...

Fandom: Uma Musume: Pretty Derby

Rating: T

Characters/relationships: Tanino Gimlet, Symboli Kris S (KuriGimu)

Warnings: Alternative Universe - Secret Agents, a few gunshots, a near-death experience

Summary:

But let's quickly set the stage, shall we?

The one running across the self-destructing facility is Tanino Gimlet, a special agent with a trademark eyepatch, a picturesque manner of speech and a destructive reputation.

The one speaking in her ear is her partner, agent Symboli Kris S, a woman of few words and precise actions, currently in a crucial role of a sniper and navigator on the outside.

And their mission for today? Had gone to shit just a few minutes ago.

---

"Gimlet. The left wing just exploded."

"I guessed," she quipped, sharply turning a corner and running full speed down the corridor, her boots a frantic rhythm against the empty floors. "The walls here are trembling like it's judgement day!"

A lone guard popped up at the end of the hallway and a bullet whizzed past her ear, making her curse and dive behind a conveniently placed crate.

"Do you truly wish to be a sacrifice on your master's altar this much?!" she bellowed, getting a smoke grenade out of her inner pocket and pulling the pin. "I'll force my way through if I have to!"

As the grenade hit the floor and burst in a thick cloud of smoke, she took a deep gulp of air and jumped forward. No time for stalling. Tik-tok, tik-tok.

Another bullet swished behind her back, this time cutting off her pursuer with a merciless shot. Her lips twisted with a mirthless, but nonetheless affectionate acknowledgement.

But let's quickly set the stage, shall we?

The one running across the self-destructing facility is Tanino Gimlet, a special agent with a trademark eyepatch, a picturesque manner of speech and a destructive reputation.

The one speaking in her ear is her partner, agent Symboli Kris S, a woman of few words and precise actions, currently in a crucial role of a sniper and navigator on the outside.

And their mission for today? Had gone to shit just a few minutes ago.

Well, not completely. There was still a chance to salvage the core part of it, if Gimlet had anything to say about it.

"Gimlet," her earpiece cracked again, "wrong direction."

"Nah, you're mistaken. My direction is the solely correct one," parried Gimlet, passing a bridge over a big cargo area. Just this morning she had had to sneak around these parts, quiet and unseen. Now there's an alarm blaring and most of the personnel had already evacuated. Chaos called for far less subtlety and far more creative liberty, which Gimlet thrived in. The breath of death on her neck should not have been so trilling.

"What are you doing?"

"Making sure you can finish your mission."

Not a turn of phrase. The mission was, on paper, Kris S's. Gimlet went with 'cause, one, she was a far more reliable partner than rumor would tell you, and two, staying back in HQ and doing paperwork Groove insisted needed to be done would've surely killed her with boredom.

And since this whole "self-destruction protocol" fiasco had happened with Gimlet on the ground, it was, naturally, her job to make sure Kris S had something to show for it.

"The rule is we retreat if the mission is compromised."

"How long have you known me? Rules are meant to be broken," Gimlet snorted, finally kicking open the doors of her destination. "Leave it to me, Kris S. I'll see your honor unmarred."

The room where the needed data was supposedly stored looked large and deceptively empty, but they were prepared for that. Finding a working computer, Gimlet produced a flash drive out of her pocket and plugged it in. The screen blinked and started spewing out a string of console windows. Then a click echoed, barely noticeable beneath the sirens, and a new opening started growing in the floor.

"Ah, Shakur, you cheeky devil," Gimlet mused in respectful awe, watching a pit open in the middle of the room. "You have to fail us yet."

Thanks to their resident HQ hacker, she was now looking down a deep and narrow room underneath the floor, where the main server's access point had been thoroughly concealed. Not from them, though. Not from her.

Time was ticking, so Gimlet hurried down a ladder in the wall - the only way to get down safely.

That was precisely the moment when a new explosion violently shook the whole building. Gimlet gripped the bars, trying not to get flung off. And she held. The weak nuts in the ladder, however, didn't.

Disturbed by her weight in combination with the tremor, the metal groaned, peeling off the wall, and way too quickly Gimlet found herself falling.

She tried to land on her feet, and on her feet she landed, but if the sharp pain that shot up her left leg and made her collapse with an agonized howl was anything to judge by — it was far from a soft landing.

Fighting her way through a hot white fog of pain, Gimlet sat up and grabbed her foot. Hoping for the best, receiving the worst: her ankle was definitely broken.

