NOVEL ONLINE FREE Chapter 26
“We’re here.” Licia said as she peeked through a bush to see what was on the other side. They had reached the end of the forest, and now stood in front of them, in plain visibility, the base of the Ionian Republic.
“The base is quite big.” Noted Lidia as she took position next to her sister, and indeed, the base was bigger than what A-4 had registered. “There are a lot of people too, what should we do, eldest sister?”
Licia thought about it for a bit and said her thoughts out loud.. “...Direct assault is out of the question… We should infiltrate the base.”
Seeing the number of people, it was clear they could not just barge in the place like that. Licia was confident in her abilities, but she also had reason, so she could tell it was impossible for two kids to lead a frontal assault on a base this big, even with the element of surprise.
“I agree, but where do we begin?” Lidia asked. Sneaking around was her specialty, so it did not bother her to do that, but in the first place, they did not know where Mia and Nia were being detained, so they would have to first find this out if they wanted to free their sisters.
“That…” Licia did not have the answer to that question. “Let’s just get closer for now and try to get more information…”
“Roger.” Licia answered, and the both of them sneakily approached the base, making sure not to be seen on the way.
They managed to reach the base like this, and arrived at the base of a concrete building where not many people were gathered. Both looked at each other, and made hand signs about the direction they should take next. Lidia took a quick peek to the left of the building, and made an ok sign to Licia. Both then proceeded to move up further within the base. They made sure to avoid places where too many people gathered, in fear of getting caught.
But then, as they were about to change places, they heard a soldier’s rant.
“Agh, those Borkians are so annoying!” The man exclaimed out loud, which made Licia and Lidia stop. When they peeked to where the voice came from, they saw three soldiers gathered close to one another with what resembled a small smoking stick in their hands. The two girls looked at each other. If they listened to their rants, perhaps they could get some useful informations instead of wandering aimlessly…
“We’re losing so much time in the middle of nowhere because of them!” The man continued his rant, and another one agreed with him.
“Yeah, tell me about it.”
“Really, if they weren’t there, we would already be deployed to another sector, I tell ya!”
“I agree with you guys. But even if those bastards weren’t there, there’s still the problem of entering those ruins.” The third man said as he sighed.
“Ugh, don’t talk about it, those drones are fucking annoying.”
“Heh, I don’t fear them, I’d rather face them than the drones from the techno-empire.” The second man said, before whispering. “But the ghost of the forest on the other hand… It scares me, honestly…”
Licia and Lidia did not know what the man was talking about. A ghost? Such things did not exist! And they just came from the forest, if such a creature really existed, it would have assaulted them. From the reaction of the other two men, it did not seem they knew what the man was talking about either.
“Ghost of the forest? Ah! Are you talking about this rumor that’s been going around recently?” The first man asked, having caught up on what his comrade was talking about, and his comrade nodded. “I still find it hard to believe that whole squads could disappear like that though.”
“It’s not a lie, I swear!” The second man said out loud, surprising the other two by his insistence. “One of my friends was part of those who went into the forest, and I’ve never seen him since then!”
The other two men frowned, and the first asked with doubt. “...Are you sure this friend of yours did not just desert or got reaffected and never told you?”
“I’m sure! I’ve known the man since we were kids. It’s not his type to leave without saying anything!”
“It could still be because he got a gag order, you know.” The first man insisted.
“That’s not possible man, the poor dude was just a conscript. Sure, he wasn’t that good as a soldier, but he would never dare to desert while leaving everything behind!”
“Still-”
“What Josh’s saying is true, Andrew.” The third man interrupted the two, and the first one sent him a dubious look.
“...Really?”
“Yeah, I was on patrol duty near the officer’s quarters that night, and they were all making a fuss about it.” The third man said, after puffing some smoke.
“Oh, you meant that time when the officers were going all around camp, making a census on the losses?” The first man asked, and the third nodded. “So it’s true then!”
“Say, do you guys have any idea about the identity of that ghost?” The third man asked his comrades. “It can’t be a true ghost, right?”
“Hmmm, I’m not sure, it might be a new Borkian unit…” The second answered.
