Anti-antithesis

"People always ask you to be the bigger person. But that's the thing. They're always asking you to be the bigger person. They never need to be the bigger person. Do you see what I'm getting at? You do not owe these people shit and if they want you to be the bigger person, be bigger and stop concerning yourself with their opinions."

~ Troubleshooter, 2032, giving advice for dealing with family to Updraft

Cierra

I loved my wife, always and forever, even if she did her best to distract me from doing my job. Well, it was almost dinner time, and I have already finished everything critical that required my direct attention, so maybe I could indulge-

A new email came through, one marked important by Lyssa, which was rare. Pushing Evelin back a bit, I opened the email and glanced through it. A bit of surprise ran through me as I saw it's a request from an American Samurai, then that surprise turned to awe as I read what the request entailed.

“Evelin, honey, as much as I want to continue, I believe I have something here that you will find almost as amusing.”

They groaned in annoyance at the distraction, but as they read over the request herself, I could see their brain switch tracks. “They want to destroy Bestlé? One of the biggest Multinational corporations on par with Nimbletainment?” they asked, their smile going wide.

I saw them zone out briefly as they did their research into this Samurai, War Games, at a speed far faster than I could. Their face twitched through various micro-expressions that told me that what they found was both amusing and concerning to them.

“Alright, so he's a new Samurai, barely a month old, yet he has done things even I wouldn't have done that early.”

I raised my eyebrows in mock surprise, gasping sarcastically. “Really? Someone out crazed you?”

“Har har. No one can beat the queen.” they said, raising her chin up.

“The queen of what? Fools?” I joked, pinching their side.

“I was going with jesters but that also works. Anyways getting back to it, doesn't seem as though he did it intentionally, at least.” They smirked slightly. “Mom would call him a protagonist, considering how rapidly things escalated for him. Shit, two huge hives in a week, big enough to warrant a ‘GranLuna’ response, as Shinon would say.”

“Okay, so is this a new Samurai trying to make a name for themselves because they grew rapidly in a very short period of time? Or is there a reason Bestlé is targeting a month old Samurai hard enough to reach out to us?” I asked.

“Unfortunately, it seems as though there is an actual reason. A stupid one on Bestlé's part, but a damn good one for us, at least reason enough for us to interfere. They declared war on The Family's New Phoenix Branch a bit ago and tried to kidnap a few Samurai's family to force them to fuck off, which failed, by the way. Followed by sending in an entire clown car of PMCs to attack the city. And now, they are wreaking havoc across North America, like a toddler throwing a fit because they were told no.”

I groaned in frustration at that news. How many companies would it take before people get the message to stop kidnapping Samurai or those close to them before they stopped? “Okay, that is reason enough to sit at the table and hear them out. Do you mind hopping off me so I can call them?”

A look of mischief flashed across their face as they instead leaned closer to me instead. “Why call when you could do the meeting in person?”

Before I could tell them that that would be a supremely bad idea, I felt the air around us thicken slightly, then the world shifted as we found ourselves not in my office, but in what looks like a war room from those old alien invasion movies, with a huge screen on the wall and dozens of analysts desks. The major difference being the room was not filled with human staff, but humanoid owls?

As Evelin hopped off of me, I stood and unwrapped my suit a bit. “Heya, kiddies! Heard you all had a problem, and that we were required to fix it.”

As I looked around the room at the human occupants, ignoring the dragon person as that brought up more questions than I wanted to deal with right now, I easily got a grasp on the mood. Shock, trepidation, and concern directed towards a man on a very large light blue couch thing. And from him? Fear. Fear directed towards Evelin, who was currently looking around the room as a whole, probably going through their entire database as well.

They whistled. “Damn, guys, this place is filled with neat toys. You did all this with nanites? That is crazy inefficient, but it looks cool though.”

I placed a hand on their shoulder, squeezing a bit while a strained professional smile took over my face. “Good evening, or morning for you all. I apologize for the sudden visit, but my wife tends to be the kind to act before thinking.” I hoped the subtle criticism landed with them, but I after ,uhm, six-ish years of marriage I should be happy that Maniac did not just bring home a random fourth kid. “May I know which of you is Cari Mikosano?”

A young woman in a dark blue suit walked over, conspicuously placing herself between Evelin and the guy on the couch while smiling. “That would be me. Would I be correct in assuming you are Ceirra Vance?”

“That is correct.” I said, taking her hand in a polite handshake.

Evelin took the opportunity to take over the holo table, having files and plans appear and disappear at a rapid pace. “Huh. Pretty decent plan, missing a lot of confirmed info, but the assumptions make sense.” An image of a monster popped up, one that looked humanoid yet had tentacles and eye stalks and looked wrong. “And they have human experimentation on the list! Using Samurai tech, at that!” They turned their head and it landed on the now less scared looking guy. “So, Bugs, based on-”

“Nope, different name.” Said a woman with very lethal looking limbs. She stood and glared at Maniac, causing me to sigh quietly. “No insect nicknames here. Bad history, try again.”

I swear I could hear Maniac's eyebrow raise behind her mask, which I cannot remember her putting on. “Right, touchy about bugs. Noted. Gamer, based on what info you guys have collected, I would be willing to do this for a pittance. So, why does your internals indicate you are giving basically all of Bestlé to us?”

I looked at Cari, hiding my shock. “Maybe this is where we step aside to negotiate?”

