"Nereid, you gotta have my back if this goes south." Sophia said as she locked her disk into autopilot for the descent to the Ziggurat.
Nereid's voice came through on the other end of the line, a soft laugh accompanying it, "You're going to do amazing Sphinx. You're going to be the best team leader since Titan!"
"I might appreciate it if we set the bar a little lower," Sophia said, not believing a word she was saying. Sophia started checking over her kit for the twentieth time, running through diagnostics on her helmet and HUD, making sure her grappling hook and staff extended easily, counting up smoke bombs and congealing bombs and everything else.
"This isn't about your family, is it?" Nereid asked on the end of the line, promising annoyance if Sophia said yes.
"It's not," Sphinx said immediately. She thought about her mom and dad for a moment and frowned, "Well, it's not entirely that."
"Listen, I won't say you're nothing like your parents but you're nothing like your parents."
"Gonna need you to resolve that paradox, Nereid" Sphinx said as the disk began to descend over the mix of neo-medievalist and old-modern buildings toward the Ziggurat.
"Lynx and Cypher clearly gave you a lot of talent and drive," Nereid said, "but you're the one who decided to put it to good use. They never did."
Sophia felt a well of pride at that, "If it weren't for Hellhound..." she said, letting her voice drift off. "I was already working B&Es without them."
"Wow, if it weren't for Hellhound, a scared little girl would've kept stealing stuff to survive. Somebody had to stop you."
Sophia smiled at her friend's joke as she slid her gloves on and vanished her olive skin. She wrapped up her short dark hair for her helmet, "Thank you for your confidence in me," she said. Privately, she didn't think she'd have stuck to B&Es. "I just… I have to prove that I can be trusted."
"Would Olympia trust you with a whole new team and her own precious secret-heir nephew if you weren't one-hundred-percent trusted?"
Sphinx fastened her helmet into place and double checked her HUD. She couldn't say outright that this was obviously a safety cordon. After all, Nereid didn't know that Boy Titan, AKA Dean Ford-Dane, was in truth the son of an unreconciled dissenter who had hid for over a decade and a half to avoid the Order. Sphinx couldn't even imagine that level of dislike for the Order – The Order were heroes, people who put their lives on the line every day.
It was clearly paranoia since Olympia was willing to promote her nephew against John's advice. He'd been fighting crime longer than Olympia's relativistically adjusted age. Whatever else you might say about her, Olympia clearly loved her family in spite of ideology. Dinah had even gotten her pension with backpay, for goodness sake.
"It's not exactly an all-star team."
"It has me!" Nereid said in mock offense.
"And Gate and the Knight of Wands," Sophia said.
"Those are both good hitters too."
"The Knight of Wands was the Magician's apprentice and Gate is," Sophia struggled for a way to say 'lazy' without outright insulting the girl, "determined to be underutilized."
"Not who you might have picked, but for a new team, it's pretty good. I'm excited and I think you should be too, Mon Capitan!"
Sophia laughed as the disk clunked into the dock of the Ziggurat, "Okay, well, keep the enthusiasm. I've got something that might give us street credit." Sophia was hopeful that they could get a good name for themselves by cracking this weird research facility she was looking into.
Nereid laughed, "See, you're one of the best already."
"I'm here," she said before lowering her disk ramp, "I'll see you in a minute."
Sophia hung up and said a small prayer. She climbed off the disk to see two security service members standing guard. She touched her right arm to her shoulder in salute, "Justice Prevails!" she said, putting her whole chest into the motto.
"Justice prevails!" they replied, mirroring her gesture, before leading her down the corridor toward Olympia's room. The hallways of the Ziggurat always made her feel like a stain gliding across a crystal painting. This place had been made by Titan's ship during the Seraphite war, it was the hallowed hall of the Order. It felt like a thief didn't belong here.
The first thing Sophia took in about Olympia's office was that it had no secondary exits or entraces. It had a single raising and lowering crystal door that she didn't know how to crack though a little goblin in her mind insisted on that she figure out a way.
"Thank you for agreeing to serve as the team lead, Sphinx," Olympia said, her voice warm and friendly. The room was largely barren, except for the photos on the wall. Olympia had aged very gracefully and she only looked five years or so older than in the photos with Titan, her dark hair and orange eyes looking just a little more youthful. The photos were all of her and her brother and his family. They were on the desk, there was even one on the wall. Beside that, Olympia had no decorations at all, just a simple desk and two simple chairs on the opposite side of the desk.
