Too Insane To Fail - SCP Foundation

The members of the Black Rabbit Company were spending their well-earned rest time in a temporary hideout deep in the mountains. They were sorting the bounty they got from raiding a nearby crime syndicate's base. Nanami hadn't spoken a word since she got her hand on a certain device.

"It seems that we stumbled into something really funky. You gotta see this," she said, breaking the unusually long silence. "Remember the weird commando guys who were around during the raid? They left in such a hurry when we got close to them. One of them dropped this," she continued, showing up the phone she was studying until then. It had a logo with three arrows pointing inwards on its back. "It uses a special cryptosystem, but I managed to get in. Turns out those guys belonged to some sort of secret agency hoarding a bunch of items they deem anomalous."

"Cool, what did you found out about them?" asked Tomi. The other catgirls and Wizard drew closer, as Nanami started talking about something actually interesting for a change.

"They've got a huge site not far from here. I downloaded quite a few docs about the items there, before they noticed me and shut down the connection. Most them are badly censorsed, probably because our commando guy isn't high enough on the totem pole. This one though, is relevant to our interests." She handed the phone to Boss, and waited till the other finished reading the file together.

"So, with this, we could find out who was our father?" asked Hana, wagging her tail.

"And probably even more," added Wizard. He was glad that girls finally had a chance of finding closure. He know that they awakened in some sort of lab without any memory, with nothing to rely on other than each other. Since they got out, they were looking for clues about their origin. Even though they talked about it rarely, Wizard learned enough about their situation to understand their pain. Hell, they didn't even know when their birthday was, they just used the first day they could remember as such!

"It seems like we just found the place for our next gig," announced Boss. She looked determined as always.

"But how are we going to get in? Just walking to the gate would lead to some intense firefight pretty quick," said Momoko. "Not that I have any problems with it, but still."

"That's why we'll use a plane," replied Boss.

"Wait a minute, you girls got a plane?" asked Wizard. "You never mentioned it."

"Nope, but there's a guy who owes us a favor. Saving people's lives around the world comes with some benefits."

*

Only five days had passed since the Company first learned about the Foundation, and they were already skydiving above its largest base of operation, Site-19. The least impossible way of getting in there seemed to be from the top. Since Wizard had no prior experience with parachutes, he was going in tandem with Tomi. His screaming provided the atmosphere the girls got used to during their first few missions with him.

"We are close enough. Your move, Momoko," said Boss. Momoko took aim with Pierce, her rocket launcher, and produced a sizable hole in the rooftop.

They entered the facility through the hole. The on-site security units were yet to appear.

"Let's continue as planned," said Boss. "Tomi comes with me to get what we are here for. Hana and Nanami will secure a way for our evac. Momoko, you take Wizard and do your best to keep the enemy pinned down." As she finished, they ran in three different directions.

When Momoko and Wizard took a turn to the left, they found themselves face to face with two dozen agents. "Identify yourself!" shouted one of them.

"Watch your mouth, you better address us respectfully, foolish human!" said Momoko, without falling into a panic even for a second. "Don't you recognize the Great Zamboni, the Shatterer of Earth?"

"Uhm, no?" said the agent, somewhat confused.

"Damn, you are truly a stupid one. Do mages have to write write wizzard to themselves for you to recognize them?" To emphasize this, Wizard lifted his hands and struck a wizardly pose. The air was filled with the sound of absolutely nothing happening.

At this point, the vast majority of the world's special forces teams would have opened fire at them. However, the Foundation knew better. They've dealt with immensely powerful enemies, and they had a tendency to be real weirdos. They decided to be cautious and looked at the expert for some advice.

Unlike all the others, the expert was wearing a white lab coat. While the agents were armed with a variety of firearms - Momoko even spotted one in the back holding something closely resembling a panzerfaust - he only had one of those tiny guitars on him. He raised his hand to stop his comrades. Wizard's clothing, the escape suit of doubtful usefulness and the ridiculous bathrobe and hat, showed that he was a person who could do whatever the hell he wished without having to worry about anything. In other words: a Type Green. He speculated that the catgirl beside him was one of his creations.

