“I had a feeling someone from your group would be coming,” Detective Tusmon got up from the stoop where he and the others had been loitering. “But I wasn’t expecting to be graced by The Fiendish King himself. Regardless, I’m glad you and The Paladin are here. Something tells me we’ll need all the backup we can get.”
“Erm, right, happy to help…?” Drim was entirely unconfident in what he was saying, just going with the flow—even shaking the man’s presented hand when prompted in an unusual bout of friendliness that Tusmon had never shown them once since they’d met. “Why, uhm, are you here, though?”
“Hmph, figures,” The Investigator was back to his usual crass and indignant responses. “You go and throw everything into disarray yesterday with your actions, leaving my group to pick up the pieces today. But so has been the cycle ever since you went public all those years ago, so I don’t know why I thought this time would be any different.”
The man reached into his trenchcoat, digging around for a second, before pulling out a single sheet of paper. He then unfurled it and presented it to the king. “A warrant directly from the Central Peace for the arrest of Representative of Regend, Gort Hower. Wanted dead or alive. Along with a blanket warrant for present accomplices or anyone who stands in our way.”
“It will hit publicly tomorrow, but who knows if it will remain active if he wins the election. That means today is the only chance to take action without issue. And they pawned it off on the Fiend Crimes Division, claiming that since many of his crimes are Fiend related, it falls under our jurisdiction.”
“But I’m guessing they didn’t want to suffer the blowback of mobilizing the Central Peace military against one of the candidates today. That, and they want as few people to know the truth as possible for the time being. If Hower’s voters are indeed the majority, they’ll cry election interference and turn on the CP. Let’s hope for all of our sakes that you’re the leading candidate, Drazah. Cosmos… can’t believe I’m saying that. For my own sanity, I’m going to delude myself into thinking they gave us this responsibility because they want to see results.”
“And the others?” Drim peered behind the man at the small group still standing around. Chiulu waved at him from inside her puffy suit, but her presence was to be expected. It was the three other men, members of the Fiends For Hire, which caused him as their leader some confusion.
“Well my assistant goes where I do, that much should be obvious,” Tusmon spoke frankly. “For the other Fiends, I originally only contacted your West compound to ask for Lieu’s assistance. Having a man on my side who can escape from the hairiest situations was something I couldn’t ignore in case things go wrong. But Whill and Fetter also volunteered their assistance, so who was I to turn them down?”’
“Well it explains why the two of you suddenly pulled out of the other mission,” Drim glanced at the two leaders of West. “And while Fetter never signed on to it, I’m more surprised he’s willing to help you, Tusmon, given your history.”
“We have already made amends,” The Mime answered shortly. “I am more interested in stopping someone who wishes to destroy the beauty of the world than changing the world itself. That is why I’m here.”
“And for me,” Whill tried to sound confident despite his cowardice. “I was going to face that lady because it was expected of me as leader! But erm, a bad human sounds a lot more my speed than a demigod. Much more on my level.”
“Hmph, I was raring to face that woman, if only to ensure Alk’s safety,” Lieu bolstered. “But I have my own grudges against Hower. As a former soldier, once I heard of his treasonous ways, it was something I couldn’t ignore. During The Drazah war, I gave it my all to protect my country, losing so much in the process. And though we were ultimately defeated, we held them back long enough for them to move on and lose interest, meaning they barely tried to tamper with our lives in the wake of their victory.”
“But Hower! That bastard, he was going to hand over his country like it was nothing! Not even giving their army a proper chance to fight for their freedom! It is the worst disrespect you can have. Even if it was a futile effort, I guarantee those soldiers would have gone down fighting for the home they loved. To discard their efforts and resolve is like taking a piss on them!”
Drim hadn’t actually expected such elaborate explanations from each of them. “I’m not actually mad or anything,” he tried to reassure them. “It was your choice from the beginning. But it is good to see you all still helping in a way you think is right.”
“Well now that all the pleasantries are aside,” Tusmon tried to veer them back on track. “Let’s discuss Hower’s unsightly tower. Since your sister teleported you here to the bottom instead of into the building wherever he is, there must be tricks involved. We’ve done a bit of scouting and research of our own, but we would appreciate you sharing anything you know.”
“Right,” the king was happy to follow someone else’s lead for once. “This skyscraper is designed to keep Fiends out, or at the very least, make it so annoying to infiltrate that we don’t even want to try. The most hindering one is that the entire building is covered in an aura field, essentially making the structure itself presented as a living being, thus preventing both Phon and Kada’s Curses from being used to easily break our way in.”
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“As for entrances, there is only one. Despite being entirely against fire code, the other exits are fake and are sealed off, but decorated to look like the real thing, even with faux locked handles that actually lead to nothing. There is also no rooftop access, and the top ceiling is reinforced with some of the most hardened material around. Additionally, all the windows are bullet-proof with thick glass. We could still definitely break through it with our various strengths, but there’s the blatant other issue.”