“So it’s them again? Damn those bastards, always getting in our way…” The first man cursed.
“I still find it weird… We can’t say it’s a Borkian unit for sure, and the other side does not seem to boast about it either, like they usually do…” The third one mumbled, analyzing the situation from the intel he had gathered.
“Damn right!” The first man joined in. “But, who else could it be? I mean, they’re the only ones here beside us!”
“I don’t know, but one thing is certain, someone, or something is making our comrades disappear within that forest, never to be heard again…” the third man said mysteriously, which made the first man swallow his saliva loudly.
“Yeah, I hope I never get orders to go into that forest. I really don’t want to die at the hands of a ghost..” The second man said dispiritedly.
“Me too...” The first one agreed.
“Don’t worry guys, they stopped sending us to the forest recently.” The third of them announced, reassuring his comrades.
“Ah, you’re right, I noticed that too.”
“Yeah, they’re sending the Commandos there instead, it seems.”
Both of his comrades nodded at the info, they knew that the commandos were here.
““!!!”” Lidia and Licia also sharpened their hearing. They were about to leave since the soldiers did not give them any useful information until they heard the word commando. They looked at each other and nodded, serious expressions on their faces. Finally they had found something about those Republican Commandos!
“Really, I admire those guys, did you see them the other day against the Borkians? If not for them, we might be dead by now.” The first man said with a tone of admiration, it was clearly visible to his comrades that he admired them.
“Yeah, they took out that armored vehicle so easily! Man, I wish they would be more often present on the battlefield…” The second man sighed, wishing the government would send those troops more often on the battlefield instead of conscripts like them.
“Yeah, the Borkians aren’t easy to deal with, even for them…”
“So? Since you have all the information around here, Bill, you should know if they managed to beat that ghost or not, right?” The first man asked his other comrade, not expecting much, but he was surprised when the third man nodded and answered positively.
“Actually, I have some news about that.”
““Really?!”” Both the first and the second man jumped on him, wanting to know. And Licia hoped he would speak too. This conversation was taking ages!
“Whoah, whoah, calm down guys!” The third man said, before looking around, after verifying nobody was there, he whispered to his comrades. “I’ll tell you about it, but this information never came from my mouth, alright?”
“Yeah, don’t worry!”
“Just tell us already!”
He was scared there would be repercussions if somebody knew that he spoke, but his other comrades were too curious to worry about that. They wanted to know more about that ghost story.
“Alright, alright…” He sighed, resigning himself to speak. “So, just two hours ago, one of my contacts saw a group of commandos coming back from the forest, and from what he’d seen, they were carrying two people while making sure to be noticed by the fewest number of people possible…”
“Where were they going?” The first man asked.
“To the research center.” The third man answered. “They seemed in quite the hurry, from what I’ve been told.”
“Do you think they caught it? The ghost I mean…” The second man asked this time, to which the first exclaimed.
“As expected of our commandos! Of course they would manage to catch that troublesome person so quickly!”
““Shhhh, not so loud…”” The others said, calming their comrade.
“No, I don’t think it was the ghost.” The third man told them.
“Then who?” The first man asked impatiently, expressing the very same question Licia and Lidia wanted to ask.
The third man looked around again, verifying nobody was listening in on their conversation. He seemed bad at it though, since he did not sense the presence of the two little girls… After a while, he whispered to his comrades.
“...My contact told me they were actually carrying two little girls with white hair…”
““!!!””
*bump*
Licia and Lidia jumped when they heard those words, who else could have white hair but their sisters!? Unfortunately, Licia bumped into a pile of junk at her feet, sending a tin can flying in the direction of the group.
A silence was made as the two groups looked at the tin can rolling on the ground, making noise. Licia and Lidia panicked internally and held their breath. There was no way the men did not hear that! Meanwhile, the three men had frozen in place and were now looking at the tin can.
“H-hey! Did you see that?!” The first exclaimed, somewhat tense.
“Y-yeah” The second answered. “Something made that tin can move… Who’s there?!” He asked out loud, of course, no answer came back.