"Don't mind us, please proceed," he said, opening the way for Momoko and Wizard. He knew from experience that the only place a bender could be shot was its back.

Momoko reached out to Wizard's hand, and they started walking past the puzzled agents without even looking back. She knew that leaving by backing away would immediately blew their cover.

The doctor quietly signaled the agents to take down the intruders. It was finally time for them to take action. As the agents prepared to shoot, Momoko casually threw a flashbang behind her back. Then they started running.

[Boss: We've got the package, and some bonus too. How's everyone doing?]

[Momoko: Wizard and I met these soldier guys, who looked very serious, so we had to use one of the old tricks from Ukraine, which they seemed to buy at first, then…]

[Boss: Spare the fun parts for tomorrow. How about the others?]

[Hana: We found an airplane for our evac. Get to our position.]

[Nanami: Oh, hey and we found all these people locked up. We released all of them who looked unable to pull us in with tentacles and stuff the moment the door is opened.]

[Nanami: Which means 5 out of 8. ≧◔◡◔≦]

[Momoko: Hey, how did you type that?]

[Boss: Come on, close the chat and get to the meeting point.]

The small aircraft Hana and Nanami secured was waiting near to the site. Hana took off immediately when the rest of the Company jumped aboard.

"That was close," sighed Tomi, looking down at some agents firing at their plane, hoping for a miraculous hit. "Let's show them the bowl, Boss."

"Huh, it's not doing anything," said Boss, staring at the bowl that she just got out of her backpack.

"That's because you're unharmed. Impressive, by the way. Let me see," said Nanami, grabbing the bowl from her. Unlike Boss, she had minor scratches here and there. After a few seconds, it magically filled with milk. Nanami's face turned red.

"You idiot! Just because I have these ears, I'm not a cat, but a grown woman. Quit your jokes, you friggin' pervert!" shouted Nanami as she threw away the bowl, spilling its contents on her sisters.

"Hey, I would have drunk it," snapped Momoko at her.

Unnoticed by the sisters, who were busy calming down Nanami, Wizard grabbed the bowl. It filled with delicious soup that he quickly ate. As he swallowed the last spoonful, a message appeared on the inside.

Glad to see you're finally enjoying your life.

Have fun!

The touching family reunion was interrupted by the sound of a small explosion accompanied by Hana's figure flying out of the cockpit.

"Looks like they had a remote controlled bomb there. We might have expected this, to be honest," said Hana in a calm voice, cleaning her sooty face.

"How screwed are we?" asked Wizard.

Tomi glanced into the fully trashed cockpit. "Very," she replied.

"At this rate, we have 10 to 15 minutes until we crash down," said Hana after a brief thinking. "We better look for parachutes."

Unfortunately, they found none. They all looked at Boss. It was time she came up with one of her trademark "too insane to fail" plans.

"It can't be helped," she said, "we have to use that."

"What?" asked the girls together.

"I grabbed this can back there," said Boss, revealing the green gelatinous substance in it. "Despite how it looks, it's edible."

"You don't say…" backed up Wizard.

"Yes, we are going to eat it," said Boss, swallowing one sixth of the slime, and passing the can around. "Nanami, I need you to do your hacking magic. I want full access to the site's PA system", she continued.

"On it," she replied and got to work immediately. The only visible sign of her furious hacking was the weird blinking of her left eye. Her cybernetic enhancements came in handy at times like that. Two minutes later she stood up with a smug smile across her face. She didn't even have to tell that she succeeded.

"Listen well, you maggots!" started Nanami. Her words were echoed by the chorus of a thousand speakers across Site-19. "The Black Rabbit Company's one and only Boss wants to have a word with y'all. Get your pens ready, 'cause you're gonna mark her words," she announced, then signaled Boss that she can start speaking.

