Kada and Niloy infiltrated the lowest floor directly, since that’s where Phon had mentioned the captives being held. As an unexpected side-effect of the building being covered in aura, Kada could no longer melt the outer walls. This at least explained why she could melt byproduct from animals but not the animals themselves when they were still alive.
However, that didn’t impede Niloy’s Curse in any way, which was now rather infamous for the damage it could do to the living. In a recent online poll by some… fan? of the group, they conducted a survey of which member someone would most and least want to fight.
Niloy won the ‘least’ category by a landslide, most survey takers rather dying outright than risk being melted half to death. Roque was the runner up, again rather dying than being left in financial ruin. And surprisingly in third place was Tize. Apparently several people thought he’d ultimately end up lecturing them about their lives instead of actually fighting.
On the other end of the spectrum, Rezin won for ‘most’ want to fight. A lot of people were intrigued by his power and wanted to experience it for themselves. Even more thought he was their best bet of beating in a fight. Second was Phon for reasons that didn’t really have to do with fighting. Third was Niloy again, mostly comprised of her personal online fanbase that wanted to meet her.
Fourth was Itsy, a mixed split of fighting and other reasons. And fifth was Jaid of all people. She was still counted as a member in these polls. Perhaps they wanted to include everyone that had ever been one as well. Most of the reason she was so high was people saying they wanted to get vengeance for her betraying the group, not fully understanding the complexities of what had actually happened. Only a few knew she was a spy, most thinking she was just a traitor.
After Niloy melted a hole through the wall of the Power Station, the two girls continued unimpeded. They started at the far end away from the captives, wanting to secure the area as much as possible before releasing a bunch of people.
Kada took the front since she was the more defensible of the two. A good choice since she ended up taking a few surprise shots from hiding guards. The moment either girl laid eyes on them, though, they were doomed. After getting a bit annoyed by some, Kada just started making the guards sink into the ground to disappear forever if they tried to attack her.
Niloy watched her back, choosing to go with a stinging concoction to coat the enemy with. She was more inclined to watch them suffer than kill them outright. Neither of them felt any sympathy after they found the facility’s morgue. Some of the states that the bodies were in would haunt their nightmares for quite some time.
It was baffling that this many people could be complicit in something so sinister. Fiends were often called monsters, but humanity always seemed to win back that title in the end. And for what, minor advancements in technology and new weapons for war? The world was supposed to be at peace, but whoever was in charge of this place certainly didn’t think so.
The girls got several mixed reactions when they finally found the captives. A lot of them recoiled in fear, thinking they might be being retrieved for further experimentation. Some looked elated, possibly knowing of the Fiends For Hire, just ecstatic to see a new face, or they fully believed Victori’s message. Most, though, had no reaction whatsoever—no life left in their eyes.
There was surely a look of surprise on the girls’ faces as well, not expecting to find them all in such an odd situation. They weren’t in cells or in any kind of restraints or cages that they could discern. Everyone was scattered around the big open room, huddled up in piles with a good amount of space between each group.
Yet for reasons hard to surmise, there was a door frame near each huddle. It had no actual door in it, but there was a lock about where one would expect. “No, stay back!” one of the Lesser’s shouted at Kada when she approached the lock. She didn’t heed their warning, though, and tried to melt it.
But she couldn’t get close enough, not even with radiating her Curse at its maximum range. Instead, her hand jolted backwards in pain when she touched the invisible barrier of electricity. Silver blood dripped to the ground out of the tips of her fingers, the flesh shredded apart. Streaks of static were singed into her skin down her hands. Kada dove the damaged hand into her armpit to try and dampen the pain. It’d heal soon enough, but it still hurt like a mawhger.
So what could they do now? Odds were the electricity went to the ceiling, and Kada wouldn’t be surprised if it somehow went through the ceiling and floor too since they were trying to contain Fiends.
“Ugh, just let me!” It seemed Niloy didn’t have enough patience for Kada to mull over the situation. “This just goes to show why my melting is better.” She pulled out a specialized attachment for her water gun. It looked like something a dentist would use.
The new nozzle fired a small, concentrated stream of water that Niloy fired onto the lock. Thankfully, the water was pure enough to not conduct electricity, but the tool was rubberized just in case. Some of the drops of water were vaporized immediately when touching the electricity, but plenty made it through with just a spritz that Niloy could easily melt the lock.
Kada directed traffic, grouping everyone up in an orderly fashion while Niloy freed the rest. A few cried and hugged her, many more with questions. She did her best to reassure them without overburdening them with info. It didn’t take too long, and Kada’s hand had finally healed by the time every invisible cage was opened.
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“Alright, that’s everyone! Let’s get Tize down here to lead everyone to safety,” Kada cheered to her partner.
“Okay, I’ll call him,” Niloy held out her hand to the open nothingness and pleaded. “Tize, help me!”