And upon lifting her head, she discovered that the ladder was gone, its remains now hanging pitifully next to her.

The edge, the only way out, was taunting her from above.

She could, theoretically, jump. Use the narrow walls to her advantage, parkour, grab, pull herself up.

If she had both her legs.

But her left foot made her nauseous with pain just by moving it, let alone trying to stand or jump on it.

Death was suddenly looking Tanino Gimlet straight in the eye, and its smile was gnarly.

"...let? Gimlet! Can you hear me?"

"...yeah," she said, finally processing the voice in her ear. Right. The mission. She got where she needed to be, so better not waste it.

"The right wing is gone. All is on fire. Are you okay?"

"...Kris S. Listen to me." Gimlet grabbed the console at the center of the small room and pulled herself up, balancing on one leg. "I found the forbidden fruit we seek. I'll send its seeds to you in just a second." She plugged in another flash drive, leaning heavy on the console to keep the weight off her legs. A tickling drop of sweat rolled down the back of her neck. "And then you will go."

"...negative," came a response after a brief pause. "I am waiting for you."

"Those are not your orders any longer. Take the data and bring it forth to our betters. Tell them I sent my regards." Loading was almost done. Gimlet could feel smoke filling up the air. "Ah, and tell Vodka she can have my steed. Kid's been long due for her own bike. I'm sure miss Maruzen won't mind the transfer."

"...Gimlet." Kris S's monotone voice didn't change, or so it would seem to many. But not to Gimlet. She heard the sour, discordant note of pain so clearly she could taste it.

"Ariadne's thread has severed, Kris S. There's no way out of this labyrinth for me." The computer beeped, signaling the end of transfer, and Gimlet breathed a sigh of relief. "Done. You're free now. It seems my time has come to heed Tanatos's call — and you know I loathe goodbyes."

"Gim--"

"I said go," Gimlet barked, sharply. "You got a life to live and horizons to chase, and I played my role in that. I have no regrets in how it went, so don't you dare weep for me! The choice is mine!"

Static cracked, but remained silent. Gimlet chuckled. Got through to her, it seems.

"...those were some good few years, partner," she added, softer now. "Farewell. Raise a gimlet for me at our bar."

Before she could get choked up, Gimlet killed the line, leaving herself in the suffocating silence.

Well, silence was too generous a word. The building creaked and groaned, compromised by two explosions that had already hit. Just one more now, and it would all be over.

Gimlet hunched over the console, gritting her teeth against the fear she refused to acknowledge. She would not be afraid of the abyss that awaited. She would not buckle under this weight.

This was her choice and her choice alone, and by making it she exercised the freedom of her own damn existence. She clawed a mark on this world, she burned brightly, if shortly, just like those fleeting moments that she loved so much, and she got enough people drunk on life if only for a second. She could go with no regrets. And she refused to tremble.

Another shake. Gimlet whirled around on her intact heel, snarling at the walls around her, not a cornered animal, but a proud conqueror untamed.

"Come, fire! Come, destruction! Strike me by lighting and rid me of this mortal shell, for I am not afraid of you!" she yelled, throwing her arms open wide and baring her teeth in a wild grin. "Rage, chaos we brought forth with our own mistakes! Bring on your judgement for my sins which I wrought on this world! Try and take me alive, if you dare!"

She didn't want to die. But if the best she could do was to exist to her fullest right down to her last breath, so be it. She would not cower, she would die screaming and laughing, like the last bright crackle of a firework at the end of a sinful festival of debauchery.

Thick smoke filled her throat, forcing her to choke on her next words. A rough cough clawed at her lungs, making her double down — and then another violent burst of energy threw her back on the console and then down on the floor. Somewhere above her the facility was coming down in flames, but all she got in this well protected pit underneath was smoke and wild sparks of electronics going awry.

So much for aesthetics, Gimlet thought, feeling her consciousness slip away. And there she hoped to go out in the midst of an explosion, swallowed up by raging flames. Life could be a petty mistress, so it seemed.

And then a cold arm of Death grabbed her by the waist and ripped her out of the world of living.

***

Dying was...a lot more turbulent than she'd imagined. Through the thick black blanket of being unconscious Gimlet could catch flashes of heat and fire, feel sharp bites of cuts on her skin, hear loud roar and booming cracks, sense herself being thrown around and her center of gravity swinging all over the place.

Perhaps that was par the course. They just never wrote of such in books.

