“Oh, that is weird” Frostbloom’s eyes widened as she gazed at the unusual event happening in front of her.
A man in his mid-thirties, Caucasian, with dirty blonde hair, was standing right in front of them with his stance lowering slowly. Panic can be seen clearly in his dilated blue pupils, desperation like a thick musk in the air that the three could smell from where they stood.
He was slowly reaching for his wrist, where a holowatch was presumably strapped on, in an attempt to alarm the facility below of the three intruders.
“Uh— are you going to do anything about that?” Timebender broke the two heroes’ wonder.
“It‘s just… very interesting,” Lightspeed played it off nonchalantly, but his thoughts showed a different opinion. ‘He’s dangerous.’
The man in front of them was currently experiencing the effects of Timbender’s weird superpower, moving like he was stuck inside a tub full of molasses. The degree he had used the power was overkill, especially since the man seemed to be powerless, but it did the job nevertheless. And it did the job without much trouble.
‘Even with the Manning Effect, it’s going to be deadly for almost everyone. Having your perception manipulated… it’s a good thing it’s touch-based.’ Lightspeed thought, feeling shivers at the thought of having the same thing done to him.
Without further wasting time, he went around the man and grabbed both his wrists, twisting them to his back. With a simple thought and a second of delay, a pair of cuffs appeared in his hands. He thought for a moment and looked around, grabbing a wooden chair from the dining table and sitting the man on it before cuffing him immobile.
“Kid! What happens if I slap him now?!” Frostbloom asked as Lightspeed was in the process of cuffing the man.
Timebender jolted before shaking his head at her question, “I don‘t know. I n—never tried it before.”
“Would‘ve been the first thing I tried,” she gave an evil grin. “Now‘s a better time than any to find out.”
She walked up to the now-sitting man cuffed to the solid wooden chair. His brows seemed to be furrowing slightly, confusion slowly reaching his delayed processing speed. Frostbloom smirked before placing a palm on the man’s cheek, feeling the man’s sweat through her blue gloves. That neither deterred nor disgusted her.
Winding her arms backward, she started getting ready for the swing before Lightspeed grabbed her wrist.
“Don‘t be excessive, we need him conscious.” He reminded his overly eager partner. Lightspeed could’ve stopped her. In fact, it was appropriate to do so, but he couldn’t reign in his own curiosity. ‘It would be good to find out, just in case.’
She rolled her eyes at him, pulling her wrist off of his grip, “I know that, I was just playing for fun.”
Without another word, she swung her palm towards the man’s face, slapping him with a quick and solid impact like he was a cheating man. His head slightly turned to the side, carried by the force of the impact, before an expression of shock and pain slowly bloomed along with the redness spreading on his cheek.
“Aw, I thought it would be like those slow-mo videos of people getting slapped,” Frostbloom muttered, shoulders sagging in disappointment.
“My power o—only alters their perception, their bodies are s—still normal,” Timebender explained, scratching his cheek.
“Well, that‘s enough fun. Turn him normal.”
Timebender gave him a nod before grabbing the man’s shoulder. An instant later, the man’s face and upper body slanted left, as if the force from Frostbloom’s slap was still happening for him.
“What the—”, the man’s eyes widened, turning to the three. His face froze before he started curling up to a fetal position on the chair. “Please! Please don’t hurt me!”
“We won‘t as long as you tell us what we need to know.” Frostbloom grinned evilly, summoning a thorned blue rose on her hand and brushing it on the man‘s cheek. A layer of frost appeared on his skin, making him shiver and wince from the chill.
“I‘ll tell you everything! P— please!” The man‘s voice shook.
Unexpectedly, at least to Lightspeed, the man did tell them everything they wanted to know.
Entrances, exits, the number of guards, the number of staff, who was having an affair with whom, everything he knew spilled out of the man’s lips. He even revealed the floor they needed to go to find the children.
‘So the info was correct.’ Lightspeed thought, lightly reevaluating the supervillain’s information.
“That was anticlimactic, you sure you don’t want to struggle or anything? I thought you goons were supposed to have complete loyalty or whatever?” Frostbloom said, crouched on the ground while resting her face on her fist and prodding the man with the rose.