“Something’s not right, we should investigate!” The first one declared, and began to walk in the direction of the clone girls, but as Licia and Lidia were preparing themselves to run as fast as possible to another location, the third man grabbed the first man by the shoulder.
“No you idiot! Let’s get the fuck out of here!”
“B-but, what if it’s an infiltrated soldier?” The first one said, not understanding why his comrade did not agree with him.
“Idiot, there’s no way somebody infiltrated the base just like that! What if it’s one of those inspectors instead?” The third whispered, which made his comrades’ faces go white.
The Ionian Republic promoted personal freedom, but to act against spies and those who had ‘radical opinions’, they deployed agents called inspectors that were in total immersion. Those inspectors would take note of every detail of what people said, even small things, and it was not unusual to find the person who had, for example, badmouthed the current government, to be found mysteriously dead the next day…
“W-we’re done for!” The second man said in desperation. they just talked about a subject commandos had made sure to be sneaky about!
“No, perhaps not, let’s separate here and go back to our duties!” The third man said. “And remember, whatever happens, this discussion never happened!”
““R-right.””
The group of three quickly ran away in different directions, leaving the tensed up Lidia and Licia all alone in this sector. After a minute of silence, Lidia peeked out, to make sure nobody was there anymore, and once she made a sign to her sister, affirming that nobody was here, the both of them let out a long breath of relief.
“... That was close.” Lidia said as she relaxed a bit, never had she been so close to being found out! Well, except when Ticia was the one she was sneaking on, in that case, she was sure to be found out all the time…
“Sorry, Lidia, I got careless.” Licia apologized to her sister. She was quite ashamed of what just happened. As the eldest sister, how could she make trouble for her sister!
“No problem, eldest sister, I too nearly reacted to that…” Lidia said lightly, as if the problem was already behind them. She instead focused on what was more important to her… “They were talking about Mia and Nia, right?”
“Yeah…” Licia nodded, they were sure it was Nia and Mia, it had to be them.
“Then, we know where they are now.”
“Yeah, the scientific center, it’s not that far from here, actually.” Licia said as she checked on the map on her wristwatch, they just had to take a few turns to reach a building that was noted on the map as the research center. Something was bothering her however, why did they send their sisters to a research center instead of a prison or the like? She had a bad feeling about all of this, hence why she called out to Lidia.
“Let’s make it quick before something happens”
“Roger.” Lidia answered, and they both sneaked around, avoiding patrols and gathering of people, before reaching their destination.
Fortunately for them, the place seemed poorly guarded, so it would be easy to infiltrate the building.
“How do we proceed, eldest sister?” Lidia asked, they were behind the building right now, where, strangely enough, nobody was patrolling.
“See that vent, Lidia?” Licia asked as she pointed to a huge vent right next to her. After her sister nodded, she continued. “Since you’re better than me at sneaking around, you’re going to infiltrate the lab through it while I stay close to guard your way out. Once you find Mia and Nia, contact me immediately before continuing, and use my number instead of my name, alright?
“Roger.” Lidia nodded, the plan seemed fine to her. At the very least, if one got caught, the other could still escape.
The two of them proceeded to force the ventilation grid open with their knives. It took some time, as the both of them were keeping an eye on their surroundings while making sure to make the least noise possible, but they did manage to open it.
Once they did so, Lidia entered the vent, which was so big she could move inside just by crouching. She looked at her sister one last time before going.
“Good luck eldest sister.”
“Yeah, same for you, Lidia.”
And with those words, the two sisters separated from each other, each concentrating on their current mission. Whatever happened next, they would make sure to free their sisters no matter what.
***
Ticia just put her armor on, fully equipped with her weapons and any supplies she would need for what she was about to do. She was going to go outside to get her daughters back before it was too late, and even if the situation was critical, she took the time to prepare herself and not rush things, something she knew could lead to a worse situation. A-4 had just updated her on what was currently happening, and she was sure Mia and Nia had been captured by the Ionian Republic. Now she just had to free them, and catch Licia and Lidia before they did something stupid like attacking an enemy base by themselves.
But as she left the armory, an obstacle was standing in front of her, or rather… eight clone girls stood in front of her.
