“Hmm, the numbers are 3, 9, and 0,” Detective Tusmon’s eye highlighted the fingerprints lingering on the keypad. “3 looks like it’s been pressed twice the amount. So I feel like the obvious answer would be 0933, date of the Cosmic Boon.” The man input the code and they immediately heard a grinding whir nearby. The monitor changed, indicating the first door had been opened, and Lieu briefly stuck his head back out in the hall to confirm the slabs of metal had separated from each other.
“How strange,” Drim lingered on the answer. “Since Hower planned to turn Horage over to my mother, wouldn’t he actually despise that day?”
“Perhaps he dwells on his defeats rather than his victories,” Jaid suggested. “Or used it as a lesson that drives everything he does now.”
“You can ask him yourself in a few minutes,” The Investigator got things back on track as he moved over to a keyboard. “Help me figure this out first. The letters are Z, M, A, D, H, E, R, I, and P with a space at least once.”
“Hmm, Hazard Prime?” The Guerilla was the first to offer a suggestion. “Perhaps that’s the actual name of his apocalypse pan.”
“Drazah Empire,” Drim dismissed it with his own suggestion which sounded far too coincidental to be anything else.
“That’s it,” Tusmon entered the code and the next door opened. And then even he couldn’t stop himself from spouting his own theories. “Seems he’s a bit more obsessed with you than even you believed given that look on your face. Beating you in the election or seeing your end might be his way of getting revenge for his past humiliation.”
They could only speculate as the detective continued his work. He picked open a simple lockbox under one of the desks and then tossed a bag over to Jaid. The woman opened it up to find a bag of keys. “There’s eight stations,” The Investigator explained. “All of those keys need to be turned at the same time, and each one is different. I trust you can handle it.”
“Of course,” the knight got to work. But unfortunately it wasn’t so easy as just making eight clones. Matching up the keys was more complicated than expected. Each one had a random-seeming code on it that wouldn’t mean anything to anyone except for the keys’ owner. But Jaid had her own way to figure it out.
She held up a finger to each lock, spawning a small clone inside every core to look around and see how the pins lined up. Ultimately, if needed, she could have her clones turn all the locks themselves, but that would take a lot longer and use far more energy. So she just took a quick glance at each, studying them until she was confident which key would work. Once they were all deduced, the squad of Paladins turned them all at once at the third door unlocked.
Meanwhile, Tusmon had been working on the fourth, requiring Drim’s assistance. “Drazah. This is a fingerprint scanner. And lucky for us, there’s a complete one already sitting on it, so we won’t have to lift one from elsewhere. But we need to get the sensor to read it again. Tch, should have brought my kit.”
“I’ll need some kind of powder, ideally something with a bit of stick. Can you make something like that?”
“Erm, sure,” The Slayer dug into his botany repertoire, producing a root. He then manipulated it further, mostly drying it out and scrunching it up to a fine, but slightly damp powder.
Tusmon pinched some from his palm and then sprinkled it over the scanner. He then gently blew away the excess, leaving a perfect outline of the past fingerprint. But he still had to apply pressure to trigger the scan, so he pulled an evidence glove out of his coat and slipped it on. Then ever so delicately, to not smudge the print, he gently pressed his own finger into. It blinked green and there was a pleasant beep.
But there was also a problem. Instead of the fourth door opening on the monitor, the fifth one unlocked. While the correct action, they’d done it out of order. Immediately, the door to the security room slammed shut and a siren started to sing. A second later, there was a slight hissing, as some form of gas billowed into the room from a vent on the ceiling.
Even as Fiends, the effects hit them right away. They all had to find something to lean into as the dizziness infected their minds. Before anyone else could react, Tusmon suddenly drew his pistol. “Caffold, get them out of here!” He then shot Lieu right in the stomach without warning.
The fog-man listened, enveloping the two other Fiends and escaping through the same vent that poured out the gas. Tusmon confirmed their safety on another monitor that viewed the outside hall, watching them all sputter and cough while Lieu let his injury heal. Next one’s a bio reader, the detective rattled in his head as loud as he could, trying to keep focus, burying his face in his collar to try and limit the effects of the gas.
Skin, hair, anything! Tusmon's eye darted around wildly, scouring the room with scrutiny. Things were starting to blur, but he couldn’t let it get to him. Not until the job was done. He finally found a hair on the floor, and eventually managed to pick it up with a pair of tweezers—practically a legendary exploit level of difficulty given his current state. And he managed to get it over to the scanner, properly unlocking the fourth door.
Just one more to go! The Investigator turned to the last panel. He honestly wasn’t sure what it was or what the solution would be, having not put any focus on it yet. But he’d figure it out, he had to. When he took a step towards it, though, he found his body not quite responding right, and he tumbled to the floor. Tusmon pushed every ounce of strength he had left to try and pry himself upright, but it just wouldn’t come. And the last thing he saw before he lost consciousness was familiar fog enveloping him.
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As soon as the detective's body was dumped out into the hall, Drim immediately injected him with a medicine he’d made to help purge the toxin from their systems. “He’s still breathing, so he’ll be fine soon,” the king made a quick assessment.