“They pay us good, miss, but not that good.” The man spoke, sighing in a relaxed manner. “I just stand guard up here for days on end… scare off the curious kids and the would-be crop thieves, you know?”
Lightspeed narrowed his eyes at the man, “You sure know a lot for someone up here all the time.”
“W-well… I— uh—” He stammered, his eyes averting from Lightspeed’s stare.
“Oh? Can I finally use this?” Frostbloom said excitedly, the flower in her hand letting out a dangerous glow as she stood up and brandished it once more.
“N—no! I— haah, no point hiding it—”, the man lowered his head and shook it regretfully before looking back at them with clear eyes. “I smuggle goods in and out of the facility, that’s how I know.”
“What does that have to do with anything?” Lightspeed asked, his face unimpressed by his reveal of that criminal’s additional criminal activities.
The man gave a mocking smirk to the naïve trio, “People are always friendly with the person that gives them booze, drugs, and porn. When people are friendly, people talk. And when people talk, they gossip. Especially when they‘ve been stuck underground for weeks on end.”
“Weeks? They’ve been stuck underground for weeks?” Frostbloom almost exclaimed, her brows rising from the information.
“Since the kids were ported in,” he explained. “To be exact, it was a few days after. A lot of people were allowed to quit first after getting their memories of the place wiped. Then the lockdown happened.”
“Why d—didn’t everyone quit?”
“Have you ever gotten your memories wiped?”
“I— well, not.”
“Neither have most people, and for good reason. No one likes it.” Said the smuggler.
“So the kids were brought in, people quit, then the place hunkered down?” Frostbloom asked, getting a nod of confirmation from the smuggler.
“Then your brilliant entrepreneurial move, I‘m guessing,” Lightspeed spoke and took a mental note of this man. “You said you smuggled things in and out. What did you smuggle out?”
“I don‘t know.” The man answered straight, tensing as he saw the glint in Frostbloom‘s eyes shine again. “I really don‘t know! It‘s jus— metal cylinders! Like cans of spray-on cheese, but without the thing at the top.”
“What did you do with them?” Lightspeed pressed the questioning.
“They always came with instructions to leave them somewhere. In an alley bin, behind a restaurant, on the front desk of the Ciergo. Yes, that Ciergo,” he explained hastily. “I don‘t know what‘s in them, and I got too scared to try to know. I know it‘s not drugs, they pay too much for them to be drugs.”
There were more questions to be asked, but Lightspeed felt they were unnecessary for the current mission. And it wasn’t like the smuggler was going anywhere right now.
“We need to get a move on,” he said, looking back to the other two behind him before turning to the smuggler with a serious face, not that he would see it underneath the white mask he wore, “you’re a smuggler. How do you get things in and out?”
“Well— uh—”, the man hesitated briefly before giving him a serious look. “Are you going to kill everyone?”
“Only those who shoot at us,” he replied without missing a beat.
The smuggler narrowed his eyes slightly at the costumed hero before giving a light nod, “Good enough, follow me to the kitchen.”
The man stood up only to faceplant. He was still cuffed to the chair.
Unauthorized use: this story is on Amazon without permission from the author. Report any sightings.
“Uh… carry me to the kitchen?”
Frostbloom let out a chuckle before Lightspeed grabbed the man’s chair with one hand and dragged it to the other side of the farmhouse. They walked through a hallway filled with photos of a happy family and their pet, none of them having the face of the man they were dragging behind.
Entering the kitchen, they were presented with a cozy and modest farm-style kitchen, with genuine ingredients, tools, and even a rustic gas stove.
“Cute kitchen,” Frostbloom remarked with complete honesty.
“Thanks, had it renovated a few weeks ago. Specifically for that,” he pointed to the fridge. “Open it thrice in a row, in quick one-second successions.”
“Okay?”
Lightspeed put down the chair and walked cautiously to the fridge. He raised his hand and took out a gadget that appeared in thin air, a scanner-like gizmo that gave whirring sounds as he waved it up and down the fridge.
