The Starting Line

They say nothing comes free in the City.

Not even travel.

The simple act of navigating from road to street, alleyway to thoroughfare was accompanied by endless hassle and sometimes literal roadblocks. The particulars varied: two-bit Syndicates rapping on the door with weapons up, pothole-ridden roads, or dead ends almost rising up out of seemingly nowhere to block them off, but all the same the road forward eluded Limbus Company's Bus department at every turn of the wheel.

Though it hardly turned easy. That no one could figure out how to control the bus meant shuddering start-and-stops, tires shrieking and guts of the bus spitting out foul plumes of smoke, became the common din that accompanied the Sinners' travels through the Backstreets, and more than once everyone on it was thrown arrears by a sudden swerve. Reminders of their many close calls were cut into the paint on the sides of the bus, one of them an ugly gash the size of an arm revealing an incongruous azure beneath it.

Currently, the bus traveled through a dingy gray alley indistinguishable from any other in the City, walls rising far enough on each side to loom over and flatten any dreams of seeing the sky. The helter-skelter rattle of the engine in the narrow space felt louder than usual, but not even it could drown out the thoughtful ticking and tocking of Minos' various organs.

Manager Minos was doing some arithmetic behind the wheel.

<Nine Sinners, split among... let's say a few hundred engagements in total, with a fatality rate of only about...>

It felt doable. Hell, it felt plausible. And maybe it was something in the contract that linked them all together or maybe he just had an infectious personality, but it felt like the Sinners were starting to agree with that. Better yet, it felt like Minos wouldn't need to suffer the pain of reviving them more than a couple dozen times.

Sure, there were still disagreements. With a group of personalities this eccentric, it was only natural, yet the gears were beginning to interlink, and the Sinners had finally started to operate more like a group. Just the other day, when a Syndicate tried to shake them down for a "bus tax," Minos barely even had to dictate his orders to the group before they laid each and every foe out into a bloody paste on the pavement.

Really, the only fatality so far had been a case of friendly fire; a fact that Hyde would loudly refuse to let anyone forget.

It had been horrible. Damsel had been going too fast, didn't look where she was going. Or maybe she chose to not look.

Either way, Minos desperately hoped that none of the other Sinners were squished to death. A lifetime spent in an M Corp facility wouldn't be enough to quash that trauma.

Despite how horrible the pain that had come with bringing him back was, Minos had to admit it came as a relief to see the process really did function how it had been described to him. And no Arbiter came crashing down on their heads seconds after. Reflecting back on their odds, Minos could begin to feel a burgeoning optimism in his mechanical chest.

And then the bus shrieked to a halt, jostling its occupants forward in a collision of bodies, shouts, and clanks.

"Curses...!" Morella was the first to raise her voice, more confused than truly angry. "I thought you'd be a more trustworthy driver than Hyde, Manager..."

"Can it, bitch," Hyde hissed, picking himself up from where he'd been sprawled across the bus' center aisle. A colorful series of stains littered the ground around him.

<I don't...> Staring down at the controls that at least mostly functioned just seconds ago, Minos shook his head. <That wasn't me. Something's wrong with the bus.>

A collective groan went up.

"Again?" Damsel whined, folding her arms, frustration undisguised. "Why'd they even give us this bus if it's just gonna break down every other day? Gee~eez, I'd be faster on foot!"

Releasing a hiss, the bus slowly began to settle into place like an old man sitting down at the end of a long day. With it came a few of the idiosyncrasies of the bus that Minos and the others had become familiar with: thumping from beneath the flooring, a scent of strong metal in the air, and the doors near the front clunking half-open.

This time, though, they opened up all the way.

"Mind your manners, now. We got company." A mechanical drawl came from the corner of the bus where Ringo sat, gaze leveled just outside one of the bus' windows...

And, more specifically, what lay on the other side of it.

<Huh?>

Outside the bus stood as eclectic a group as the Sinners within were. A young, sandy-haired woman with a blank expression on her face holding up a sign that read "MISERY", a serious woman holding a katana and glancing about with obvious curiosity, a thin-faced young man with thin brown hair and dark rings under his eyes, another equally young man with dark skin and a harrowed look about him, a woman with glasses whose only hope seemed to be that this would all be over with soon, and a cloaked figure near the back of the group, silent and giving no hint to the identity beneath.