She just sighed. “I mean, not much of a point to do that considering she just laid out our bottom line like that. We might as well just finish laying out our cards.” She gestured towards a few seats, which I dragged Maniac to. They didn't sit, but she did stand next to me, which was a win in my book.

Clearing my throat, I opened a file they sent me and read through their rudimentary plan as Cari spoke. “The current plan is to launch an offensive against the Bestlé Executive Satellite Territory first, using our shuttles and commanders to both shut down the orbital weapons platform as well as to rescue any civilians that are definitely up there, while also capturing any executives, their families, and any other persons of interests for later use.”

“Later use?” Maniac asked, and I had to admit, I was curious about that verbiage.

“For those who are unquestionably guilty of many crimes against humanity, such as slavery, rape, pedophilia, and unjustified murder, we use them as T-Class subjects in various experiments to better assist in repopulating the Arizona biosphere. For children and those who are more or less prisoners of circumstance, there are rehabilitation programs to reintegrate them into society.”

A new file called “Not the Bees and other such puns” appeared. I skimmed it while I heard Maniac chuckle. “Yeah, that sounds about right for those fuckers.” They said, and while I was a bit squeamish at the experiments shown, I appreciated the redactions of the more visceral descriptions and images.

“So, as we assault the Satellite, you and yours would assault the ground based facility after confirming as much of their defenses as possible, even disabling them if you could ahead of time.” Cari continued. “We are willing to have Vulkan and Jim with their minions assist you in this assault, as they are not quite fit for a rescue operation. We would offer more, but we already know their EMC is very strong, nearly countering our normal tactics, and our human troops are still undergoing training, with their equipment also still in production.”

The profiles of Vulkan and Jim were shown and I could only agree with that assessment. Vulkan would melt the satellite from orbit from within while Jim would be useless in close quarters.

“In exchange for your assistance in this matter, outside of the satellite itself and a few holdings in North America, as well as forty percent of their liquid assets taken from the executives accounts, we are willing to part with everything else Bestlé has. Patents, international branches and assets, trade routes and contracts, land deeds, the works.”

That really was incredibly generous of them. They were basically giving us justification to take out one of the worst oppressors in the world with minimal backlash from other Multinationals or Samurai, obtaining a massive liquidity flow and extra territorial operating grounds?

“What's the catch?” Evelin asked, having taken their mask off.

“Evelin, honey, the catch is that our people will be in the most danger, even with the orbital weapons disabled.” I said. “And even with that, the pay is almost unjustifiedly high.” I adjusted myself in the admittedly comfortable chair as I looked towards Samurai War Games, who had also taken a seat in a chair at the other end of the table. “You do understand just how much you are giving away to us, correct?”

He nodded. “Of course I do,” he replied, his voice was deeper than I was expecting, considering both his height and frame, “but I also realize just how incapable we would be at protecting or managing that much territory. The only reason we are fighting them is because they went after my family and nearly succeeded, and we know for a fact that they won't stop if that is their plan A. If it were any other situation, nearly every other Multinational would side with Bestlé to make an example out of us, and if we tried to take control of anything outside of our immediate area of operations we would be eaten alive by any number of corpos. PsyCo, at least, has a strong reputation and is protected by a Tier V Sa- Vanguard, one who has a reputation for stopping wars hard and fast. You are one of the few Samurai based companies that I trust to withstand the pressure.”

I nodded in understanding. “Very well. I had to make sure. Evelin, do you think you and Shinobi could infiltrate Bestlé's security to get a more accurate understanding of their defenses, or do we prepare for the worst and go in guns blazing?”

Evelin narrowed their eyes at me. “I know we agreed she could do more now, but this seems a bit big for her.”

“Even with you there to watch her back?” I retorted.

I knew I won when I saw them roll their eyes at me. “Fine. How long will it take to muster everyone for the assault?”

“A day, at most.”

“Hmm… Fine. Let's get some sleep first, then Shinobi and I will head out first to investigate. We can coordinate from within to deal more damage, as well. If we are lucky, this whole thing should be done by the following breakfast.”

“Would that time line work everyone here?”

The dragon person spoke up in response. “It would indeed. The Shuttles will be finished by morne, your time. And we can make sure Vulkan and Jim are in Sweden shortly before the assault begins. Would you prefer Vulkan to drop pod into the compound directly, or to walk in with the troops?”

“Straight through the top.” Maniac said. Caught the switch this time. “Baldy and his boys can try to land as close to me as they can. Their gear looks like fun. And don't worry about their EMC stuff too much, we can make sure it's disabled, or at least weakened severely.”

The dragon person nodded. “In that case, may I have the contact information of the person who will be the commander on site to coordinate with? That way, I can make sure Jim and his armors are dropped into the correct position once we begin.”

I nodded and sent him Yun Min's info while also sending her a notice of ready to deploy for nightfall tomorrow, sending her a copy of the tactical data. She sent me a thumbs up emoji.

After a few more pleasantries and promises to stay in contact about both the assault and Bestlé carving, Maniac took me back home the same way they took me away, sitting in my lap on my chair, and all I could think of was the amount of work I had just agreed to accept willingly.

As should be obvious, this arc was written with the approval and assistance of the amazing Lividiea, author of Maniac, as well as another great author Aster_Vulpes, author of Shinobi. I cannot thank them enough for the honor of writing their characters, with editing authority, of course. I hope you all enjoy this crossover

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