While she was still looking a little tired, I had to admit that I was becoming a bigger fan of working with Belle.
A trail of green light followed the metal sphere as it burst from my shotgun, whistling through the air. The ball bounced loudly off the side of the bridge support on this side of the buildings, the green sheen vanishing.
There was a shuddering groan, and as the gathered molepeople turned and noticed us, the support cracked through the brickwork where it was held. The weight of the occupants caused the metal walkway to twist and buckle, a terrible squealing sound rising even above the constant siren. It tipped, tearing away from the foundations over the street, sending both the guards and the large repeating weapon toppling to the concrete below.
Belle stood and cast her protective dome down over the two pinned. As I loaded my next shot in, I watched as Ren stood. An arrow burst out of the dome up toward the flanking group of molepeople on the rooftops. The projectile exploded behind them, a quick gust of air pushing them off of the edge and onto the street. Roy was there as soon as they landed, making his way through the bodies with a quick series of lightning punches.
I landed a Triple shot down into the bridge group. Smoke, Tazer, and Incendiary. Just enough to cause some disarray and confusion while we regrouped. My feet took me pacing along the edge of the rooftops to the point where the bridge had fallen, putting metal balls into any clear target that made themselves visible.
Our combined strength quickly overran the rest, leaving the dead end a mixture of dissipating smoke and warm dust from the combat. Belle gave the others healing, some minor wounds received.
“Terrible positioning,” Roy said, shaking his head. He looked clearly disappointed in himself for getting into that sort of situation.
He wasn’t wrong, however, but I didn’t blame him. It was almost as though this area was purpose-built for pushing something into an inescapable position. No windows on doors on the surrounding buildings, and even the roofs had a curved lip to try to stop people climbing up out of this bad situation.
It was perhaps somewhere they trapped wild animals or people without weaponry. Not that it couldn’t be anything else, but it was enough for my mind to be content enough to move on.
//Clara: Targets are making a retreat to regroup.
//Clara: No sign of Rockslide yet.
“Thanks for coming to help.” Ren stood up beside me, her bow up and trained down the cleared street. “I think we could all do with some utility tech. We shouldn’t get in situations that we don’t have an answer to.”
I grunted and gave her a brief nod.
[Agreed. Something for our debriefing later. For now, we can stick together and cover each other’s weaknesses.]
The elf gave me a brief smile and lowered her weapon. “We didn’t want to clutter comms with it, but the reason we’re over this way is because there’s something you should see.”
I gestured for them to lead on. The story of how they escaped their cells and got here could wait for another time. Despite the brief amount of quiet, we were still in dangerous territory. Roy led us out of this area and into a cross section of streets. We took a left and then a right, each direction having an occasional unconscious or dead moleperson from where the pair had last come through here.
Down another street and I could see what they meant even before they could say anything.
A building, just as nondescript and built the same as any other we had passed.
Except this one had the seal of the World Government beside the door. The windows were dark and covered.
[Let’s see if anyone is home.]
I stepped forward and slammed my boot into the door. It broke the lock completely out and swung open, a cloud of dust billowing out from where it struck the wall. Overcharge hummed through my weapon as I stepped into the darkness.
“I’ll keep an eye on the roads,” Ren said, tailing last and staying in the doorway as the rest of us cautiously stepped through.
A light in the ceiling blinked a few times before remaining on, illuminating the single room in a dull glow. In the center of the room was a long meeting table surrounded by chairs tucked in tight. A few cabinets were along the right wall, and a board took up the majority of the back.
The Captain ran a finger along the edge of the table, dragging up some dust. “It looks like it’s been abandoned, although not for a long time.”
He was right. Some of the cabinet drawers were open, and the board had been hastily scrubbed of whatever was on there before. The World Government had been here, but either moved on for some reason, or the molepeople had gotten rid of them. It wasn’t exactly what I had been expecting, but perhaps was slightly better than getting tangled up with the Gov in very real terms.
That said, something about this wasn’t quite right. I glanced over at our support hero.
“A hidden door,” she said, without needing me to prompt for her thoughts. “Simple enough to hide from the molepeople, no doubt. There are traces of the spell that are sloppy, however. I can sense it based on what is out of place, rather than how it really exists.”
I was glad about that, as I wasn’t able to pinpoint it myself. My arcane dust infusion was taking some time to recharge, dulling my magical competence. Still, when needs must.