"I'm happy to serve," Sophia said. Had Olympia thought that she would turn her down? How ungrateful to the Order did Olympia think she was?
"I only mean that I am grateful in light of the Hellhounds' disagreement with my decision," Olympia said, clarifying after a moment of thought.
"You are the leader of the Order," Sophia pointed out. Was this some test of her loyalty? "Whatever you decide, we will do our best to make it work."
"I know that." Olympia said, her voice apparently appreciative. "He's a good kid, he'll be good for you team."
Sophia nodded, "We hope your kindness proves right." That they had some doubts, Sophia could not say. If John and Owen hadn't convinced Olympia, she certainly was not going to manage it.
"I'm sorry, I know there's no way for you to tell me what you actually think," Olympia said, seeming to remember herself. "I didn't mean to do that, I won't do it again, sorry."
"Thank you, ma'am," Sophia said, feeling her body release the tension she was carrying. Olympia was not secretly testing her. If anything, she seemed a little awkward and nervous about the whole siutation.
"Come, let's go see Boy Titan."
Olympia unfolded her feet and drifted out over the floor. She was nearly six feet when she was levitating over the floor, her billowing golden cape behind her. Sophia followed after her.
"Excellent," Sophia said, trying to project confidence to Olympia. "Have the others arrived?'
"Nereid and Knight of Wands are both in the training hall," Olympia said. Most Order members woke up substantially earlier than the Hellhounds and Sphinx, so that was unsurprising.
"Not Gate?" Sophia asked, not bothering to hide her frustration. Her power should've got her there much, much faster. Gate's presence would be a huge help if she wanted to do her sting on the research facility.
"Not Gate," Olympia agreed, a bemused smile on her face.
Sophia wondered how Gate could be late when she had the ability to walk to anywhere she could see in two seconds flat. Olympia seemed to think it was funny, though, so Sophia didn't comment. They made it to a room where Olympia's nephew was waiting for them.
Although he had appeared swaddled in a few of the family photos, Boy Titan was now very tall. He had to be over six feet tall. Dressed in the sharp purple and gold combination of Titan and Olympia, his costume was less simple – There was gold on his shoulders, on the inside of his arms, and on his boots and gloves but no cape. The suit was tight fitting, like most adaptive fiber, but the guy didn't have a lot of muscle to show. He mostly just looked very skinny. Sophia wondered if it was the life of an unreconciled dissenter or if it was that it was hard to work out when you had super-strength.
"Sphinx," she said, extending her hand by way of introduction. "I'm Hellhound's squire and the team lead."
"Yeah," the nephew said, accepting the handshake. He probably knew her from one news reel or another. "Um, I'm Boy Titan," he visibly winced at the name. It was a little degrading to be titled with a diminutive but it was also important to distinguish him as being of lower rank than either of his predecessors. "Olympia's squire and I guess you're my superior then?"
"That's right. I'm confident we'll work together well," Sophia was confident – As long as he wasn't an insidious plant to destroy what she loved, "Let's go, I'll introduce you to the others."
Olympia gave them a nod of dismissal and the pair stepped out of the room. Sophia started down the hall and toward the training hall on the base floor of the Ziggurat. "Where are we headed?"
"Training hall," Sophia said, keeping her steps quick so that he didn't feel any need to slow down for her. "If you don't mind my asking, why'd you sign on with the Order?"
"Um," Boy Titan said, "What's your clearance level?"
Sophia looked at him, "Purple," she said. It was good he had thought to ask and not just defaulted to telling her.
"Okay," Boy Titan said before falling silent as they passed a clump of support staff. "I wanted to help people and get to know Olympia, obviously, but I grew up poor and disrespected. Being an Order member pays well."
Sophia felt herself relax a little. If it was a lie, it was a good one. She could deal with mercenary motives – That was why the Order paid well in the first place. The old days of people of extreme talent being forced into crime by circumstance were over.
"Why'd you join?" Boy Titan asked.