Even odder was the fact that each and every one of them was wearing the Limbus Company uniform.

The shorter woman, apparently leading the way, casually discarded her held sign by the wayside, marching up the rickety stairs to the bus like it was any old public bus, without regard for the confused, hostile, and apathetic stares boring their way into her group. At the sight of her, Hyde could only let out an audibly disgusted snort, already prepared to plug his ears at the slightest word from her mouth.

Remaining stragglers followed the stranger up the steps, and soon two groups had formed at the front and back of the bus, engaged in a silent stare-off, each waiting for the other to make the first move. Ringo, sinking deeper into his seat, inclined his hat to cover his field of view, hands interlaced behind his head as he kicked up his boots.

Finally, Minos makes his decision as manager.

<Who—>

"This is my card." The woman at the front of the group leans forward, presenting a plain white business card on it towards Minos. With a frown, his hand reached out, closing around it. Smack-dab in the middle of a plain white canvas was a single word.

"Mila"

He turned the business card over to its other side. Blank. By the time Minos looked back up from it, "Mila" was wagging a finger at him, face as blank as her card.

"That's terribly rude, Manager. I told you, that's my card. You shouldn't take other peoples' things." Without even waiting for protest, Mila reached out, snatching the card out of Minos' hand and tucking it away in her uniformed pocket. Hyde and the glasses-wearing woman accompanying Mila let out a disgusted groan at the same time, and paused, staring at each other from across the bus at the synchronicity of their reactions.

"Are you from one of the other departments, then?" A polite reply from Watson, hands still calmly folded around his umbrella with steady confidence. "I didn't realize we'd be checking in so soon."

Mila's head shakes, but before she can say something very stupid, Hyde jumps in. "I hate to say it, but finally. Where the hell have you even- no, don't answer that. I don't care. Fix this damned contraption already, won't you? That's your job."

Ohhh. Comprehension (false, in some cases) began to dawn on the Sinners. Was this the requested driver? Mila's gaze fell on the controls of the bus, but she made no move towards them, instead stepping closer to the manager instead.

"The Limbus Company Autobody is no game of chance," she said, closing the gap between her in Minos in just a few steps. And then closed even what little space remained, instantly intruding on his personal space. "I am here under Limbus Company HQ's directives."

<Woah- hey, I'm not...> Ringo didn't seem to think he was in danger, at least, but that didn't mean Minos was happy about this development as he tried to back up.

"There is one matter to be addressed before we can proceed."

In a smooth, singular motion, Mila draped a hand on Minos' shoulder, lifted her head, and closed her teeth around a portion of the prosthetic heart that made up his new head.

"Spshsfichly, brhahn mtter."

And then she ripped.

A soft, small portion of the prosthetic tore beneath Mila's teeth, and her hand slipped upwards, depressing a button held beneath at the base of Minos' skull.

All at once, another set of chains erupted from Minos' chest, piercing the hearts of each and every newcomer. Again, the thrum of agonizing energy between them. Again, the flashes of something just in the back of Minos' head.

Again, Minos nearly collapsing to his knees as his innards nearly caught fire, scream echoing harder off the walls than the engine of the bus ever did. The chains linking them together trembled with each tick and tock from Minos' elaborate innards, and the rest of the Sinners could only watch on in wide-eyed horror at the process they'd gone through days before, now from the outside.

Just like the turning of a key, everything suddenly switched. Pain, overbearing, was no longer the only thing that Minos could think, replaced by a void where screaming agony once filled.

<Haah... What—>

Hold on.

<This couldn't be happening.>

But it was. Impossibly, worse than he could ever imagine, the truth stood plain above his head, looking down at him with six pairs of eyes. Worse than the pain that had just wracked his body held a certain inescapable truth.

<I have to deal with... 15 sinners...?>

Finally, one of Mila's compatriots spoke up - the thin-haired, sallow-faced brunette whose legs practically rubbed together at the sight of Minos' pitiful agony. At first, it was only a low, wordless whine, but as it grew it volume it began to form into words. "Wwwhwhhhhhyyy couldn't it've been meeee...?"

The glasses-wearing woman scoffed again, rolling her eyes. "Repulsive. Could you think with your head for once?"