[Could you point it out for me?]
Her finger went over to a blank part of the wall, and I raised my hand. Other than some brief warmth, pain wracked through my mind as I caught the edge of the spell and tore it from reality, dispelling the magic obscuring the door. A simple enough entrance, not any more secure or reinforced than the main door had been.
I shook the ache from my skull and went over to it, gun-arm at the ready in case there were Government agents lying in wait.
It swung open without complaint, revealing a similarly gloomy room long abandoned. Shelving with dusty crates and a couple of tables up against the wall. Rather than being stripped bare, they had some amount of clutter on them.
[Check the crates, Roy. Belle, help me look over the tables.]
I was eager to get some answers, or at least work through whatever was going on here, before Ren had to warn us the guards had gotten their act together.
//Dubs: Sitrep?
//Clara: Enemy is consolidating into two regiments.
//Clara: No sight of Rockslide yet.
//Dubs: We are in a WG building, will rejoin objective asap.
//Clara: Understood.
“Oh shit,” Belle said, drawing my attention away from the screens. “Looks like someone might have been betrayed.”
Looking over the tables, there was a clear spray of long dried blood across them, the deep crimson having soaked in the paperwork.
“Something, something, there was a mole,” Roy muttered to himself as he opened up the first crate.
I had long held the belief that I wasn’t much of a detective, but I could put some puzzle pieces together to make a guess at what had happened. The Agents here were making a break for it, probably after wearing out their welcome. Someone had caught them in the act and took away the burden of escaping from them permanently, but didn’t seem to care about all this work being left behind.
It would also have been someone who knew about the hidden door.
As we pushed through the loose papers falling out of folders, I didn’t need the concerned murmurs of our healer to know that this wasn’t good. There was no chance the World Government would have chosen to leave this behind intentionally.
[Get all of this in a container, we need to take it.]
Roy looked over from his box, pausing as he rifled through the contents. “You’re… never going to guess what’s in here.”
“Unfortunately, I have a very good idea,” Belle replied, picking up a page and handing it to me.
Arcane crystals. A delivery route going between several destinations in the wastelands. I stepped over to the Captain and checked inside the box. To my eye, they were just the same as the ones we had taken from the pyramid… although these looked inert. Otherwise, I probably would have felt their magical energy.
[We aren’t equipped for looting, so we’ll leave those behind - unless you need one or two, Belle?]
She weighed up the option as she gathered the rest of the paperwork into a pile. “I have enough space on me for two. That should be sufficient.”
Amongst the shelving, there was little else of note. Some supplies and stored items for the Agents’ stay here. One of the cases was a thick briefcase, which we put all of the papers in.
I was trying to ignore some of the implications from our discovery. Difficult, considering how brazen the facts seemed to be. The League were right to be paranoid about the World Government stewing up hatred for Goldarch with the various mutant tribes. It looked as though they were giving more of a helping hand than I had thought.
[Artefact is still the priority, but this case is almost more important.]
Belle gave me a brief nod. “I’ll keep it safe. It probably is easiest for me to carry it if you all will be fighting.”
“Speaking of that,” Ren’s voice came from the other room, her hearing clearly more acute than I had thought. “There’s trouble coming our way.”
//Clara: Confirmed. One group of twenty moving through streets.
//Clara: Thirty moving up along the rooftops.
All of this, and I didn’t even know how we planned to get out of here. If teleportation was the only way from the outside down into this cavern, then we’d need to find how and where to activate it.
[Potentially, we need to avoid this threat and find Roxy. She hasn’t been in communication for a while.]
I wouldn’t say I was worried about her. If the molepeople had little better than these high-powered crossbows, then she could probably absorb or melt away most damage. That didn’t mean that I wasn’t concerned, however. We just had to act in the best interests of the mission. I knew she would understand.
“She can’t have gone too far,” Roy offered. “Quite likely she has found something to get stuck into.”
We put the last of the paperwork into the case, along with two of the inert arcane crystals. One for ourselves, and another that I planned on giving to the League. I wasn’t sure how we’d get to explaining how we had come across these notes, but the Director knew that we dealt with things in our own way. In his eyes, we were working as intended.
Royal Road is the home of this novel. Visit there to read the original and support the author.
Walking back into the previous room, I paused as a message came in through my lens from Clara. Before I had a chance to bring it up and read it, Ren ducked in from the doorway.