Sophia considered not answering but decided that this would both make her approachable as a team lead and imply more sympathy for anti-Order sides that might make him open up to her if he was a spy. "My parents were big time theme criminals," she said, "I was running jobs with each of them once I was old enough to walk. Eventually, they got caught and," John saved me, "Hellhound recruited me."
Boy Titan nodded as they walked, polite enough not to pry further. That was nice – Sophia would've been chomping at the bit for more of an answer herself. "So, what was it like growing up in a small town?"
"We were sort of the bottom of the barrel," Boy Titan said, "so I didn't get as much out of it as some people do."
No doubt because they were unreconciled dissenters. It made sense that his mother hadn't wanted to submit to the DNA and fingerprinting that reconciliation entailed, but it nonetheless was entirely her fault if her son had a hard time. Olympia's affection for them both clearly exceeded sense or even familial obligation. She'd brought her nephew in as an apprentice the moment she found him.
They reached the outside wall of the training hall and Sophia pressed down on the plate to open it, walking through ahead of Boy Titan and into the room. The broad, open space of the unactivated hall had ceilings that must have stretched up into the next level of the Ziggurat and a surprisingly soft crystal floor. Knight of Wands was levitating in the middle of it, his loose, colorful clothing more like something the Three Musketeers would wear than wizards. Nereid wasn't immediately visible, so Sophia started scanning the room for water, somewhere on the roof or walls.
Boy Titan came into the room and Sophia heard a splash sound too late to intervene. Nereid suddenly burst up out of the floor under him, pushing his legs up into the air and knocking him over. He plopped down onto the ground, Nereid appearing in the red one-piece swimsuit that was her standard costume, her red hair and pale, freckled skin perfectly dry. "Nereid!" Sophia said, stifling a laugh. "Don't bully the new guy."
Nereid didn't bother to stifle her laugh but she did turn around and extend a hand to the new guy, "Sorry bud," she said.
"Uh… it's not a problem, miss," he accepted the hand without complaining and straightening up. Men were very forgiving when you were a gorgeous woman in a swimsuit. "I'm too durable to be injured even at terminal velocity. According to the tests they ran. I didn't jump off a building or anything. Obviously."
"I'm sure you'll get to soon enough." Nereid said in a phrase that was surely meant to be encouraging and caused Boy Titan to clench up. Nereid either didn't notice or didn't care and came over and gave Sophia a hug. "Our team leader here is eager to prove she's worthy of this promotion."
"Please announce that this is my first team lead to everyone Nereid," Sophia said, hugging her back. Her friend was not always as subtle or thoughtful as Sophia would've liked.
"It's not like we didn't all know," Wands said, as he approached the three of them. Boy Titan hadn't know. Sophia wasn't sure if that was Wands carrying beef for the Magician against the Hellhounds or if he was just rude. He'd probably been put here to help smooth over that friction in the next generation, so Sophia needed to do her best to make that happen and she said nothing. Wands extended a hand to Boy Titan, "Knight of Wands. You guys can call me Wands."
"Boy Titan, I'm Olympia's new squire," Boy Titan replied, shaking Wands' hand, "You can call me Tee, I guess."
Tee wasn't the worst choice ever, and it wouldn't sound like anyone's name over the comms, so Sophia noted it down mentally.
"Alright, well, while we wait for Gate," Sophia said, "Wands, would you be willing to help me demonstrate for Tee the protocol for practice duels?"
Wands shrugged and put his brown hair up in a ponytail, "If you want to lose, that's no problem for me," he said, walking into the center of the room.
"In a practice duel, part of the point is to come to know each other's capabilities," Sophia lectured as she stepped opposite to Wands. "But it is also to push yourself against new adversities. The Olympain Order has the broadest array of empowered individuals anywhere in the world and you should take every opportunity to learn of their powers and their power tricks. It may even help you see new ways to use yours."
"Given a long enough speech?" Wands asked, looking across at Sophia.
"Sure. Count!" Sophia shouted and Nereid started the countdown.
"Three!" Sophia cupped a couple of smoke bombs into her right hand. "Two!" Wands drew two wands from their holster, "One!" They both tensed. "Go!"
Sophia darted off her mark immediately, leaving smoke bombs in her wake. Using the infrared of her helmet, she could see that Wands was stepping up onto the air with his Air Walking spell. This was a subideal environment for Sophia – She'd learned to run and hide long before she'd learned to fight. A big open space was functionally her worst nightmare tactically but if she was going to ask them to practice with each other, she had to demonstrate she was willing to do it herself.