"Are all of you alright?!" Morella, eyes wide, stood up from her chair, though she made no move further. "Were those chains, ah... what I think they are?"

However, the older Sinners had noticed something else entirely. A few of them were rolling their arms, staring down at their hands, frowning at an odd sensation that they couldn't seem to shake.

Fenrir was the first to say her piece, shoving her way past Minos to the front of the bus to glare at Mila. "What the hell did you do to us?"

"Me, myself, and I," Mila said, slowly straightening back up. Her eyes swept across the group present, and though she had little experience in the area, she knew there was only one way to tell the truth. "I don't suppose an intro would hurt..."

She cleared her throat.

"My name is Mila. I am the millstone that Limbus Company has decided to place around your necks." Her head bowed forward, eyes shutting. "A pleasure to greet you."

"That's not an explanation." Steel fingers closed around Mila's shirt collar, Fenrir's eyes flashing with undisguised hatred as she attempted to lift her off the ground, only managing to push Mila back instead.

"It was a greeting," Mila agreed, failing to react to her impending beatdown. "If you are referring to the potential lowering in physical attributes... due to my qualified mediocre status of nonexceptionalability, the rest of you have been 'brought down to my undistinguished level,' as per the contract's terms. My physicality was as a matter of fact so unextraordinarily extra ordinary that there was even talk of turning me into Dough amidst the higher ups, but it seems they couldn't get a rise out of me. Impeccable, they said. Or was it implaca-"

It was, without a doubt, a punch meant to kill.

Unspeakable energy would have been poured into it normally - enough to crack concrete. Visible weight made only heavier by the invisible threads of gravity sewn around it, lugging it forward like it had fallen from a thousand feet up.

With a crack, Mila merely stumbled backwards, knocking into the cloaked Sinner behind her, and fell to the ground with a broken nose.

"Turn. It. Off," Fenrir hissed down at her - but the venom was undercut by the shock laced in her voice. Mad dog eyes roll back towards Minos. "Get rid of it! Break the- Manager bastard! Break the damn contract with her! Can't you...?"

<It's gone.> Minos would grimace if he still could, hand rubbing at the area where the button Mila pressed once rested, now smooth and featureless. <Whatever she did... it's not there any more.>

"Bhe heart, onhce bibben, is bwice shy," Mila bubbled from the ground, hands coming up to nurse the blood spurting from her nose.

"Can't we just kill her~?" Damsel chirped. At the words, the redheaded woman behind Mila's supine body rested a hand on the blade at her waist - a casual, wordless statement of intent, until Lance cut in.

"Absolutely not! There will be no innocent blood spilled 'pon this bus under my watch!" Desdemona nodded emphatically alongside her brother, though she seemed a tad more doubtful about his definition of 'innocent.'

Even as he spoke, though, Fenrir stalked forward, mechanical hands twitching as Mila could only stare blankly up at her. At the same time...

An invisible shadow began to fall across the group, chilling relationships that had been so far warming up the past few days. Connections, so fragile, had started to crack.

"Not that it's an option." Karras sighed, and the others were left to ponder the implications of his words. If she really was properly contracted to Minos... if their strength really was this weakened just by this updated contract...

There was no getting rid of her. Not that easy. Fenrir scoffed, stalking her way to the front of the bus.

There was one Sinner who was doing no such pondering, though. The cloaked one of Mila's party stepped forward, brushing past Mila on the ground and Fenrir with a kind of airiness to her movement, snickering underneath her hood at something she apparently found very funny.

"Innocent blood, hm...?" With the sound of cloth sliding against itself, a dark-haired lady with blood-red eyed smiled across the bus at Lance, tugging her hood back to finally reveal her face. "Mhm. I'm sure you know all about that, Lancelot."

Both Lance and Desdemona's equally red eyes widened. "Moriarty?! How-"

"Oh, Father sold me," she admitted with casual grace, airy as could be. "To this... quaint little company. And now we get to be reunited! Isn't that lovely?"

Still lurking near the stairs of the bus, Basil's expression contorted from a reserved, anxious look to something more steeled, brows furrowing deep at the interaction. Knuckles whitened against the hilt of his sword, but Moriarty paid him no mind, strutting towards a collapsed Minos to offer a hand.