“No explosives, at least.” He informed the other two, letting go of the gadget and making it disappear at will. “Thrice? Why thrice?”
“You open a fridge once when you need food. Twice when you're not sure if you want food. But never thrice.”
“Brilliant logic.” Lightspeed scoffed.
As the man had instructed, Lightspeed opened the door thrice in quick succession, rattling the unholy amount of beer bottles inside. At the third opening, the previous alcohol-filled contents of the fridge were replaced by a dim hallway. Several lights were lining the walls, but they did little to keep darkness at bay. At best, they were guides so you don’t lose a tooth smacking your face onto a wall.
“Spacial tinker tech?” Timebender blurted out in surprise.
“Smuggling surprisingly pays well.”
“And you spent that much money for this?”
“It’s an investment… well, was.”
“Where does it go?” Lightspeed asked.
“Cafeteria pantry, the only safe place where it wouldn’t be weird to see a fridge,” the smuggler answered. “Careful coming out, though. Sometimes they put boxes and shit in front of the door to fuck with me.”
“Understood. Timebender—” Lightspeed turned to the clock kid. “How long can you make him weird?”
“What? Weird?” The smuggler asked, alarmed.
“A—an hour, if I don‘t make him too weird.”
“Weird enough that he can‘t run away.”
“What‘s this about making me weird? Please don‘t make me weird.”
“An hour.” Timebender nodded.
“Should be enough time. Go ahead” He said, gesturing to the smuggler.
“Hey! What are you doing? Don’t tou—”
With the smuggler now incapacitated on the floor moving like a procrastinating sloth, the three moved on to continue their mission and walked into the fridge-slash-portal.
The path through was straightforward, in the literal sense of the word. One would wonder how this hallway would lead underground, but then one would also have to wonder how a fridge suddenly opened into a dark hallway. That’s usually how tinker tech worked, like magic.
After a few minutes of strolling through the darkness, they finally reached the end of the hallway and were currently facing the inside of the fridge door.
Lightspeed turned to the two behind him, lifting his wrist to tap on his holowatch. A holographic display appeared, showing an image of the blueprints they were handed earlier.
“The children are at the twelfth level of the facility, which is practically the bottommost. If we trust the smuggler's words then it means we’re around here—”, he pointed to the part of the map saying ‘cafeteria’, “—where the kitchen is and where the pantry most likely is. That means we’re at the third level and we have nine more floors to get through.”
“Thank you for using your immaculate prowess in basic arithmetic, what would we do without you— ow!”
“We need to be on the same page at least before things go sideways. Remember what happened when we were interning under you-know-who?” He said, giving a knowing stare towards Frostbloom.
Frostbloom shivered and straightened up, nodding seriously at him. “Personnel?”
“Forty-six guards, double the staff, all most likely spread on the upper levels, according to Brainmatter. While that doesn’t seem like a lot, since they’re all powerless, they can still get lucky and we can still get mobbed.”
“So… quick and quiet?”
“As quick and as quiet as we can,” he said with a nod, turning to Timebender afterwards. “You got that?”
“Y—yeah.”
Lightspeed reminded the two, “Try avoiding lethal attacks. But if it’s kill or be killed…”
Frostbloom’s eyes glowed blue. “Kill.”
Planning and pep talk over, Lightspeed gently opened the fridge, cursing the creaky hinges on the retro appliance. He popped his head slightly through the gap, peeking into the room to see if there was anyone in sight. Luckily, the only thing that greeted them were shelves upon shelves of spices and ingredients— a pantry.
He sent a signal behind his back, telling the two that the coast was clear. Of course, only Frostbloom understood it.
He opened the fridge fully and stepped out, re-examining the surroundings once more while the other two followed him out.
“Oh, turmeric! Nice! I was just running out last week.” Frostbloom picked up a bottle and pocketed it, earning a glare from her partner. “What? They won‘t notice it.”
“Focus and shut the fuck up.” He growled.
Frostbloom rolled her eyes. “Fwokwus aynd shwut the fwuck uwp. The coast is clear, relax, we need that ‘focus’ later when there are actually goons around.”