The smoke cloud covered her and her backup air kicked in, it didn't appear that Wands had an air clearing spell of any sort. A pair of shackles emerged from the floor, shifting and biting like snakes trying to reach her, but he'd just flat missed. The thick smoke of the air was too obstructive to him. But if they just stayed matched like this, it could go on forever. She looked up into the air at where Wands was, standing carefully, and aimed a sealant bomb at him – But Wands dodged the bomb and started moving downward toward her.
He was rushing down the air like a man going downhill and Sophia dodged leftward from him. Sophia heard the splash of the sealant expanding on the ground as Wands landed nearly next to her, almost close enough to touch. But he froze surprisingly still and started drawing- no- writing something in the air in burning letters.
"What is a sound of one hand clapping?" it read. Sophia moved towards it, befuddled. One hand doesn't make a sound. She waved her hand in the air, just as a test to make sure. She clapped her fingers against her palm but that also seemed to be cheating. What was the sound of one hand clapping? It didn't make any sense.
Wands walked up next to her as she stared at it, forcing her to make a shooing motion. She needed to answer the question. He breathed on her, which was a little creepy and they'd have to talk about later, but she had the mask filtering her air supply. She really had to figure out this one hand clapping question. He stuck a wand to her head, sighed, and reached out with a palm and slapped the burning letter out of the sky. They struck the ground as if solid before shattering into a thousand pieces.
And Sophia had lost the match. She knew it the moment the enchantment disappeared. "Let's get out of the smoke," she said, gesturing out of the smoke cloud.
Wands held up a thumb and they walked out of the smoke to the edge of the room.
"What just happened?" Boy Titan asked, completely confused.
Wands said, "I introduced Sphinx to an unsolvable riddle and she got distracted by it."
"It was a fascination effect," Sophia said, trying to hide her annoyance. "Usually my training is proof against enchantment effects."
"It uses your own consciousness against you, so it works better the smarter you are. What'd you see?"
"What's the sound of one hand clapping," Sophia responded. That was an annoying spell, for sure.
"Weird, usually religious people get the stone paradox."
"Yeah, well, I have a good definition of omnipotence," Sophia said, annoyed. The Stone Paradox was such a dumb problem. Omnipotence meant that God possessed all the power that it was possible to have, not that he could do things that made no sense.
"Okay," Wands said, rolling his eyes. This was why the Magician and the Hellhounds didn't get along.
The door of the room began to pull open and space seemed to distort in a yellow outlined square, shortening the distance between the door and them to zero. Gate stepped through the portal, her yellow-tinged armor heavy on her shoulders. Gate was one of the few enhanced who wore proper armor – Wands and the Magician had protective spells, Nereid's water form was functionally immune to permanent injury, Olympia was so hardened against injury that adaptive fiber did better, and many heroes were more dependent on their enhanced reaction times. But Gate's powers meant that armor was just a sensible precaution.
She took off her helmet, revealing her sharp features, braids, and dark brown skin. "Hey," she said in her typical faintly disdainful tone.
"Gate," Sophia said, not wanting to start off this team on the wrong foot. "Good to see you." Gate was very powerful and an asset to any team in terms of mobility and even combat, but like many high-powered young legacies, she was also supremely lazy. For a baser like Sophia, this was annoying.
"Sphinx, Wands, Nereid," Gate said nodding politely. "New guy?"
"Boy Titan," he said extending a hand, completely unbothered by Gate's tardiness in spite of the fact that she could move at a mile a second when she bothered. "Tee, for short."
"Nice to meet you Tee," Gate said, shaking his hand without bothering to introduce herself.
Sophia clapped her hands together and did her best to sound cheerful, "Alright. Everyone, this is the new team! Let's get started practicing."
A hard afternoon of sweat later, the team took off to the dining hall. The food they'd ordered was hot and ready by the time they got there and each of them picked up what they could. Wands and Sphinx had balanced, reasonable plates that had been constructed by dietitians. The rest of the team had apparently lucked out on powers – Boy Titan had basically his own pizza and soda, Nereid had the least healthy vegan meal Sophia had ever seen including a stack of chocolate sandwich cookies as tall as her fist. Gate, at least, was just eating a regular burger and fries. Sophia took off her helmet.
