had been PR gold for Phalanx, and defeating the Crow and saving Alexa would make for a “viral moment” on ClipTime. Their mission was to rescue Alexa, capture Crow alive, then terminate her once she told them where the Phalanx “heroes” she’d likely killed were buried.<br/><br/>“They’re late,” he growled while pounding the table with one wrinkled fist.<br/><br/>“My sensors indicate that the both of them are already in the private elevator, ten floors below us and closing,” the drone warbled.<br/><br/>“The longer they waste my time, the less time they have to find Alexa. If they do so again, they will not be working anywhere!”<br/><br/>“Preparing two severance forms for HR in the event of future tardiness in your presence, Mr. Takahashi.”<br/><br/>“Good,” Koichi smirked. He liked this little drone. At least it never disobeyed.<br/><br/>With metas, one could never really be sure.<br/><br/>*****<br/><br/>Meanwhile, three hundred feet below the harbor in an<a class="link link--external" href="https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/32feac3928c5de5887f3a1efc5dd97c6.jpg" rel="nofollow ugc noopener" target="_blank">abandoned sea level observation facility</a>, Crow rose from her nap that had capped off a tough afternoon of cleaning the docks of crime followed by an amazing marathon of sex, and smiled as she observed the naked Japanese woman gently breathing next to her.<br/><br/>For the past week, they’d been lying low here, after deciding to run away together last weekend. Or at least, run away as much as Shiloh could from her chosen profession. Which was<a class="link link--external" href="https://i.ytimg.com/vi/_XZCtE8672g/maxresdefault.jpg" rel="nofollow ugc noopener" target="_blank">free running</a>,<a class="link link--external" href="https://i.pinimg.com/originals/20/76/5e/20765e7c8fff0cd5a82bf21db2b8e7df.jpg" rel="nofollow ugc noopener" target="_blank">gliding</a>,<a class="link link--external" href="https://content.pulse.ea.com/content/www-mirrorsedge/en_US/news-articles/the-mag-rope/_jcr_content/featuredImage/renditions/rendition1.img.jpg" rel="nofollow ugc noopener" target="_blank">grappling</a>,<a class="link link--external" href="https://www.security-discount.com/media/image/04/fb/1a/HDS-Set_1.jpg" rel="nofollow ugc noopener" target="_blank">blasting</a>(with nonlethal iron, stun, and pepper balls fed into a modified double-barreled break-action shotgun that was now automatic) and improvising her way through the fascist jackboots that called themselves private security but essentially usurped Eastern Bay PD. She opposed them, as well as the usual criminals and an increasing dance card of bizarre meta villains determined to put her in the ground, every day and every night in defense of what remained of American freedoms in her city. Every day pushing her body and mind to the limits as a result to keep up in the arms race of justice, never allowing herself more than a few hours of sleep in her aquatic lair.<br/><br/>But then came a chance encounter three months ago with the lithe slip of a woman (who just happened to be the granddaughter of one of her biggest archenemies, no big deal!). As Shiloh put her would-be mugger in the hospital and they laughed at her bodyguards shivering from his ice blasts, Shiloh realized that life had finally given her someone to fight for. To breathe alongside. To cry with. To confide her secret identity in, which she had never done before.<br/><br/>Crow, usually such a brilliant tactical planner, hadn’t thought much farther than how to get Alexa here and make it look like a kidnapping…perhaps Primal, the one meta she could trust (though not with her identity), would help her figure it out. But for now, he had turned himself into a German shepherd and was being the sleepiest boy after, so Shiloh started to get changed into her costume, planning to go out on patrol just as it was getting dark and scanning the horizon and her “borrowed” police radio for crimes or for any news that Phalanx was sending someone more competent than their rent-a-cops.<br/><br/>More dangerous.<br/><br/>She'd consult with him on their next move if they weren't getting shot at.<br/><br/>But then a delicate right hand reached out for her rough-hewn left, and Alexa mumbled, “Shyyy…come back to bed.”<br/><br/>“Baby, I’m getting us dinner again.”<br/><br/>That wasn’t a total lie, since Shiloh usually did bring back food from any patrol, day or night. But for one thing, Alexa knew that meant Shiloh would be getting herself in trouble again, so there was no need to mention it. For another, her and Primal liked to grab hot dogs, burgers, sandwiches, and similar portable foods that could be eaten with one hand and stored in their backpacks while on the run, and Alexa was getting sick of them.<br/><br/>“You can turn yourself into a hot dog again if you want,” Alexa chuckled since she worried that her lover was eating too much junk food, “but could you bring me some gyoza? You know, from the place on 45th…what’s the name?”<br/><br/>“I know what you mean,” Shiloh smirked. Though she couldn’t recall the name either, that had been where they’d had their first date. The owner had cleared the place out for the two of them and kept the lights dark, since he was on good terms with Crow after she had broken the local Irish mafia’s protection racket over him.<br/><br/>“Well, perhaps I can eat something<i>else</i>while I wait,” Alexa grinned as she put her<a class="link link--external" href="https://ae01.alicdn.com/kf/HTB1CJ_fOVXXXXcIXXXXq6xXFXXXO/2017-Spring-Autumn-Women-Japanese-Kimono-Satin-Silk-Bathrobe-Solid-Robe-Female-Classical-Bathrobe-Nightdress-Pijama.jpg" rel="nofollow ugc noopener" target="_blank">bathrobe</a>on with her back conspicuously turned to her woman, got up, and traced the scars all over Shiloh’s bare abdomen, knowing the sight of her like this was liable to make her ravenous ghost shunt the robe off before heading into the shower. Counting on it, even.<br/><br/>“Please let this be how I die,” Shiloh chuckled while the two women cleaned themselves up. Or made each other dirtier, depending on how one looked at it.<br/><br/>After Alexa’s skilled tongue sent her to paradise and vice versa under the heated and filtered seawater of the shower, Shiloh chuckled as she finished putting on the Crow disguise, “Why don’t you go see if my partner in (fighting) crime needs his walkies? Tell him I’ll be back later, and to guard you with his life.”<br/><br/>Alexa put on<a class="link link--external" href="https://tokyofashion.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/NK-2019-04-06-002-001-Harajuku-DZ7-7822-2.jpg" rel="nofollow ugc noopener" target="_blank">actual clothes</a>this time and then knocked on Primal’s door, while Crow headed for the elevator to the hidden entrance by the docks, energized and ready for the night while listening to one of her favorite songs-<a class="link link--external" href="https://youtu.be/Z31rn03tV48" rel="nofollow ugc noopener" target="_blank">Hold Tight by Henry Parsley and Simon James</a>.