"This is a fucking military compound!

Hel's face betrayed no frustration at Tenia's tone, but inwardly, she was seething. They'd definitely lost their edge since the last time they were in the field. There was a time when the would never have dared question an order. Even eye contact with her would have been beyond the small, dark woman. Now, it was bitch, bitch, bitch . . .

To let off some steam, Hel allowed a little hurricane to form in the palm of her hand. "We've taken down worse."

"With all due respect . . ." Tenia noticed the spiralling column of air and managed actually to put some respect into her voice. Fear. Respect. Hel would take what she could get right now. "I mean, what I'm saying is that it's been a while since we were actually active. At least as a team. Do you really think we hit a fucking armed installation as a way of easing ourselves back into the swing of things?"

"Don't you want to know who killed the bitch?"

"Of course I do. But there's got to be an easier way to go about it than tooling up for war!"

"I don't know what you're moaning about, T," came a deep voice behind them. "I'm looking forward to getting back to it. Blow off some of the rust."

Hel wasn't sure whether having Charl on her side was all that helpful. When the brain-damaged team member liked your plan, it was kind of beholden on you to think again.

Tenia obviously thought the same. "Oh, well. If Charl is on board with Operation In Over Our Heads, then I have no worries whatsoever. He's our resident tactician, after all. Awesome. No follow-up questions."

Hel tuned her out.

Following the group that had kidnapped Lowe was no issue at all: they hadn't even bothered to hide their tracks. To start with, Hel assumed they were incredibly sloppy. Then they reached their destination in the euphemistically titled 'Peace' District, and the reason for their nonchalance became clear.

"Why has a group of mercenaries taken you, Mr Lowe?" she found herself asking over and over again. The guy appeared to be a magnet for trouble.

It was not even a day since she'd disposed of the four oafs from the Temple lurking outside Lowe's apartment. Initially, she'd been tempted to put a scare into them and let them go, but then she'd seen some of the implements they'd brought with them, and it was clear it wasn't just a punishment beating they had planned for the inspector's future.

As far as she was concerned, throats cut by Wind Blades was as merciful as she was prepared to get in that situation.

Following that, having little else left to do now plotting the death of a certain High Priestess was no longer on her dance card, Hel had been idly shadowing the inspector as he moved from the Middle Court to - interestingly - Jewel Town, to Cuckoo House and then to his abortive trip home. She assumed something fairly catastrophic had happened at Security Service HQ as after that, Lowe lost his shadow and picked up a whole host of tails.

Hel had dropped Irek a message to drop in on her sisters - the had a uniquely effective set of Skills when it came to those two - and let the other two know to catch-up with her when they could.

The problem now was that it was just her, Tenia, and Charl, which gave Hel a growing sense of unease that they may be shorthanded for what was to come.

Thinking the same, Tenia made one last effort to talk her boss down. "Hel, I'm all up for a bit of recreational violence - I think my record is clear on that front - but you, me and dumbo - "

"Hey!"

"Like that's not an accurate description. Look, we're good, but that place just screams evil madman's lair. I'm seeing double patrols, nasty surprises lurking in the shadows of those windows, and, if I'm not mistaken, there's the aura of someone well out of league in the basement."

"Nobody's out of my league!" Charl puffed up to twice his normal size, at which Tenia rolled her eyes and went to speak again. Hel got in there first.

"I'm taking all of this into account. But we're still going in." Hel reached out a hand and rested it on Tenia's forearm. "We're not good people, T. We did some terrible things back in the day, and I know I'm not the only one who struggles to sleep at night. Right now, I think we've got an opportunity to pull one back on the right side of things."

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

"You're willing for us to die getting that guy out of trouble?"

"Of course not." And the hurricane doubled in size in her hand. "But I'm not against a whole bunch of them meeting their god if they get in our way."

*

Shel Murad, Level 31 , loved her job.

If she occasionally wondered what the targets she was instructed to put an iron-tipped bolt into had done to deserve it, the triple XP she received from hitting them from over 500 yards away helped settle her moral qualms. She and her boyfriend had made plans to get married on the day she crossed her Level 35 threshold. At her current rate of progress, that should be in about a year and a half's time. She'd already spotted the ideal dress and -

"Got another one," Charl whispered - or as much as a twelve-foot tall could whisper - as he ripped the sneaky archer in two. It was the third such hidden assassin they'd flushed out as they approached their target building. While 'Hide behind Charl' was not exactly straight from the strategic masterplan handbook, it proved oddly effective.