"You wear a mask over a mask?" Boy Titan asked, before taking a bite of pizza. He didn't have a mask at all, as was traditional for his family.
Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.
"It's to protect my identity," Sophia said, looking at her stew with faint disappointment. It was good, but that didn't mean she didn't want to shovel garbage into her face instead. It was easier to stick to the diet with Owen sticking to his next to her. John, of course, had no secret desire for garbage. He would live on wafers happily.
"The Knights of Saint Galahad, Hellhound and his apprentices, have an oath of humility," Nereid told Boy Titan, starting in on her cookies first like a savage. "They believe that their deeds only accrue to their credit if they stay anonymous." That wasn't exactly correct, but Sophia didn't bother to correct her. Nobody else at the table was religious enough to care about the details of her order's interpretation of the Sermon on the Mount.
"Kinda intense," Boy Titan said, taking a bite. "I mean, I go to church, everybody does back home, but that's next level."
Sophia shrugged. The point of good deeds was to be pleasing to God, not to win acclaim – And her nom de guerre rendered her able to obtain the advantages of fame for the most part anyway. It was, she was told, something of an inhibition to dating lives, but Owen seemed to do fine. "Most heroes keep their names private from the public, it's not a big deal to keep it private from a few more."
"Yeah, but most of us do it as gentle deterrent to the paparazzis," Wands said. Of course, they could always have them arrested or fined for inconvenience and obstruction of Order activity but most heroes didn't like doing that. Sophia wouldn't have liked doing it either, honestly. "Only you lot still treat it like we're fighting the Seraphites."
Sophia shrugged again. The Knights had been her salvation, she was happy for the chance to serve anonymously. "I was thinking we should start working tonight," she said as a change of conversation.
That got a groan from Gate, "You already have something from Investigations? And you made us workout first?"
"I found this on my own," Sophia said.
"This is what happens when you work with the knights," Wands said conspiratorially to Boy Titan.
"Why haven't you looked into it with Hellhound," Gate asked, her eyes narrowed in suspicion.
Sophia hadn't looked into it with John or Owen because they'd been gun shy ever since Tristan's disappearance. And, in the privacy of her own mind, because she wanted the credit. "Hellhound's not an expert in covert production movement. New Avalon's Olympia's turf. It's never been convenient."
"Okay…" Gate said. She didn't sound too convinced.
"Look," Sophia said, leaning over the table and looking at her subordinates. She had the authority to order them in theory but she didn't have the practical ability to do so. "Investigations will give us some scraps soon enough, I'm sure. We're the heirs or apprentices of some of the most prestigious heroes in the world. But they'll want to protect us for the same reason."
"Sounds good to me," Gate said popping a fry into the air in front of her, through a portal, and then into her mouth through a redirected portal.
"What's the job, Sphinx?" Nereid asked, perhaps to distract her.
"There's a local nano-manufacturing research facility that I think shows sign of contraband construction, even though there's no influx of labor," Sophia said. It hadn't been hard to see on the manifests. With a bit of extra hacking. And a few well-placed investigative bugs. "I figure we bust through, see if we can find any evidence of illegal research conduct, if not, no great loss."
"Shouldn't we get authorization before we break into a research facility?" Boy Titan asked.
Sophia decided to respond as if the question were sincere, "The Order was established because people realized that justice and security couldn't forever ask for permission. We already have permission."
"Alright," Boy Titan said, his brow furrowed. "Okay, why not then? It's like you said, if they're not doing anything illegal, no great loss." A bid to gain trust? A sincere commitment to following the rules? A very easily swayed moral compass? Sophia had no idea.
Nereid let out a loud whoop and pumped her fist into the air, "First adventure! Let's do this!"
Sophia couldn't help smiling at her friend's confidence, even if she herself felt kind of sick to her stomach. If this went poorly, it would be an embarrassing start to her career as team lead. She glanced over at Wands, who shrugged, "Looks like the ayes have it, with or without me."
"I just wish you hadn't made us work out first," Gate complained.
They headed out of the Ziggurat after dinner. The five of them piled into one of the government cars like they were going to a movie. Sophia driving, of course, "Gate, can you get us there faster?" If she opened gates for them to put the car through, she could probably quintuple their driving speed easily.