They had followed her all along, even Nicia, who had been unconscious at the time, and Ticinia and Vinia who just woke up, followed her with anxious expressions. And there was a simple reason for that.
“Big sis…” Nicia called out to her. She was leading this little group, and was pestering Ticia about something.
“Nicia.” Ticia said, not looking at her and instead beginning to walk towards the nearest elevator leading to the first floor. “I know you’re worried, but I must go there before it’s too late.”
“But… don’t go alone! We can help!” Nicia said as she and her sisters followed after Ticia.
“Yes, we want to help too!” Vinia said, agreeing with her sister, and most of the clone girls, except Ria and Willia, nodded their heads in agreement.
“...The only way you can help me is by staying put and not following me, girls.”
Ticia stated in a low voice that froze the clone girls for an instant. It might have sounded a bit harsh at the moment, but she had said this out of concern and common sense. Those words however, only made Nicia feel pain in her chest, and it was the same for the other clone girls. Why did their big sis refuse so strongly to let them help her? Well… They already knew the logical reason behind it, and that was that they were still kids. But for some reason, she and her sisters refused this logical and simple reason. They did not want to stay put as Ticia was going to risk her life outside to save their sisters.
“S-still, we’ll be helpful, we promise!” Nicia shouted out loud, her voice full of her emotions.
Ticia stopped when she heard her, and she looked at the clone girls with an expressionless face, which froze all of them in place. They felt a sudden chill from Ticia’s gaze.
They had seen this look once before, and that was when the training incident happened…
Nicia first thought her big sis was angry at them, but changed thoughts after a fraction of seconds only. She felt that Ticia was not angry at them. Then… What is the reason why she was so adamant to let them stay here even though they wanted to help?
Before she mustered the courage to ask though, Ticia sighed.
“I know you all want to help me, but… Taking you all with me would only make me worry more…” She said as her expression became sad. She had just recognized them as her daughters, what kind of mother would she be if she put them in danger just after that? “I want you all to stay safe and well, understood? Because if anything were to happen to you, I…”
There was a small silence as Ticia’s phrase was left half complete. Nicia and the others looked at their big sis with confused expressions, they did not understand what Ticia was talking about. Because of the sudden events, she had not announced to them that she had recognized them as her daughters, and that it was alright to call her ‘mother’ now. Right now did not feel like the right time either.
Then, out of nowhere, Ticia hugged them.
“B-big sis?!” Nicia was confused, and so were the others as they were all included in the hug. Only Ticinia seemed to have understood, as she kept the hug tight.
“I’m sorry!” Ticia apologized to them, this time, she was shaking as she tightened the hug around all the clone girls. As if the dams had been brokens, she could not stop herself anymore and apologized profusely.
“B-big sis.” Ria said as she was right in front of Ticia because of the hug. “What’s wrong? Why are you apologizing? Eh? You’re crying?”
What? Big sis is crying? Why…? Those were the thoughts of each clone girl except for Ticinia. What is happening right now? They had never seen their big sis like that. Ticia looked so…weak and fragile as she sobbed, as if she had just suffered a heavy emotional blow. It was very different from her usual attitude that gave them a sense of security, and the clone girls did not like that.
“D-don’t cry big sis!” Ria panicked and tried to console Ticia, the other clone girls also did not know what was exactly happening, so they just tightened the hug, hoping it would make their big sis go back to her usual self.
“If I’d just… If I had recognized it from the beginning! This wouldn’t have happened!” Ticia said as she sobbed. She blamed herself for all of this. In the first place, she should have refused to let Lidia go outside on that day, if she did so, many things could have been avoided. Like Ticinia and Vinia getting hurt, for example, or Willia’s depressed state as a result, or Mia and Nia getting too curious of the outside world, or… her saying words she never meant while her favorite daughter was around… Those were the reasons she was apologizing.
She was apologizing because she considered herself a bad mother to the clone girls, something she hated the most, but she only made the clone girls more confused, as none knew what she was talking about, none except one.
“It’s alright, mom, we understand.” Ticinia suddenly said, surprising every clone girl present.