Unfortunately, what they gained in terms of survivability, they lost in sneak attack potential. Still, you played the hand you were dealt . . .

"Okay - " Hel said, wincing as four bolts struck Charl in the chest, burying halfway into his muscled flesh. Charl had always said he didn't feel any pain when inflated, but he looked like he was taking a fucking pounding - "Tenia, do your thing."

Most people had the wrong idea about . They spoke in hushed tones about how they caused your worst, most profound fears to manifest right before you. Then there was the way that effect lingered well past the initial confrontation - casualties to action had been logged six, seven years after first contact. And, of course, there was the range of 'Quality of Life' Skills the Class had access to - Life Leach, Slow, Widow's Bite, to name but three - which made them an absolute ballache to try to pin down.

And all of that was true.

But no one ever bothered to remark how cool Tenia looked doing her thing.

The screams of various , and were music to Hel's ears as she flew across towards the building with wind-assisted speed.

This had always been the way they tended to go about things. And she had to admit, a very small - and growing - part of her missed it. Charl would draw everyone's attention, Tenia would add to the panic, Irek would inflame that fear to massive proportions, and Hel would slip in and do what needed to be done. Without the , Tenia was required to work a little hard to raise everyone's blood pressure, but she was rising to that challenge like a champ.

"Charl! Door!"

The giant lumbered forward, crushing a buff under his feet, before shrinking down to the exact size of the barred iron door and crashing through it. "Ha!" he yelled back to Hel, who was standing barely a foot away, "finally hit 45!"

"Good for you!" she yelled back. Charl's hearing seemed to degrade badly when he was in full Berserker mode. Fortunately, he quickly stopped flashing golden, indicating he'd allocated his Progress Points.

Three came out from a door down the left-hand side of the corridor they'd exposed, and Hel casually directed the hurricane she'd been pulling behind into the middle of them. They were instantly torn to shreds: couldn't have been much more than Level 20. "What did you go with?"

Charl smiled, then inflated back to his maximum size, his head and torso crashing through the floor above. "All about the girth, baby!" He levered himself upwards on his forearms and shrank back down to normal size as he vanished through the hole. The crashing noise from above indicated further destruction was taking place.

Hel recalled her hurricane, now stained a deep red, and continued down the hallway. When she reached an open door on the right, she moved her summoned spiral of wind in and around the room beyond, devastating the furniture and causing a number of satisfying screams from whoever was lurking within.

Tenia phased through the wall and came to stand next to her. "I'm not going to lie, these guys are shit." She pulled open another one of the doors and slipped inside - letting off all sorts of nastiness at the cowering guards inside.

Hel had to agree. For all the bravado she'd shown outside, she'd worried that they might be a touch out of practice. Particularly when looking at the sheer range of defences this building appeared to possess. However, the standard of antagonists they'd come up against - at least so far - was rather underwhelming.

With a crash, Charl dropped through the ceiling a little way down, carrying the crushed remains of five . He dropped them at Hel's feet like a puppy proudly showing off a well-hunted stick. "What's the story, boss? Where are the decent baddies?" There was a pause. "Or are we the baddies? I sometimes can't keep track."

"No Charl. On this occasion, we're not the baddies." Hel said. Although, as that was the moment Tenia returned, covered in blood and licking her fingers clean, she didn't think anyone would be shouting 'all hail the hero saviours' any time soon.

"Any sign of the poor little lamb we're here to save?" Tenia said, teeth stained red like a particularly sloppy vampire.

Hel closed her eyes and reached out with one of her less destructive skills, Head Trace. "There's a bunch of heat sources beneath our feet." She paused. "I think this might be where the better talent is."

"And your lost detective?"

"Him too."

Tenia stretched her back out, then opened her arms, letting streaks of malevolent red energy spiral outwards. The answering cries from the rest of the defenders on this floor were, again, not the stuff of the moral high ground. "Well, there's no one left alive up here. What are we waiting for? Unless you've changed your mind?"

Hel shook her head. If whoever had taken Lowe wasn't planning on killing him before they crashed the party, they absolutely would be reconsidering that position right now. "The plan's still the same."

"Fair enough. So we're going down?"

"Yep. Charl, this one is on you. Time to Get Heavy."

"It will be my pleasure, boss." He took a massive breath, activated the skill Hel had suggested, and leapt into the air.