When she came to next time, it was cold. And mostly quiet. There was a deep unpleasant pressure somewhere in her head area.

Ah, came a disjointed thought. Her eyepatch got knocked to the side.

Gimlet habitually fixed it back, and only then it occurred to her: if there's an eyepatch to fix, then there's an eye to cover and a head for it to sit on, and if it was indeed a thought that came to her just now, then by all means...

Tanino Gimlet still existed.

She blinked her eye open, squinting at the light. After a brief consideration, she figured she was hanging upside down. Hence the pressure in her head. She wasn't, however, entirely so — she could very well see her own legs and tail right in front of her face. Looking down (up?), she was faced with another two feet on the ground, clad in sturdy military grade boots. And if the arm that still held her by the waist like a steel vice had not, in fact, belonged to Death, then...

Gimlet did her best to twist herself around and take a look at the person who was holding her, even though she already knew what she was going to find: a familiar stoic face and cold blue eyes. Kris S was breathing heavily and staring right in front of her, as if in a haunted trance after a clash with death that came way too close to being final. Or maybe still stuck in crisis mode.

"Kri--" Gimlet tried to say her name, but instead her lungs suddenly remembered the amount of smoke they'd just inhaled and decided to punish her hubris with yet another torturous coughing fit.

Kris S jumped a little, torn back to reality by Gimlet's pathetic wheezing.

"Gimlet." She turned her around in her hands so easily, as if Gimlet was a doll that weighed nothing, but so carefully, as if that doll was made out of the most fragile porcelain. And usually Gimlet would scoff at the notion, but right now, with her leg busted, her lungs bursting, and tears running down her dirty face, well, maybe she indeed wasn't looking quite so durable.

"Can you stand?"

Gimlet vigorously shook her head, feeling all the blood rushing back to other important organs and leaving her brain disgustingly dizzy, so Kris S nodded and gently sat her down on grassy ground.

When Gimlet finally got back her ability to breathe, she wiped at her eye and looked around again, this time with more clarity.

They were quite some distance away from the accursed facility — far enough to be safe from the debris and able to breathe clearly, but close enough to watch the glorious inferno of destruction blazing in its place.

After having survived all that, the air felt cold on Gimlet's skin. The grass she was sitting on felt wet. Some sorry excuse of a rain, barely noticeable microscopic droplets were spraying down her face and hair. Her lungs burned, her ankle hurt, her head pounded, ears were ringing, everything ached...

Tanino Gimlet was horribly alive.

And she loved this damn life.

"Well," she whispered, almost reverently, a bit shell shocked. "It seems it's still too early for a gimlet, after all."

A sudden fit of hoarse laughter abruptly burst out of her, and she could not — would not — hold back a wave of mad glee that washed over her.

"Resurrected! Fate crushed under my heel once more! Chains of predetermined smashed into pieces! Impossibility, destroyed! Oh, what a plot, what a delightful twist! Ahahaha!" she laughed until she was out of breath again, and then fell on her back, looking up at the gloomy sky. She loved it even so.

"You didn't die," Kris S corrected her quietly.

"Ah, but I accepted death, my friend. That's almost the same thing." Gimlet rolled her head to look at Kris S and smiled. "And then you came. My savior."

Kris S just hummed in response. She had also sat down, facing Gimlet and leaning her elbows on her slightly bent knees, allowing a better look at herself. From a better angle, at least.

She was covered in dirt, soot and small cuts of broken glass, although Gimlet could guess as much was true of both of them. There was a drying stream of blood on one side of her face, having come from a deep gash above her brow. Her jacket on the same side looked burnt and violently torn, especially the sleeve, although as far as Gimlet could tell the armored material held without compromising Kris S's own arm. All in all, her partner looked more intact than Gimlet was. Good.

But she kept looking. Having glimpsed the abyss of nothingness that awaited across the threshold, Tanino Gimlet found herself hopelessly drunk on the smallest nuances of life like she'd never been before. The tiny pokes of grass underneath her cheek, the thoughtless caress of wind in her short hair, the oil painting of black smoke against the rainy sky. All of it a part of existence infinitely worth the suffering it brought.

So who could blame her, resurrected if only in the name and full of new zest for life, for looking at the beautiful woman in front of her? Kris S, a soldier through and through, would hardly wax poetry about herself, but oh, Gimlet could. She'd mention the sharp lines of her face, the noble cut of her jaw, the piercing eyes of blue ice and the soft glow of brown skin. The jet black hair that by some miracle did not get scorched in all that fire. The cold exterior that concealed within a passion few could decipher despite it never being hidden on purpose. Narrow palms and long calloused fingers that handled a sniper gun and a humble pen with equal dexterity. Deep voice that spoke with such finality and a kind heart that never denied help.