“W-wait, Ticinia!?” Vinia called out of surprise. How did Ticinia just call their big sis now?!
‘Mom’, something Ticia had been adamant she was not to the clone girls, and that they had so strongly wanted her to be. They had respected Ticia's wishes, so why call her like this now of all times?!
“Don’t worry sister, it’s fine. Right, mom?” Ticinia calmly said, and all the people present could feel the change in character from her. She did not appear childish like usual, but appeared more mature.
“...But I hurt you all, I did not recognize you as what you truly were, and because of it…” Ticia said as she looked at Ticinia in the eyes, saying the end of her thoughts to the clone girl. “Do I still deserve to be called like this by you all?”
“Yes! I want you to be my mother! It’s not your fault mom, rather, it’s all my fault! I wanted to fight my eldest sister as much as she wanted to fight with us, just because I felt that if I did so, something would change in the way she treats us, but, because of it…”
“Don’t say it’s your fault, Ticinia! Licia is like this because I did not treat her the right way, it’s because of me! I ran away because I was scared, and now I reap what I sowed!”
“No it’s not!” Ticinia exclaimed again, the clone girls who were still confused about the current situation, did not know how long this exchange of responsibilities between the two of them continued, but they slowly understood what this was all about as the exchange continued.
“Then, how about this, mom, it's both our fault, no, it's everybody’s fault!” Ticinia said decisively, since none of them could agree on who was responsible, they should all take the blame! Ticia was surprised at first by Ticinia’s conclusion, but she pulled herself together when Ticinia called out again. “So what are you doing? Hurry and bring back all of my sisters so that we can receive a punishment all together!”
“Ticinia…” Ticia was moved by the clone girl’s words, she then giggled a little. What was she doing right now? It was not the time to lament! She suddenly got up and patted Ticinia’s head. “Thank you Ticinia, you’re too kind.”
“Hehe.” Ticinia giggled childishly as she received the praise, returning back to her normal self. Ticia smiled at that, now she only had to get her daughters back, and nothing would get in her way!
“Uhm” One of the clone girls let out hesitantly as Ticia began to walk away, which made her stop. She had forgotten about them.
She turned her head and said while smiling as she winked at them.
“Alright, time for mommy to go, you stay well and don’t do anything stupid, girls, alright? I don’t want another one of my daughters to go missing.”
““!!!”” The clone girl’s mouth opened so big like never before as they stared in surprise at Ticia. She said it. She finally recognized them as daughters! They could not believe it because of the suddenness of the fact, but a wave of emotion gradually overwhelmed them as tears welled up in their eyes.
“Hehe, we promise, mom!” Ticinia said, still giggling, she had the biggest smile on her face Ticia had ever seen!
“Yeah, I trust you all on this. We'll talk about all the stuff we should do together later, alright?” With those last words and a nod from the clone girls, who were still recovering from the sudden ‘promotion’ they just got, Ticia could finally go with a light heart. Officially recognising them as her daughters, and letting them know by surprising them about this fact had lightened the burdens she felt.
“Mom! Wait!” Nicia called out to her as she was about to move, calling her mom as if she was already used to it.
“What is it, Nicia? I must go fast before something bad happens.”
“Mom, can you promise me one thing?” Nicia said with expectant eyes, and Ticia could not help herself but to at least hear what her daughter wanted her to promise.
“...Sure, what is it?” She asked back, to which Nicia replied weakly.
“P-please, come back safely, mom…”
“...” Ticia crouched in front of Nicia, her expression had changed to a tender yet sad one as she caressed Nicia’s left cheek with her right hand.
“I’m sorry, Nicia.” Ticia apologized again. “I can’t promise you that, not until I make sure all of your sisters are safe.”
Sure, Ticia was confident she could infiltrate the enemy base, but escaping it while also protecting her daughters that might have been hurt? That was impossible for her, even with the advanced equipment she was wearing right now. And so, she would not make a promise she knew would be hard to achieve, even if it could have reassured Nicia.
Ticia then got up, and quickly left without saying another word, leaving the clone girls to look at her back with worried expressions.