“Get down,” she yelled, causing us all to drop to a crouch by instinct.
No sooner as we huddled down, there was a heavy thud that vibrated through the floor - a crack of broken concrete echoing through the street as a wave of intense heat burst the covered windows in, covering us.
After the shards of broken glass settled and fell from us to the floor, we stood to see Roxy just outside the building. One arm and both of her legs running with dripping lava, the smell of smoldering stone joining the heated air she brought with her.
If it wasn’t for what she held in her left hand, that limb covered in powdered rock but otherwise normal, her eyes would have been the most notable thing about her appearance. Impassive, almost, despite the flickering flame running around her head. As her blank stare turned to me, she held out the square box she was carrying.
“Please take this,” she asked, discomfort in her tone.
It was something odd that felt out of place. A perfect cube with a handle built on top, but the metal it was made of wasn’t like any I had seen before. It had the sheen of dark steel to it, but visually it seemed to move slightly, as if living. Thin, grid-like lines of light blue appeared and vanished from view as it contorted ever so slightly.
The amount of strong magical energy practically pulsing from it left no guesswork as to what it actually was.
I held my left hand out and took it from her, the strange box actually much lighter than I had expected. It wasn’t the weight that surprised me most, however, as I could now feel the power within reaching out to me. Like it was hungry.
“Prolonged exposure is probably a bad idea,” Belle said, crouching down to inspect the item closer. “We need to get this out as soon as possible.”
My eyes went up to my lens to check the messages.
//Clara: Rockslide located.
//Clara: It looks like she has the artefact.
//Clara: I have notified her of your location, brace for impact.
The chat messages vanished, and I continued to glance at the rocky ceiling above us. I wasn’t a great judge of distances, but it looked like it was at least two-hundred feet high on average. At the pinnacle where the faux-sun sat, perhaps three-hundred. Even if Roxy could jump up that high, we didn’t know how far beneath the surface we were. Any attempt to break through might just leave us covered with compacted dirt and rock.
“I don’t want to fight anymore, if we can help it.” Roxy had turned now and was looking down the street to where the large squad of guards were coming to rain a shower of bolts down on us. “We have what we need.”
She seemed a little out of it. Whether that was due to the proximity to what we believed was the artefact, or the fighting had taken something out of her, I wasn’t sure. Something to grind out on the way home.
[Let’s find a way out then.]
As much as I wanted to fill her head with the things we had just found in this World Government office, I was keen to keep my brain off of that subject for now as well. Not that she looked like she could take anything in at present.
The super shot me a glance and nodded. “Take point for me, Dubs.”
There was something to be said about the respect I had gained in the short time of knowing this group, to the point where they had all accepted me as the second in command. I wondered who had that position before I had shown up. Roy seemed like the most likely bet, or perhaps Roxy’s ex. Now that I was about to be inducted into the League of Heroes proper, I was a few steps closer to finding out who that asshole was.
I shook my head and took action.
[We will evade them for now. Prioritize finding an area where they teleport back to the surface. Belle, do you have any ideas?]
She looked up at me, still in the crouched position, observing the artefact. “It’s going to be difficult locating any other magical energy with this thing right next to us, but I am almost certain I would be able to activate one once we have located it.”
Ren narrowed her eyes out down the street. “Once we are back on the rooftops, I might be able to pick up the traces of the beasts of burden again. The area they receive deliveries sounds like a decent location to start with.”
I gave her a nod. That sounded reasonable to me. Once deliveries had been dropped off, they would need to return the caravans or vehicles back up to the surface, and doing that all in the same location would be the most efficient. A much better start than wandering blindly between battles.
We set off, avoiding the dead end, in the opposite direction of the groups of molepeople trying to track us down. It wouldn’t be like a group composed of five heroes would be difficult to find, but we would certainly be hard to catch. I had no doubt we could hold our ground and kill them all. Another fifty lives thrown away due to our greed was probably not the right call.
Yet I didn’t believe that was what was bothering Roxy.
She had now put out her limbs, her super suit melted away up to just above the knees. Running barefoot didn’t seem to bother her, and she helped us all get onto the rooftops with a short throw each. Given that I only had one hand at the best of times, constantly carrying things made me feel awkward and overburdened. At least with my drum mag, I was fully capable of fighting for a while.