Frankly, Gimlet could go on, but Kris S finally felt her stare and turned to look at her.

"What?" she asked, in earnest confusion (which you would only get by knowing the one degree angle change of her ears and the slightest tension in her eyebrows).

Gimlet smiled.

"Nothing," she said softly, because that was the truth. She just was.

Kris S let out a short hum, unconvinced, and it was the image of her thoughtful bloody face that brought forth a question of Gimlet's own:

"Why?" she asked quietly. "You could've sabotaged your entire mission in coming to get me."

"Hm." Kris S considered her answer. Gimlet didn't mind waiting — right now she was decidedly in no hurry at all. She knew sometimes it took her partner considerable effort to find the words. She had never once minded.

"...it's a failed mission," Kris S finally spoke, carefully, "if I come back alone."

Gimlet scoffed in surprise.

"What, am I a part of your mission now?"

Kris S looked directly at her, pinning her in place with a look.

"Of course," she stated, slipping into English, but no less firm for it. As if it was but an obvious truth.

Gimlet sucked in a breath and went quiet for a second, feeling any kind of words she could utter getting stuck on her teeth in some thick and heavy feeling, like in amber.

"...what about your life, though?" she asked, finally, weakly gesturing at Kris S, before dropping her outstretched hand in the grass. "There would be other missions. There wouldn't be another you."

Kris S looked at her hand, then slowly lifted her own and covered Gimlet's palm with her fingers. It wasn't Gimlet's plan, but she wasn't going to complain. Having contact felt...good.

"Same question," Kris S finally said, looking back up at her. Gimlet almost laughed again. Indeed, as if she were one to talk after disregarding orders and almost dying for that data Kris S needed.

"...same answer, then."

After a pause, Kris S nodded. Gimlet's fingers softly locked around hers.

They stayed in silence for a while after that. Well, as long as "a while" could mean in a life as hectic as theirs.

"We should go," said Kris S finally, only betraying any sadness at letting go of Gimlet's hand with a slight twitch of an ear. "They'll recover. Might start looking."

"Yeah," Gimlet agreed, carefully stretching her upped body. "And I'm sure our esteemed higher ups are already waiting to tear us up for the collateral."

"Rudolf doesn't even yell," Kris S noted.

"No, she lets her Empress handle that honor for her." Gimlet chuckled and sat up. "...remind me, where have we left the car?"

"The other side." Kris S nodded at the burning building. Gimlet groaned.

"And what vision, pray tell, compelled you to choose this direction, then?"

"Don't know. Didn't think." Kris S got up on her feet, stretched as well and patted her pants down, before thoughtfully looking Gimlet over.

Gimlet stared at her own leg in philosophical musing over the trial she found herself facing, when Kris S crouched in front of her, throwing her long hair over her shoulder and onto her chest, out of the way.

"Climb on," she said, clearly meaning her back.

"...my savior strikes again," Gimlet chuckled, finding it useless to argue for appearances. Slowly, careful not to disturb her busted foot too much, she pulled herself up onto Kris S's back, throwing her arms over her shoulders and holding on tight. Kris S grabbed her thighs to keep her in place, stood up, shuffled Gimlet around a bit so that they both felt comfortable, and began marching forward.

Gimlet settled, feeling exhaustion creeping in. God of Destruction she might be, but no one is ever ready to go through shit she put herself through on this mission. Kris S's confident steady gait, strong muscles of her back subtly working somewhere underneath Gimlet's arms, the steady grip on her legs, all of it felt... safe. Lulling her in a sense of security that no agent should feel in the middle of a field, vulnerable and exposed, injured, just a bit away from a burning building. And yet, after what happened today, how could she consider Kris S's arms anything but safe?

Which reminded her.

"Kris S?" she called. Kris S stayed quiet, but Gimlet could see the fluffy ears right in front of her nose angling in her direction. No need to be loud, then. "Thank you," she simply whispered with no additional flourishes, burying her face in the rich heap of black hair.

Kris S hummed in response, briefly squeezing her grip in acknowledgement.

Content, Gimlet closed her eyes, just for a minute, and breathed in deep.

Resurrection smelled a lot like fire and Kris S's shampoo.