“This is a public building, with dozens of other civilian businesses throughout the floors. We’re pretty sure this is by design. Hower is using regular people as a shield to discourage a full-on attack against the place. We won’t break walls or shatter windows or come in with full force if there’s a chance that innocent civilians will get hurt.”
“That matches what we’ve found,” the detective agreed. “They were kind enough to provide a full map of the building with each business listed when we asked. It would make it seem like a standard office complex, with the kind politician up above that generously leases his building to those who need it. This will certainly make brute forcing our way through that much more complicated.”
“Why not just bust in through the top floor then where Hower’s waiting?” Lieu suggested. “I’m sure it would be simple enough for you, but hell, even get Xard here, he’d fly up there and blast an opening in no time, then this would all be over within a matter of minutes.”
“Because the public map they gave you is actually a lie,” Drim corrected the man’s assumptions. “Hower isn’t on the top floor. We don’t know what’s there, maybe storage, maybe traps, but certainly not him. Phon was able to confirm this. While she can’t actually see into the building itself, she was able to use her Greater power to generally track his location.”
“He’s on an unlisted floor somewhere in the upper-middle of the building. We used drones to look into every window, but there was still no sign of him, so we suspect he must be in an inner bunker. Not only that, but Roque combed the list of businesses in the building, and several of them are fake. We suspect that they’re actually his private mercenaries posing as office workers.” The man then pointed them all out, jabbing a thorn into each.
“But this is a big clue to where he is. The map lists 87 floors, but if you count from the bottom, tedious as it may be, there’s actually 88, confirming the unlisted floor. And look here, in the mid 60s, there are six floors in a row that all have fake businesses, meaning they’re all actually guards. There’s more floors with similar inhabitants too, but they’re all spread out.”
“So it’s safe to assume Hower is somewhere in there in that bubble of protection. And we can presume the elevator would normally skip his floor, meaning the actual entrance is among one of the others. We’ll undoubtedly have to fight through a few waves of goons to find it, and we don’t even know what we’re looking for. Ahvra did a scan of the building's electricity flow, and she wasn’t able to deduce much from so much noise, but she’s confident that somewhere in that area, there’s a staircase with lighting that leads to nowhere, likely behind a hidden wall.”
“We’ll leave that to Chiulu,” Tusmon smirked. “If anyone can find a secret, it’s her. Will probably careen right through the thing.”
“Thank you for your confidence, sir!” the woman sounded both appreciative and disheartened at the same time.
“Then it stands to reason that the front entrance is our best option,” Jaid weighed in. “We should do our best to ignore most of the building and all in it. Then once we get to those six floors, I can use my clones to quickly search them and clear out the obstacles. That said, we know Hower’s a lunatic. He might try to turn some of the mercs onto the civilians to try and stop us.”
“While I agree that sounds like something he’d do,” Drim started, “I doubt that’s his line of thinking in this case. He’ll want to do everything he can to stop us, and direct all of his soldiers in our direction. If he harms or kills civilians, that will only drive us even more. But of course, we’ll do all we can to protect them, and hopefully lure the fighting away from them. Though it’s hard to say for certain what he’ll do, ”
“Well I’m heading straight for the man in question,” Tusmon interjected with his plans. “My priority is ensuring Hower sees justice. So I agree that as few delays as possible is best. I encourage you to come with me, but you’re free to do as you like as long as you don’t get it in the way. We’ll get in, blow past the main security, and take the elevator like we belong. Then once we get into the 60s we’ll pick a floor and start the search there. Does that work for everyone?”
“Sounds fine to me,” Drim was amenable. “This is your operation, so I’ll follow your lead. But we have our own business with Hower. So I ask that you don’t arrest or kill him until we can have a few words first. That’s all we should need.”
Detective Tusmon didn’t agree directly, but he gave a courteous and understanding nod. From there, the group that stuck out like nothing else in a business district marched out of the alleyway and straight down the street towards the skyscraper. They climbed the steps to the building, prepared to barge into the front entrance, but one amongst them didn’t join the rest.
“Are you coming, Ponde?” The Investigator turned to look at the man who had planted his feet on the street below them.
“Actually, I think this is the best place for me,” Whill attempted to convince them. “When it all kicks off, Hower will likely call for backup, right? Or one of the people in there might call the police on us. Who knows, they might even send the Horage military!”
“But I’ll keep them out. I swear it on my honor as The Deterrent that no one else will make it inside! After all, making people want to avoid me is my speciality!”
“Thank you, Whill!” Drim expressed his heartfelt gratitude before he and the detective turned back to the doors and pushed them open. The final raid had begun.