Clambering around in air ducts really brought me back to simpler times. Most of the time it was one of the worst options you could choose for sneaking around. The material they were built from tended to be thin, loud, and not up to supporting a person. You also sometimes would run into vertical drops or impossible climbs since air doesn’t care much about verticality. On the other hand, you couldn’t always be sure there wouldn't be a lock to pick, employee to bluff, or sensor to fool.

This was kinda one of those times. I could probably have just opened the front door, prevented collateral damage with magic, and peacefully or violently defused the situation- but that was less fun. It had been really easy to keep nitpicking and blowing up small problems in all the other potential solutions the growing team of aides and other MGs had come up with, finally presenting this idea once everyone was ready to capitulate.

Better yet, my idea wasn’t even that much worse than the few perfectly fine ones I’d nudged someone else to veto.

There were two problems that quickly presented themselves. The first was that very few people had the skills to maneuver the gunman on the phone how I needed, and those that probably did had inconveniently solid morals. So I had taken over the long and nonsensical call.

The second issue was that my dress was not designed for hand-and-knees crawling. Well, I don’t think that any are, and very few have overall sneaking-conducive designs. To be honest, my outfit wasn’t the worst- on account of being largely plastic, the armor panels didn’t make much noise when they bumped the sheet metal I was navigating through and the dress could warp enough for me to shuffle along at a reasonable pace.

I had suggested transforming back into my civilian clothing, but the idea was immediately shot down by Cleo for being much less safe and not maintaining my aesthetic.

Since I was getting closer to where the shelter was, I switched off my social autopilot to get started on setting the stage with the crazy and drunk… terrorist? “I just want to confirm, there’s no way you’d cooperate with Mr. Johnson?” I asked, using a program to pitch my voice up a bit and filter out the clunks and thunks.

“Nah way in- urp- ‘ell am I leeting that shumbith outy ‘dere.” Suddenly getting louder he yelled, “ya hear ‘dat! Youl- urp- betta ‘eep hidning!”

“I understand, if you would please calm-”

“I eem calm! It’s all yoo oo’re actin’ upit… upupi… uppity.”

Smiling a bit at how things were going I moved on to the next stage, “okay, okay, I understand. Since you are being so calm and nice, would you let us talk to one of the other people in there with you?”

After a long pause, I was concerned he was actually going to comply. My worries were for naught as I heard an obnoxiously loud burp before he replied, “‘ell nah. Y-you’ve all been conshprin’ ta- urp- urrest me. I know ya games! No one is touchin’ this phone until I’s got my money an van! Ya ‘ear me?”

“Of course, of course,” I stalled, trying to actually calm him down. He went a little more ballistic than I had expected and I didn’t want him to try shooting someone in blind rage. “We are working on getting those ready for you. Please stay there so we don’t end up giving it to someone else.”

“Dat goes without sayin.’ I’m stayin’ ‘ight ‘ere until I geet my van.”

Temporarily muting myself to fall a few feet to the basement level system the shelter was hooked into, I couldn’t stop smiling. I only had one last fan to disable and slip by before I was going to be in position to really get things moving.

“Alright, everything is almost ready.” I said, trying not to sound too excited, “we are going to be delivering you the package through the air vent in the supply room. Is that alright?”

Once again sounding angry, the drunk yelled, “al’ight? It’s naght ‘ieght! Th-th-the ‘astard is in te supply room! I want eet here!”

Hoping that he was as out of it as he sounded, I tried again, “oh, I’m sorry. It’s just that the air vent in the supply room is the only place we can deliver too. We, uhh, don’t have any other address.”

Almost cutting me off, I heard him somehow yell louder, “aer v-vent! Why aer vent? And whhy te supplu ‘oom!”

Stolen novel; please report.

Hoping the other idiot causing- admittedly much smaller- problems was paying attention and taking hints, I eased past the now burnt-out fan and stopped just around the corner that led into the vent I had mentioned and dispensed apologies as I waited.

I hadn’t had anyone drop the anti-magic field yet, since I could recognize that it should be done as late as possible, so I was stuck until my plan bore fruit. The feeling of the field was as disturbing as ever, making me tense up with neves as I waited for my target to emerge from the void. And waited. And waited.