"I'd rather get off on the right foot," Moriarty said. "Moriarty. Please, call me Mory!"

Minos brushed her hand aside, and a moment later stood up under his own power, adjusting his lapels with a static-y huff.

<I'm all for firm handshakes, but not while I'm on the ground...> After all, he was still the manager here. Minos stared down at Moriarty, words looming over her with unspoken authority. <Got it?>

Had to establish his place before things spiraled out of control again. This random pack of Sinners showing up out of nowhere was bad enough without them making him seem like he couldn't keep a handle on the situation.

"Crystal," Mory smiled, inclining her head.

However polite the introduction, Lance and Desdemona watched their newcomer sister with undisguised suspicion and caution. Desdemona, at least, tried to put an optimistic spin on it, despite everything. "Oh, come sit near us, Mory...! It's been so long."

Made it easier to keep an eye on her that way as well, but Mory didn't seem bothered by this, picking her way through the crowd to join them. Lance and her shared a surreptitious glance as she slipped into her seat with a smile, Mory's expression calm, Lance's troubled. "It feels that way, doesn't it...? I'm sure we'll have plenty to catch up on."

Casually, Mory crossed her legs, seemingly utterly content with the reduction in strength from the recent contract.

She was still plenty dangerous enough without it.

Not all of the Sinners were taking their sudden shift in situation so well, though. Carter's nervous babblings, usually little more than background noise, had steadily been growing in volume and intensity ever since the group's collective weakening.

"And- and, are we supposed to just... fight like some— to throw ourselves into a meat grinder like... lambs to the sacrifice?! It's- it's...!"

"Wonderful," breathed Oedipus, body visibly shivering at the prospect. His slick-black weapon seemed to agree, undulating in tremulous anticipation.

And somehow, despite the terror writ large across her face, Carter didn't disagree.

Concerning enough to look into. Minos, back on his feet, found himself striding towards the new group of Sinners, one hand still idly rubbing at the spot on the back of his head that had been torn away.

<Intros it is, then.> He wasn't happy about this, additional manpower or no (especially since they seemed to exist solely to drag the group down), but it's not like Minos was a stranger to a hopeless situation. Who knows? Maybe he'd make the best of it. <You! Creepy-looking kid. Wanna kick us off?>

Minos didn't consider himself the kind of guy to mince words, but maybe he was losing his edge because "creepy" was probably the most generously this little bastard had been treated his whole life. Sallow-skinned, his wide, round eyes darted across the bus with a child's boundless curiosity, and his company provided uniform was already tattered and full of holes somehow. He didn't respond negatively either, deep-set eyes brightening with uncanny joy at being acknowledged as he rasped out an answer.

"We're... so happy to be here! You can call me Eddy, aah... it's short for Oedipus." Behind him, the red haired woman was silently helping Mila up to rest her on one of the bus' seats. "But only Mother calls me that. When she's mad. When she's sad. When she..."

But there's no more. Eddy trails off, eyes fogged over, staring at unseen sights in the middle distance where Minos couldn't follow.

<Uhh, hello? Dispatch to Eddy?>

Click. Click. Nothing. Not even a snap of the fingers could bring him back, something reinforced by the next Sinner up on the list.

"Don't bother. He does this sometimes, just wait for him to snap out of it on his own." Disgust laced each and every word from the glasses-wearing woman's mouth, arms folded primly in front of her. Minos didn't have eyebrows any more, but they'd be shooting up if he did.

<Hell of a first impression. And you are...?>

"Yes, hello. A pleasure, I'm sure," but she kept moving as she spoke, shoes thumping against the flooring of the bus. Only when she made a sizable gap between her and Eddy did she turn, looking back at Minos. "Selene Beautan. I specialize in the research of various inhuman manifestations of the human mind. I'm sure we'll have a grand old time getting this over with."

A little blunt, but at least Minos got a better look at her. Graceful, tall but not too tall, she carried herself with significantly more confidence than anyone else on the bus. Odd, if she was telling the truth about just being a researcher... but who knows what was sleeping just below the surface. Minos shrugged, slipping hands into his pockets.