“I swear to god…”
Frostbloom pilfered the pantry for a bit before Lightspeed’s threat of choking finally made her focus on the mission and follow behind him. They snuck to the next door, careful not to make any noise, and slowly opened it. A low thud made their leader frown, only an inch traveled. Something was blocking the rest of the way. Something heavy.
“The m—mister said they might hide the place behind some boxes.” Timebender reminded them in a whisper.
Lightspeed sighed, “Let’s hope this doesn’t make too much noise.”
He slowly added more force to his pushing of the door, planning to just gently nudge the prankful barricade out of the way and open the gap enough to squeeze through. It was slow, it wasn’t steady, but it was quiet.
At least until a quarter of the way through.
“Shit!” He cursed as the push-back from the blockage suddenly disappeared, making him stumble into the door.
A loud crash of wooden boxes and shattering glass followed swiftly after. Whatever was blocking the door, it was fragile. And loud.
“Damn it.” Lightspeed cursed again, getting up to his feet and freezing afterwards. His heart beat a heavy rhythm as his eyes scanned the front. “That’s a lot of tinker tech.”
In front of them was a cafeteria full of guards in black armor, mingling among other staff in lab coats. Basically, the entire facility’s personnel were staring right at them, spoon in hand and food in mouth. Basically, they were fucked.
“Intruders!” One of the guards helpfully informed their ilk, releasing them from the stunned daze of mentally asking ‘who the fuck’. “Catch them!”
“Slip and slide!” Frostbloom shouted just as the alarms blared and the guards dropped their plates to scramble towards them.
Two rows of blue flowers sprouted from the ground, like a row of palace guards welcoming their entrance. Or in this case, guiding their exit. Frost covered the ground around the flower, forming a path of ice that led all the way towards a set of double doors Frostbloom was hoping to be the exit.
Lightspeed’s figure blurred, appearing behind Frostbloom and Timebender in an instant. He grabbed their waists, one in each hand, and dashed forward with fearless abandon. The three of them blurred for a moment as Lightspeed used his power to accelerate instantly, making his boots skid on ice as they flew forwards and burst out of the door.
“Capes! Get them!” Another goon shouted another goon line.
“Run!” Lightspeed shouted, releasing the two before turning to his partner. “Slow them down!”
A cold breeze blew from behind them as dozens of flowers sprouted and froze their immediate surroundings. There was a cacophony of curses and bangs as boots, whether tinker tech or not, slipped off of the icy floor. Frostbloom let out a witchy cackling from the sound, making her double the efforts of freezing the floor.
“Which way?!” Timebender asked, his voice shaking from fatigue.
“Uh, shit—”, he hadn’t memorized the map at all, “—fuck it. Go right!”
They ran and reached another intersection without coming across anything that looked like a stairwell, an elevator, or a fire exit.
“Which way, Light?” Frostbloom turned to her partner, asking as they reached the intersection.
“I don’t remember— just pick one!”
They went left and then paused. It was a dead end. They turned around and then paused again. It was another dead end. They turned to where they came from and then cursed. The goons were coming.
A mob of guards in black armor were slipping through the frozen floor, vehemently trying to chase them. They were spotted quickly enough as was evidenced by another henchman line being shouted towards them. With a gesture of grabbing, batons appeared in their grasps, summoned from their pockets.
Half of the guards slowly marched towards them, now getting used to the slight slip of the frozen floor. The other half went in the other direction, shouting words like ‘armory’ and ‘guns’, which did not bode well.
“Flight’s done,” Frostbloom spoke with a tinge of sadism and excitement in her voice.
“Time to fight.” Lightspeed agreed, flexing his fingers. A simple pull on his will was enough to activate his pocket, summoning a pair of golden knuckle-dusters directly on top of his leather gloves. “Timebender, can you fight?”
“I— I think so?” Timebender answered, activating his own pocket and grabbing a baton.
“Damn… just support when you can. Don’t get it my way.” He grumbled, crouching low with a stance ready to pounce and punch towards the closest guard. “Let’s ice ‘em.”