It probably wasn’t all that long, but it certainly felt like an eternity before I heard a metallic thunk and saw a set of shoulders and head flop into the vent. The man clearly wasn’t graceful in any way, barely able to lever his upper body unto the ledge before needing to readjust and pull the rest of the way in. As soon as I saw this, I dumped the call onto someone else to stall for me.

As soon as my went-buddy’s hand came around the corner, I grabbed his wrist, yanked, and twisted as hard as I could. The motion flipped a Mr. Johnson onto his back, hands up in the air. Before he had a moment to even process what happened, my tail grabbed his other wrist, pulling it into contact with the one my hand held as I sprayed and solidified a layer of glue to hold them together. At the same time, to stop him from vocalizing, I had to stuff my calf into his face in an awkward game of twister.

With not even a second having elapsed, I rolled my leg off him, putting me in position to hold his mouth closed with my now freed hand while the other applied a layer of glue like before.

Before panic could set in, I calmly said, “Please wait here, I’ll come collect you once I’ve finished with the other guy.” Explanation clearly not helping, he started to whine and struggle, prompting me to grab his head and forcefully make him look at me. “I’ll make this simple: I’m an MG, and I’m doing my job. I don’t care if you’ve done nothing wrong, that’s not my problem. Stay put and I’ll be back to get you out of the Breach. Sound good?”

After a brief pause to fully comprehend what I said, his eyes widened farther than I thought possible and he gave a series of quick nods.

It was a bit unpleasant slipping by, but once I was sitting at the edge of the anti-magic field, I had whoever was in charge of it drop it for me. As soon as I had vision into the shelter, I scanned the entire thing. The more crazy gunman was off in a corner by the main entrance, waving his gun around- an oversized pistol of some sort- and talking into the phone. Annoyingly, he was also angrily glaring around the open room taking up the majority of the space.

Everyone else was huddled in the diagonally opposite corner, laterally across from the small room I had dropped into, making sure to absorb the energy of the impact to make no noise. This setup gave me no easy way to get close enough for a repeat takedown. There was a possibility I could close the distance before the target could get off a shot, and if I stayed close to the wall on my side, misses or ricochets would probably not hit anyone.

With no better idea due to a lack of anything to work with, I moved so I would be visible to the civilians through the doorway and waved to get someone’s attention. As soon as a few of them noticed me, I put a finger to where my mouth would be under my mask. With no one calling out or moving, I pointed to myself, then to the gunman with an addition of a mimed run. After that, I pointed to them and mimed dropping to the ground, followed by giving them a thumbs up and quizzically tilting my head.

Satisfied when I got a thumb up back, I called command and asked them to do something agitating. Ideally, he would get caught up yelling into the microphone on the wall or be similarly distracted enough I could get on top of him before he could react.

Slowly setting up with a foot braced against the empty door frame with my leg fully bent, I focused my attention on watching the target for any signs of starting to face away. With a few more seconds of preparation while my request was processed and executed, I passed my teargas canister to my tail, using its improbable dexterity to wrap around the body while positioning the tip to be able to press the button on top.

A slight twitch towards the direction of the phone was all the signal I needed to convert a sizable chunk of my available ULE into kinetic energy as I launched.

Almost all of the force was directed parallel to the floor, which when combined with my low starting stance, left me precariously close to face planting as my tail tried its best to help me balance. My second step was about half the distance across the room and mostly served to delay my imminent meeting with the dusty tiles of the floor.

Thinking fast to save literal and figurative face, when I took my next step only a few feet from the very surprised gunman, I whipped my tail up, using the momentum to help me tuck into a roll as I sprayed the target with a healthy dose of lacrimator. Just barely avoiding scraping my horns across the floor, I found not having a direction I saw from once again coming in handy, as I realized I was close enough to simply kick the guy instead of trying to complete the impromptu roll.

Since I was going fast enough to have crossed about thirty feet in half a second, I converted most of the force of the impact into ULE- only shoving the gunman a few feet and onto his back instead of putting a foot through his chest. With his gun dropped, eyes full of tears, and maybe a minor concussion from hitting his head on the ground, it was easy to glue him up like the other guy.

From my seat on the stomach of the now very incapacitated belligerent- because it was cool and not because the leg I launched with was in excruciating agony- I asked the still silent group of civilians, “how do we all feel about getting out of here?”

I was very much not ready for half of them to start breaking down into tears.