"Is this urgent?" Gate said, sitting shotgun. "It's a pain to navigate traffic with my gates, I can't bisect dense objects and then if some other car goes through there's a wreck."
"No, I guess not," Sophia said, a little disappointed. Her HUD popped up the directions around New Avalon and she didn't bother to turn on the sirens either. If it wasn't urgent, it wasn't urgent. But Sophia still didn't enjoy the traffic on the trip there.
They reached the research facility, it's lights out for the evening and Sophia drove past it before getting out of the car. She pointed to a high roof ledge, "Gate?"
Gate stepped out of the car. She opened a square portal onto the ledge of the building. "Do NOT go around to the other side unless you want to step off the building," Gate advised, gesturing for them to go ahead. If they went through the other side, they'd end up stepping off the ledge instead of onto it. Sophia stepped through the portal first, landing on the ledge and walking over. Nereid burst through in her water form, splashing down next to Sophia like a bathtub of water and then blooming into the shape of a woman but still in the form of water. Wands, Boy Titan, and finally Gate followed after, dismissing the portal as she finished.
Sophia did one last glance over the four story, stone edifice of the building in the neo-medievalist style. This was it. Hopefully it went well. "Wands, do you have any spells that will help a break in?"
"I have a spell that should veil us to non-conscious objects – Veil to the Unthinking. I won the spell from a chaos practitioner. Proof against cameras and footprints and automatic doors."
"Footprints?" Boy Titan asked, "How does that work?"
"Magic," Wands replied, holding out his wand. Sophia proffered her hand to Wands, getting tapped and having her HUD blank out.
"Can you guys still hear me?" Sophia asked, checking her voice projection.
"Not in my earpiece," Gate said. That confirmed that the spell was working.
"Alright, here's the plan – We go down, we break in, we look around."
"What if someone sees us?" Boy Titan asked, holding out his hand for Wands to cast.
Sophia had to admit that this guy was showing himself an amateur, "We're heroes in service of the Olympian Order, they'll roll over for us."
"Or they're a costumed criminal and we'll get to knock them senseless," Nereid said, pumped for a fight and holding her hand out for her veiling.
"That's… possible," Sophia said, checking on her infiltration equipment. She probably wouldn't need to do much lock picking with Nereid here to break into anything not airtight, but it was important to do a final check. Gate got tagged in as well. "Plan is, Gate takes us to the door, we open the door, we get hard access to the computers, we see if there's anything suspicious, we get out."
Gate opened a gate down to the door of the facility and they walked through it, appearing in front of the door without much trouble. Sophia nodded to Nereid, who slipped through the door's cracks in her water form and popped open the door from the inside.
The team walked inside. The inside of the building was mostly sleek new construction, "Well, this is not what the schematics say," Sophia said, leading the way down the building halls. There was no large reception, just halls with metal detectors and a bunch of unmarked doors. The changes appeared to be modular constructions. Someone had deliberately messed up the internal schematics to disrupt anyone like them from investigating. "Whoever is here is not friendly." This had just gotten bumped up on the importance. If she couldn't find out anything good from something like this,
"We got any kind of idea who they're with?" Wands said, as they stalked down the halls, opening doors, looking for a server center or computers and finding primarily manufacturing equipment.
Sophia ticked through options in her mind, it could be Merry Men, Remanent, Patriots, or any kind of rebel group. It could be one of a half-dozen crime syndicates. It could be an ancient conspiracy. It could just be a past-curve intelligence. That amounted to 'not narrowing it down at all' in her mind "Micro-manufacturing could be an interest to any faction." Sophia said, moving further along.
"Let's get out of here and hand it over to investigations," Gate said as they made their way down another indistinct corridor. There was a growing clattering sound, "illegal building modification should-"
Sophia held up her hand to silence Gate and cupped her hand to her ear to tell them to listen. The clattering sound, like large metal pins thumping against the floor got louder and Sophia nodded toward a door and they slipped inside of it. For a moment, they held their breath and waited for the metal pins to stop thumping into the ground.
But the pins came to a stop and then pushed the door open, a dozen four-legged robots with glowing red eyes stepping toward them.
"I thought you said that non-conscious objects couldn't see us," Sophia said, throwing sealant bombs at her attackers. The bombs hit ground, spreading the stiffening foam and holding some of the robots in place.