<Happy to have ya regardless. Another mind might be just what the team needed.>

Selene nodded elegantly as Minos turned his attention to the remaining two Sinners. One of them a redheaded woman, protectively hovering near where Mila remains laid-out on a bus seat, the other a nervous, dark-skinned young fellow loitering awkwardly by the bus' stairs.

... Limbus sure knew how to pick 'em. Well, if they won't make it easy for him...

<Eenie, meenie, Minos, you.>

The lady's turn, then. Though she hadn't said so much as a single word since boarding the bus, she projected a quiet confidence however odd things got, eyes always level. The lack of visible augments meant that pinning down any specialty would be hard, but... Anyone so casual with their sword likely wasn't using it for anything good.

<You got a name?>

"Ronin."

...

<Uh, is that it?>

Her hand stayed at rest on the hilt of her sword.

... apparently that was it. Hell, if she wanted to keep it simple, who was he to stop her?

<Efficient. I like it! How about you?>

No need to waste time going digging. Time to get to know each other better was something that they'd have nothing but in the future... time aplenty to ask HQ for some files on her, to boot.

But it wasn't her turn any more. Looking like he'd been dreading this the entire time, the young man by the stairs stood up stiff, visibly swallowing nerves. At least he had the common shame to look guilty about it, introducing himself without need for any further prompting.

"I'm... Basil. Basil Hallward." Even speaking to Minos, his gaze remained locked on the three "Siblings" on the far end of the bus engaged in surreptitious conversation. For all the uncertainty that he showed, something about his expression steeled over whenever the targets of his eyes made a tense gesture or expression. "A pleasure to work with you."

<You seem a little distracted, kid.> Minos scratched at his wrist, idly moving just for movement's sake. <That gonna be a recurring problem?>

"... it's nothing." Basil frowned, face darkening in thought. "Not yet, anyhow."

While he was mulling that over, Minos cocked an arm over the edge of one of the bus' seats, leaning over the side just to get a better look at its occupant. Might as well, since he was right here. Mila, hands over her nose, laid back in seemingly casual fashion despite the absolute agony she must be enduring. Her dull, flat eyes flicked over to Minos, though she said nothing.

<Damn. That's gonna be nasty... didn't Hyde say you were supposed to fix the bus? You gonna be able to?> Turning back the clock for something so small felt like establishing a dangerous precedent.

"Bhi jhust beeb abcess to bhe banual boberribe."

... though maybe it was warranted in just this one case.

VRRRRRRRRR.

A moment later, and she was good as new - but for the absolute mess of dried blood flecks all across the bottom half of her face and uniform. Mila prodded experimentally at her nose. One side, then the other. Then...

"My thanks. Even as HQ has made myself familiar with the functions of your atypical body, I did not realize your personality would be so... generous."

<Well, what can I say. I'm just the kind of guy who wears his heart on his sleeve.> Minos cracked a joke, but failed to get any smiles. Ah, well.

"And the first I've met to wear his sleeve on his neck," Mila nodded, wobbling to her feet as she turned towards the driver's seat...

And then, seemingly thinking better of it, turning back to the group as a whole.

"I understand that all of this may come across as sudden." As she started to speak, both Hyde and Selene made audible groans, both clearly irritated that her nose was no longer keeping her from speaking. "Therefore..."

"Any and all who are frustrated are more than welcome to kill me until they find themselves satisfied."

A multitude of reactions - emphatic denial from Lance and Morella, a grim smile on Fenris and Damsel's faces, an... uncomfortable sound leaking out of Eddy's mouth, halfway between envy and joy. Basil cringed at even the suggestion of it, one step away from falling right out of the bus the further he backed up.

"Of course, Manager Minos will be the one bearing the pain, but..."

< Hang on hang on hang on, I didn't sign up for this...! Just get behind the wheel already! >

Mila complied in silence, reaching for a box balanced at the edge of the dashboard and pulling out an... entire stick shift...? If clunked into a slot in the bus easily. Hands became a blur, flipping switches, tugging levers, turning on and then turning off windshield wipers. Whether she knew what she was doing or was simply indulging in the anarchy of the bus' controls was unclear from the outside, but to the Sinners' relief the bus found itself soon puttering forward once more, Minos collapsing into a bloody seat near the front.

<My head is gonna kill me.>

Headache after headache. Or was it a heartache, now...?

He really hoped this first mission would be easy.