“Ha!” Frostbloom let out a cackle, pointing both of her palms toward the enemies.
Lightspeed blurred, disappearing like an enigma before appearing in front of the first guard. His reading stance straightened like a bow releasing its arrow, his fist loosened towards the guard’s abdomen.
The guard flew backwards, hitting a couple of the others on the way and making them slip and stumble from the ice and the vine Frostbloom was making around him.
He turned to the next one, launching a flurry of lightning-fast punches towards their torso before quickly ducking down and dodging a baton that came swinging behind him. Bobbing and weaving, he swam through a few more baton swings before delivering a punishing uppercut to the nearest chin he could reach.
As Lightspeed was dancing around and whittling down the guards with his speed and his fists, Frostbloom was summoning a variety of plants all over the corridor. Blue vines, stems, and petals started wrapping up their legs, reaching down from the ceiling to constrict their necks, inching over from the walls to pull and restrict their movements.
Guards started to trip, get hanged, and swing towards their fellow henchmen, all the while Frostbloom was letting out cackles of joyous laughter from where she stood.
“Watch out!” Timebender suddenly shouted and dove straight towards her.
Frostbloom didn’t pause and instinctively dodged to the side, feeling the air whistle from a baton sailing down where her head was earlier. Timebender tackled the man who suddenly froze at his touch.
“Thanks, kid!” Frostbloom helped him up, kicking the guard’s face afterwards. “Cover our backs, okay!”
“I’ll do my best!” He said, making a stance as he covered their rear.
Meanwhile, Lightspeed was slowly running out of juice as he kept dashing in and out of combat with his power. The guards were slowly starting to circle and corner him, an unfortunate circumstance of the corridor not being wide enough to hit them from more than one direction.
He had to punch from the front, where the bulk of their armor was. And their armor being tinker tech, that proved to be an endeavor.
‘Still more than twelve…’ He dodged another baton swinging towards his head. ‘We need to hurry up before the rest come back with guns.’
“Clothesline!” Frostbloom suddenly shouted behind him. “From the left!”
Lightspeed backed off, looking towards the left of the goons. He spotted a cyan vine and dashed towards it instantly. He grabbed the vine, looking towards the goons to try and find a way through.
‘How do I— legs!’
With a dash and a slide, he slipped underneath one of the guards' legs while pulling the vine with him. After he cleared the line of goons, he immediately dashed as far as he could while pulling on the vine.
The vine’s length revealed itself, Frostbloom had it growing so that Lightspeed’s pull would essentially hit most of them with its icy stem.
Knocking out half of the goons with the move, the rest were easier pickings now that Timebender had also steeled himself to join the fight. In the end, some were slowed by Timebender, some were bound by Frostbloom’s plants, and most were drooling from the brain damage caused by Lightspeed’s punches.
“We need to move quickly,” Lightspeed spoke, breathing heavily in fatigue. “They’re probably gearing up.”
“We can’t take the stairs,” Frostbloom remarked, unsummoning some of her flowers.
“Of course. They’ll be waiting on us from the stairs.”
“No, I mean I’m too tired to walk downstairs.”
“That too.” For once, Lightspeed agreed.
“W—what about the elevator?” Timebender suggested meekly as he approached them, carefully stepping over groaning guards. “T—they’re going to be expecting us to go down towards them directly, we can p—probably surprise them if we use the elevator to a different floor.”
Frostbloom looked at Lightspeed who just shrugged, “I’m too tired to think of another idea.”
“Elevator!”
With a plan in mind, the three walked through the corridor of broken bodies. The alarm blared as they walked, the walls announcing their arrival repeatedly, just in case the blaring noise and the flashing red lights weren‘t enough.
They arrived in front of the elevator, guided by the map in Lightspeed’s holowatch. Frostbloom immediately started spamming the button to call it up, making the button glitch out.
Unexpectedly, the elevator dinged. It was already on their floor.
“Lucky~” Frostbloom sang, grinning to Lightspeed.
He scoffed, “Lucky you didn’t break it.”
The elevator doors opened, making the three of them freeze.
It wasn‘t empty.
“Uh… what floor?”