I took cues from the elf over which direction to travel. We hadn’t really needed to make use of them previously, but she had excellent tracking skills. Then again, much like the rest of the group, she was really coming into her role as a hero once more. As much as it solidified us as a valid B-Rank team, I knew that we needed to push each other much further to get to A-Rank.
With a roll, I landed over the next street on the next roof, cradling the cube in my chest as I performed the acrobatic action. That was probably a terrible idea, as the artefact seemed to like being that close to me. I… wasn’t sure why I knew that.
Perhaps it could sense my own magical power. Either way, I was twice as keen to get back to the truck and offload this. While Belle had shown plenty of professional curiosity at the start, I couldn’t help but notice she had kept her distance once we had started to move. Part of me wondered if I was carrying a bomb right now, but I was partially sure that Clara wouldn’t put me in any immediate danger like that.
As if she had heard my thoughts, the drone ahead of us chose this time to chime in.
//Clara: Warehouse area just ahead.
//Clara: Clear spaces for vehicle use, storage, and stables.
//Clara: Lightly guarded.
//Gunquake: Affirmative.
My eyes went to Roxy, the super clearly reading the messages through her own STAR before she focused back on the route ahead without responding. I checked the others. Mostly looks of grim determination on their faces. People knowing they had a job to do and were fully committed to get it done. Of course, escaping back home was always more of a motivation than whatever you had to do going in.
It was probably just that she had exerted her powers a bit too much to escape her cell and get through the guards to wherever she found the artefact.
//Clara: Groups in pursuit are now several minutes behind.
//Clara: Be mindful of that.
We had a little breathing room, depending on how quickly the teleportation magic worked. Getting sent down here was near instant. Just a split second where we noticed the pulse of energy. Hopefully, the return journey was just as straightforward.
Once we reached the last building before the open courtyard in the center of the warehouse district, I gave them a hand signal to stay put and lie low.
Part of me wanted to put the cube down and stretch my hand out. But I didn’t… or couldn’t. Instead, it was time for a checkup with Roxy.
[Everything okay? You seem out of sorts.]
Her fiery eyes turned to me, barely able to tear away from glancing down at the guards pacing about the warehouses. There was a hesitation where she was probably going to tell me she was fine, before some of her frozen expression melted away. “It was just the fight to get the artefact. Took a lot out of me, but we’ll debrief later, promise.”
I stared for a moment, trying to read anything more into that, but I could not. On the surface, that was an acceptable response. Continuing was more important than the gritty details of what had irked her. I had my own assumptions, but those weren’t helpful right now.
[This is almost over.]
The drone was already scouting the area just as soon as she had confirmed the position of the large group hunting us down. If we were wrong about this being the right place, then there was a chance we’d have to fight. There was only so much running we could do, superheroes or not.
Although the term ‘hero’ applied loosely to our current situation. Glancing down at the cube, I wondered if this would be worth the bloodshed we had caused. Not that I was really seeking justification. I knew what I was and had long made peace with the ease with which I killed. Clara hadn’t even detailed what the artefact could do, or how it would benefit us. I just trusted her. It felt... powerful.
//Clara: Five pairs of guards. Three are moving in a clockwise patrol, alternating between the front and rear of the warehouses.
//Clara: The other two pairs are guarding one very specific building.
//Clara: Something suspiciously similar to the room we entered through.
That sounded like our best bet. It was the one to the northeast of our current location. Once we knew what we were looking for, it made the picture clearer. We didn’t need Ren’s enhanced vision to pick out two molepeople standing just outside the entrance of a wide open doorway into a darkened building.
Should be simple enough.
To our left was the closest warehouse. A good twenty feet taller than the building we were currently on, and over not only the gap of a street, but then a thick wall and second pathway beyond that. I raised an eyebrow at Roxy, even if she couldn’t see it under my goggles and balaclava.
“Sorry.” She shook her head. “With how I’m feeling, I can’t guarantee I’ll be accurate enough.”
Few of us could survive falls from great heights, so taking the side of caution felt appropriate. Going in guns blazing seemed like the obvious option, but my intuition was telling me they might have a failsafe to turn off the teleportation device if they knew for sure we were coming for it. Not just a way to switch it off—because if they were competent, then that should have been done as soon as we broke out of jail—but them potentially destroying it to keep us trapped wasn’t something worth risking.
//Gunquake: We can see the two outside, confirm the position of the other two.