“Sorry for barking at you to punch me out of nowhere,” Lieu suddenly apologized. If he’d passed out while I was still in there with him, my Curse would have marked him as defeated and deactivated, trapping me with him.”
“Eh, it’s fine,” Jaid didn’t really feel any guilt at the action, more weirded out by the apology than the request. “More importantly, we need to get this last door open. If we can’t do it the right way, we’ll have to use brute force.”
“Yeah, you all have fun with that,” Lieu turned around to face the stairs. “I can hear reinforcements coming, and my turret sounds like it’ll be out of ammo soon. They’ll be here any moment. Leave them to me, I’ll have more fun out here anyways. Really, I don’t actually care what happens to Hower, as long as that bastard pays. So you all can have the honor.”
“I’ll make sure the detective is alright,” The Guerilla assured him as he robbed the man’s gun for his own use. “And I’ll get him out of here safe. Who knows. If you take too long, maybe I’ll come back for you too and be the big hero after all. Now get going!”
“Thank you, Lieu,” was the only appreciation the Fiendish King could offer before the man ran down the stairs and out of sight, quickly followed up by the sound of gunshots and maniacal laughter.
Down to just the two of them, the last pair of Fiends rushed over to the final door. Jaid dug the tip of her sword into the crack in the middle and pushed to get a feel. “Damn, that’s going to require a lot of strength, but I think it’s doable. Maybe…”
An entire battalion of clones spawned, all wedging their swords into the same crack. Some were made much taller to reach the top, and others were shorter to fill the bottom. No space was wasted. And they all pushed together, heaving their might into their blades. Nothing happened at first, but eventually, after so much strain and sweat, the seal broke and the tiniest gap appeared.
Drim sent out countless vines, wriggling through the gap and wrapping around the door, pinning into the walls on either side. They did their best to help pull, but they were more to ensure that they didn’t lose any ground. Really, though, that tiny gap was the key to their victory. If Lieu came back, he could finally pass through with his fog.
But it gave Jaid an advantage as well. Merely seeing even the smallest spot through the door was all she needed to spawn a clone on the other side. At that point, she could have gone on and confronted Hower herself, possibly drag him back there so he and Drim could speak, but it was too risky. And she wouldn’t deny her king the opportunity to face the despicable villain after how far they’d come.
So the displaced clone turned around back to the door and spawned a whole new squadron to help out. With double the strength, moving the door became that much easier and the gap started to widen. They pushed and pushed, exerting all their strength until it felt like her muscles were going to pop. A few giant clones even spawned, palming the leveraging blades from the other side, pushing outward towards the walls.
And finally, one last clone spawned. She stood directly on the other side of the door and held out her hand through it, prompting the man to take it with a smile. Drim grabbed hold and Jaid pulled him through. It was a tight squeeze, but the easiest exertion thus far.
As soon as he was safely on the other side, the rest of the clones vanished, and the main Jaid slumped a bit, now leaning on her partner since all the exhaustion had compounded—barely staying up on her feet. Drim gave her a moment to catch her breath until she could stand on her own again. Not wanting to confront their enemy with a weak face.
But after all that work to get through the door, their new location felt a bit anticlimactic. It was just another generic looking hallway, dimly lit, just a window at the other end with what looked like a door next to it. But as they approached, they noticed that the window had a bit of a strange glow and flicker, and it soon became obvious that it was actually fake; a monitor designed to look like the outside world.
Once they reached it, the pair turned to the side to face the new door. This one was a little less secure looking, more egregiously ornate. But it seemed like they could break it down with their usual strength. Before they could even try, though, the door suddenly opened.
The pair was greeted by Gandr, Hower’s personal assistant who invited them into the room. While staying wary, they accepted and trepidatiously slipped past him. The room was more or less what they expected, underwhelming yet overly complicated and grandiose at the same time. It was a large boardroom designed to feel like the top of the skyscraper, with even more monitors along one side to act as a wall of windows. There was a good chance that it was even showcasing a live feed from the top of the actual building.
In the center of the room was an excessively long table, looking like it was made from one solid piece that begged the question of how they got it into the room in the first place. But that wasn’t as important as the few dozen men and women in suits sitting on either side of it. Drim recognized them instantly: Hower’s most trusted accomplices.
And the man of the hour was at the other end, sitting at the head of the table. But his back was turned, watching the other wall of monitors that wasn’t actually trying to disguise itself, showing every news station in existence all at once. “Welcome!” Hower eventually spun around, sporting a friendly smirk.
“Have you come to watch the election with us? I have to say, it’s a bit unorthodox for rival candidates to act so friendly, but I don’t see why we can’t engage in some good-faith fun. It will be quite some time before the results start being reported. So why don’t you both take a seat?” Gandr came up to them again, gesturing to the two prepared chairs right at the close end of the conference table.
Drim grimaced and spat, outright rejecting his offer. “You have to realize that you’re wasting your words with this uncharacteristic pretense. We all know what kind of person you actually are. So let’s quit wasting time. We’re here to put an end to this madness and to take you into custody!”