◆◆◆
Outside the Power Station, it didn’t take long before reinforcements arrived. Within minutes, Rusa called in that she had spotted convoys headed their way from every direction. Some were the Red Eyes Gang, and some others that looked like random mercenary groups too woefully uninformed of what they were getting into, or too stupid.
These hired-guns were loaded to the teeth too—mounted turrets on just about every vehicle with each aggressor carrying weapons even the police didn’t use. Just about everything short of a tank, probably just because tanks would be too slow. And that was only on the ground.
In the air, helicopters swarmed around, dropping a battalion of drones. These criminals and mercenaries were on par with some of the best armies in the world—someone’s own private army.
Bullets began flying the moment the criminals were in range. They didn’t even try for a surrender. Whatever secrets the Power Station had, they wanted it to stay buried. It was possible they’d resort to more drastic measures, so the Fiends For Hire would need to keep an eye open.
Xard took to the skies, explosions and debris already raining down when he sliced the blades off of some of the choppers and blasted some drones. This left Tize and Itsy to take care of the ground troops.
Both could deal with bullets pretty easily. Tize could obviously block them, but during the raid on the compound, Itsy found she was pretty resistant to them as well. Due to her thick skin and bulging mass, they never got very deep into her body. She also figured out how to pop the bullets out with some flexing so that she could heal.
There was a lot of speculation that this somehow involved Itsy’s unknown Curse. Phon took a look after the battle, and found that the lock to be somewhat damaged. However, over the next few days as Itsy healed from her wounds, so did the lock. This led them to believe it was in fact related to taking damage, but everything up to that point was just a result of her absurd body and had nothing to do with her unactivated Curse.
In the meantime, as long as she didn’t take a fatal wound to the head, she was very hard to kill. To combat that, Itsy had started wearing a welder’s helmet out in the field with a visor she could flip up. She should be fine to whether this storm, but it was still going to be a torrential shower of bullets headed their way
Instead of taking the risk of having Tize and Itsy act separately, they decided to combine into one unstoppable unit. 『Synchronization Rate: 50%』 Bulky rounded rust-red armor clinged to Itsy’s limbs. There was a bit on her chest and back, but not enough to protect everything vital. But its purpose wasn’t really protection.
Itsy crouched down and the armor shifted. The pieces started connecting until they shaped around her in a perfect, smooth sphere. Only one bit stood out, her welding helmet that was poking out at the crest of the sphere.
The two sides of the sphere started spinning in place while the center remained. It operated similarly to a tank instead of rolling around like one might think. The Itsy sphere bolted forward, straight at an oncoming truck full of soldiers. It tore right through the vehicle, exploding the gas line and sending those inside of it flying in every direction like bowling pins. Itsy had scored a strike.
This was it, the final form of The Wrathful Wrecking Ball. She zipped around the area—now a battlefield since blood had been shed. The sphere moved much faster than any of their vehicles could dodge, and it could change direction instantly. Her enemies had believed they were the ones coming to terrorize the Fiends, but Itsy was the real terror here.
Bullets flew, grenades were thrown, and someone even pulled out a rocket launcher. There wasn’t so much as a scratch of damage on the sphere, its defense as unparalleled as its offense.
The wrecking ball, or the Ball of Doom as it would be known by enemy groups after this fight, destroyed their forces without mercy. In minutes, half of their ground forces had been wiped out. Itsy had little control over whether they’d live or die, but she didn’t try to run down any who had escaped the vehicles and were just trying to save their own lives.
When there was only about a quarter of the ground forces left, they began retreating at full speed. Itsy only gave chase for about a lage and then did a lap around the area to make sure it was all clear. Shortly after, Tize directed her back towards the Power Station. 【I’ve been called.】
A part of Tize’s Curse that wasn’t listed in its description was that he could hear when anyone called him specifically for help. As far as they could tell, the range was limitless across the world. This led to innumerable pranks the first few days to the point that it had to become a fully banned rule of the organization. The members were only allowed to use it in an actual emergency or if it was preplanned like this situation.
After separating from Itsy, Tize turned back into light and drifted through the walls of the building. In that form, he could phase through anything. And while he couldn’t move quite at the speed of light, it was still insanely quick, inadvertently making him the fastest man alive.
Unfortunately, this sequence couldn’t end at just travel. Tize still had to merge with the host who called him even if it was just for a split second. In Niloy’s case, he became skin-colored patches that covered her Curse Mark, negating the need for makeup. For whatever reason, this also made Niloy and her clothing completely hydrophobic, so she couldn’t be damaged by her own Curse.
When he returned back to his own body, the man was met with countless stares. But he didn’t have time to gawk, knowing the more unsure he looked, the less confident everyone else would be in him. Niloy pointed in the direction where she’d made an opening, and he whipped out his gun and shield. “Alright everyone, follow me!”
Only a few steps out of the room he heard Kada giddily shout, “C’mon Nini! Let’s start wrecking the place!”