We watched as the drone circled back around the courtyard, keeping out of sight of the guards making their way around. I really needed to convince her to get a drone with guns on it. Maybe a little rocket launcher.
//Clara: Inside, behind cover. One on either side of the doorway.
The two outside were as good as taken care of already. We had enough ranged damage and speed to take them out before they had even clocked we were here. The two on the inside were much more difficult, if only because they’d notice their friends getting dropped. It might not be an issue—but again—if they were waiting with a kill-switch for the device, then it was a risk.
Not being able to use my other hand meant my grapple wasn’t too useful. I furrowed my brow and held my gun-arm up, judging the distance between here and our target. Most of my ammunition wouldn’t even get half the way there.
[Roy, I’m going to need you to take this grenade from my vest.]
We had the tools to overcome most things. It just took a little planning. Something… I was partially reluctant to admit I wasn’t that great at. After all, I had been either a supportive super-soldier, or a self-destructive killer for hire previously. It was a miracle that I had made it this far. But I had, so I told them the plan.
//Clara: Contact due in less than one minute.
Overcharge hummed through my V-Force drive, and I broke a few rules. The energy source that powered my shotgun had been established as being potentially magical in nature, and I allowed it to be so. Whatever charge remained in my arcane crystals burned hot before petering out, the device in the side of my gun-arm thrumming and hissing with barely held-back power.
I wasn’t much for sniping. In the past, I kept most of my problems in the same room, making my forced weaponry best suited to coming up with a short and loud solution. Still, I had a little help from my friends.
Belle touched the back of my elbow, enchanting my next shot with His powers. She stepped away as the green sheen settled around my barrel, and the elf then moved up behind me. Crouching slightly, she moved my arm by a few degrees, as if I were a siege cannon aiming to hit a precision target. It was close enough to the truth.
Then I fired the Quake shot out, the blur of green behind the high-velocity round acting as a signal flare for the rest of us to move.
Roy was gone already, blazing along the side of the warehouses. Beside me, Roxy hopped down to make a hole through the wall. I let my rappel sink down to the roof, expelling the expanding foam which solidified in a second. Belle grasped onto me as I slid down the wall to the street below—something even more awkward while I held the artefact in a death-grip.
Ren fired off an arrow just as the wall came down, most of the actual battle now obscured from me. Everything happened in a very quick sequence.
I stepped through the rubble and out into the courtyard to survey the results of my shot. Another arrow flew overhead, impaling the second guard through the neck. He tried to clutch at it, but was having trouble doing much at all as my repeated V-Force shockwave pulsed through that building. His equal also lay dead, an arrow protruding from them.
A figure emerged from the dim interior. Roy, one hand over his eyes, and the other waving us over.
We didn’t need much more encouragement than that. After my malady-imbued Quake shot had hit, the speedster had gone straight into the building and let off a flash grenade, doubling up on the stun already on them. It would have taken him barely two seconds to get to both, even if disorientated himself. Ren had easily taken out the two on the outside.
As our feet struck the concrete, the six other guards in the area swarmed in to see what the commotion had been. Unfortunately, they fell in quick order. In the distance, I could hear the approaching horde intending to stop us.
The Captain shook his head, eyes finally readjusting. “Looks like you were right about a kill-switch. After the first vibration hit them, the dumbass dropped it. Thank fuck.”
I shot a glance at Belle, her powers once again tipping the scales in our favor, before my eyes took in the darkened shelter.
An empty warehouse, not unlike the room we had vanished from topside. Other than the scuffed floor from the animals and vehicles used to transport goods, this one was different in that it had a control panel.
My brain ached, flickers of pain dancing around my nervous system, as I used Comprehend Languages to read the instructions on the panel. It was a simple thing with only four buttons on it, but acted more of a directory that you had to put a code in to get your intended destination.
Without being able to understand the key on the side, we would have been shit out of luck. I pressed in a sequence of five buttons, the moleperson equivalent of a sticky note clearly stating the ground floor number pattern, as the others looked out at the horde pouring through the gates over the courtyard. A few short seconds and we’d be in crossbow range, stuck in this little box.
Belle raised her hand up, ready to cast the dome. The Captain had his fists up while Ren drew an arrow. Roxy still looked half asleep and regarded the looming guards impassively.
Just as the whistle of the first volley sung through the air, the cube in my hand whispered a message that I did not understand.
Then the Natural Disasters vanished.