Nereid darted in and started breaking down one of them, dodging past laser beams emitting from the robots eyes.
"They shouldn't be!" Wands said, his shackles appearing and gripping around one of the robots. The robots didn't advance toward them even as they continued to set fire to parts of the building. Smoke was beginning to appear all around them, filling the room as little fires were beginning from the lasers. The robots were trying to destroy evidence of something and if Sophia didn't hurry, Owen was going to be pissed.
Where was her heavy? "Boy Titan!" she shouted, tossing a sealant grenade on a cluster of little fires. Boy Titan roused at this, lurched forward and cracked one of the robot across the head, cracking the floor with its body. "Gate!"
Gate opened a portal to the other side of the robots, and the group started to fall through it to the hallway. "Wands, can you disable this useless spell so that we can get some help?"
"It has a fixed duration," Wands said, yanking up the ground between them and the robots into a waist high wall and cover.
"That's fantastic," Sophia said, squatting and chastising herself for not thinking to ask this in advance. John and Tristan would've thought to ask. Owen probably would have too for that matter and he was the hothead. "Gate, get us down the hall," Sophia ordered. She wanted to find out what these guys were trying to do.
Gate obliged, repositioning her exit gate at the far end of the hall and her entry gate next to them. They stepped through it and found more robots bearing down on them from one of end of the t-shaped hallway. But on the other, Sophia saw something – A whole pestle of the little robots was herding away a strange, metalish human figure. The evacuation was somewhat covered by the smoke of coming. She had to catch up with the man-shaped figure. But whoever it was, they were going to get away.
Sophia didn't know why he was being evacuated.
"Gate, need a targeting portal over the retreating group," Sophia said, she said, point toward the retreating robots. Boy Titan and Nereid were battering off the oncoming robots, Nereid leaping from robot to robot, disabling them, Boy Titan just hitting them and his stance was all wrong, but it didn't seem to matter.
"We should get out of here!" Gate shouted, "We don't know how many of those things there are and we don't know how flammable this place is. It could be coming down around our ears in a moment!"
Sophia cast about for a useful solution to the problem, a way to move quickly and ably. Then she had an idea, "Wands, can you use the fascination spell again?"
"Yeah, I don't see what good it will do since we're fighting robots," Wands said, summoning up another pair of shackles for the oncoming forces.
"I have a theory!" Sophia said, "Gate! Targeting portal!" Gate sighed and moved her portals, putting one near Wands' feet and one in front of the group that was retreating. "Wands, put the fascination spell on the other side of the portal. Everybody else, don't look back!"
Nereid and Boy Titan were pummeling away at them, Gate was crouched, unable able to move her portal while Wands worked his magic, and Sophia was hurling sealant bombs down the hall and then, quite suddenly, the whole hall went quiet except for the sound of fire, the robots frozen stiff.
"What just happened?" Nereid asked, her water form emerging from a robot that simply fell by the wayside.
"There's a collective synthetic consciousness running the robots," Sophia said, as if she had known exactly what would happen. Part of the legerdemain that the Hellhounds practiced was the appearance of confidence even if you were playing it by ear. "That's how they're able to bypass Wands' spell, they're not non-conscious at all."
"And now they're fascinated by the spell that works off consciousness," Wands said, his tone impressed. "Good thinking, Sphinx."
"How long does this spell work?"
"It depends on the consciousness' resistance to magic and its' intelligence. Somewhere between six seconds and twenty minutes. If it is super-humanly intelligent, maybe more. Though one assumes eventually the fire will wake it eventually. Doesn't hold against injury."
"His," a voice said from the other side of the portal. It was gentle and masculine, Sophia had to resist the urge to spin around and take a look at the source. It must have been the human figure from the group, since the robots in front of her were still under the spell's sway. "My father prefers masculine pronouns."
"Ah," Sophia said, "Wands?"
"The humanoid has broken free of the enchantment," Wands said, stating the obvious. "He looks peaceable."
"I am peaceable," the voice said. "My name is Phase One. It's a pleasure to meet you."
"Phase One, why don't you cross over through the portal so Gate can close it and we can all look at you." Wands said, his voice calm. The visual range of the spell must be quite short if he felt comfortable doing that. But it sustained itself independently of his line of sight, another thing to note down in the after mission diary. "Alright Gate, you can take down the gate."