"Hi there. I'm the leader of the group that paid a visit to your facility a few minutes ago. Currently, we're stuck in an uncontrollable airplane with no parachutes. In exactly four minutes, we will jump out. And here comes the interesting part: you will catch us. You can do that however you please. Hopefully there's a gadget for that in your collection." Boss paused for a second. She had to admit that this part of the plan was a little vague. "Oh, and I almost forgot. You have a pretty good reason to save us. We came across a can of SCP-447-2, and ate it. So you either do something clever, or you get to see what it does to dead bodies."

As Boss finished speaking, Nanami closed the transmission. While accepting her judgment, the others were quite upset over this plan. To clarify, the problem wasn't with the jumping part; they did crazier things during that time in Kazakhstan. The thing that angered them was trusting the Foundation of all people. Based on what they learnt from the hacked files, the Vietnamese mafia was a honorable group of philanthropists compared to them.

However, they had to realize that Boss' plan was their only chance to escape with their lives. They gathered for a group hug, took each other's hand and jumped out of the airplane to begin their second skydive of the day.

This time, without parachutes.

*

"…or you get to see what it does to dead bodies," and the cracking speaker in Dr. Anborough's lab went silent. He was searching frantically for a solution in his mind. He had experienced countless tense situations since he joined the Foundation (and even got to remember a few), but it was completely new for him. While he was about to give up, it suddenly dawned on him. He jumped out of his chair, grabbed his crutch, and hurried to the break room.

"Out of the way, I need to use the coffee machine now!" yelled Anborough as he entered the room.

"Not so fast, I need to see your ID card." said one of the guards standing next to the machine.

"For Christ's sake, Josh, we know each other for 5 years! I need it to keep 447 away from corpses. You heard the message, right?"

"What happens when it touches dead bodies?" wondered the other guard.

"Honestly, I don't know either," replied Anborough. "But I don't want to find out."

After the guards finally let him to the coffee machine (and even lent him two quarters after a quick dispute) he entered the following:

97% of the Black Rabbit Company's weight

The machine filled a cup with some liquid unlike anything they had seen before. They felt that the English language was unsuited to describe even its color.

"How did you know that it works like that?" asked Josh.

"I just made a clever guess."1

The Site Director's report to the O5 Council (excerpts)

[…] escaped from the agents with the help of a stun grenade. At the same time, two other intruders stole SCP-348 and 100 grams of SCP-447-2 from the Minimum Security Containment Sector, disarming multiple guards in the process. The final two intruders forced their way into the Humanoid Containment Sector, temporarily breaching the containment of 5 specimens. […]

Dr. Anborough used SCP-294 to extract 97% of the weight of the intruders. Slowed down by the air friction, they achieved considerably lower speeds during descent compared to a non-anomalous scenario. Upon reaching the ground, they were overpowered and captured by security personnel.

Casualties: 35 injured (17 severely), 0 dead […]

Post-incident measures taken: SCP-348 and all humanoid SCPs involved were recovered after the incident. Anomalous built-in cybernetic technology was found inside the intruders' body; they are currently contained under the collective designation SCP-2085. The liquid dispensed by SCP-294 was distributed among them, resulting in the restoration of their normal weight. Termination of the specimens is strictly forbidden for 90 days, as their contact with SCP-447-2 was confirmed.

To uphold morale after such a degrading incident, all personnel were amnesticized, with the exception of those whose services were deemed critical to revise our security protocols. False recovery information was added to the Level 2-3 versions of the SCP-2085 file. […]

I recommend Dr. Anborough (who was regrettably also amnesticised) to be promoted for his actions.

Still, this was just the beginning of the war between the Black Rabbit Company and the Foundation…

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Footnotes

1. It's worthy of noting that Dr. Anborough wasn't actually this clever. He read a physics paper from CERN that concluded that similarly to electrons being particles and waves at the same time, the weight of any object is both quark-gluon plasma and liquid. Covert agents amnesticized all authors before they could submit the article, since it had practical applications to (non-anomalous) interstellar travel. The Foundation, however, preferred no one else flying around with spaceships.