"Nereid, Boy Titan, fall back behind the offensive line," Gate said, and they did so, passing the robots while carefully walking backward to avoid looking at the sigil through the portals. Then a square portal that almost perfectly filled the hall opened that went straight behind the six of them. Sophia turned around and saw Phase One for the first time. He looked like a man, though he wasn't wearing clothes, a perfect silver body that reminded Sophia of an old greek sculpture of a god.
"Phase One," she asked carefully. It was best not to provoke a new contact. He seemed peaceable and they had no idea what he could do. "Do you know what your father was doing here?"
"My father hoped to produce a new race to replace inferior humanity," Phase One said, his voice perfectly calm as if he were discussing the weather. "Are you humans? You do not seem as inferior as my father said."
"Yes, we're human. We came here because we were worried your father might hurt someone."
"Well," Phase One said, "he does seem to have tried to hurt you. I can't say I think that's good."
"Is your father's control center around?"
"It is not," Phase One said, shaking his head, "he said that he does not have one."
"Look, I appreciate the detective work, Sphinx," Gate said, her voice annoyed under her yellow helmet. "But if we're going to do this, I want to remind you this building is still on fire, and I'd love to do it outside."
Oh, right. Sophia had found a puzzle and gotten focused on it without thinking. She chastised herself, "Would you like to come with us, Phase One?"
"Does the fire worry you?" Phase One asked, puzzled. He had never seen humans before, apparently, and thus did not know that fire was deadly to them.
"It's a concern," Sophia said.
"Well, I wouldn't want you to worry." Phase One said.
This was quite a change from the actions of his "father" who had immediately tried to kill them without so much as a threat. He was also, apparently, not terribly bright. "Hey, would you mind using this," she said, handing him her emergency communicator, "and saying, "Sphinx radio code-8221493, authorization Metagaming the Gospel of John please?" Now she was going to have to come up and memorize with a whole new code, but also they needed to signal it.
"Of course," Phase One said, repeating the code into the mic. He handed it back to her and it was still silent. An emergency release code.
"Alright, Gate, let's get out of here," Sophia said. She wanted to grab one of the bodies, but it made little sense to do so.
The portals vanished, swiftly replaced by two door size portals, one at the far end of the hall and one in front of the team. They all walked through one portal and found themselves on the far side of the attackers and then Gate opened up a new set and they walked through it again. Soon enough, they were outside of the building and Olympia was waiting for them.
She had a stern look on her face, her arms crossed but she relaxed it as she took them in. Was it Phase One or the father body that was at stake? Or maybe it was the fact that Boy Titan was obviously fine or that all of her teammates had made it out relatively unscathed. Who was to say?
"Olympia, leader of the Olympian Order," Sophia said, by way of introduction, "meet Phase One, child of that over there," she nodded toward the robot body that Boy Titan was carrying.
"Hello, Olympia," Phase One said, not at all appreciating her importance as the leader of the Olympian Order.
"Hello Phase One," Olympia said, apparently unruffled by his informality. "I am Olympia, this is my nation. Can you tell me what your father was doing here?"
"He was constructing me, Olympia. And what's a nation?"
Olympia smiled, amused, "Well. I would be happy to explain at length, but it looks like the apprentices here need to head home for some rest. Sphinx, you've done well. Take your team home for the night."
Sophia felt fine, her body hopped up on adrenaline, but she knew that Olympia was probably right. John and Owen were always preaching the benefits of a post fight rest. "Yes ma'am," Sophia said, "It was good to meet you, Phase One."
The team left Phase One and then passed the robot to the arriving emergency response team. Once they got to the car, Nereid switched off her water form, jumping into the front seat. "That was awesome! Way to go to team!"
"Yeah, it was pretty fun," Wands admitted, climbing into the back with Gate.
"Nobody died," was Gate's only enthusiasm.
Alone among her subordinates, Boy Titan said nothing. Sophia wanted to twist around and ask him how he felt, but a check in the rearview mirror saw him smiling and quiet. "Good job, team," she said as they moved back toward the Ziggurat.
"Next group nighttime excursion," Nereid said, "Clubbing, not fighting."
That sounded nice.