Auntie Chen received the data from the hacked mainframe. With it came the schematic for the artificial island Tartarus and every prisoner therein. The only concern on the surface was the command center that controls most of the communication and defense systems on the island. The prison under the surface was the main target of the entire operation. Or rather, its occupants were.

The plan was to hold the island hostage and have the faculty help transfer their prisoners. The faculty could safely unlock what containment procedures they had for the prisoners, but their help was not essential for the operation’s success. Either way, it would take some time to empty out hundreds of people with varying needs and vulnerabilities.

Chen examined the layout, referenced against the training courses they prepared on. The prison was built in modular blocks around a central radial area to accommodate change and expansion, though it seemed to be reaching its limit.

The two upper floors held the most stable mutants that were packed closely together in their cells and whose hallways were patrolled by guards.

The third floor held the more unstable mutants, with larger and more specifically designed cells along with hallways that were filled with more drones and turrets than people. The machines could be disabled from the command center, but the living faculty was a problem with a different solution.

Todd put the print of his hands barely through the glass. The heat he generated would be radiated into the command center, the central radial, and the hallways in order to temporarily incapacitate the entire facility. This would buy them time to take the command center and the third-floor hostage.

From there they could leverage the faculty to begin the transfer. Each of Four-Leaves’ clones would separate to lead on each floor and in the command center. Four-Leaf himself would be on the bottom floor while the clones secured positions elsewhere.

With the way prepared, Four-Leaves were sent in first while the prison was still being baked. When they confirmed the first three entry points, Todd dispersed the heat. The rest of the immortals poured into their respective portals.

Todd and Four-Leaf were the last to enter, and they came out in the bathroom on one end of the third floor where there was a prisoner that may require Todd’s assistance.

The immortals had zip-tied and duct-taped a janitor. They pushed the janitor out of the bathroom with a gun over his shoulder. With the machines disabled, the heat-stricken guards were helpless as they were disarmed, wrapped up, and herded like the janitor. That would leave only the scientists to help with the release of the prisoners.

There were other troops sent to other parts of the third floor, and while they could not cover all the ground before the guards recovered, they would have enough hostages as a deterrent. When one floor was done, Todd would turn the heat up again to prepare the way for the next. For now, he just had to sit tight with Four-Leaf until he was called up.

…

That janitor, he was part of the faculty so he is part of the enemy. But unlike the scientists and guards, he didn’t really have a hand in this. Someone would have to keep the place clean anyways, right? What about the cooks, architects, engineers, managers, lawyers, construction workers, and transporters—are they enemies too? thought Todd.

Well, that janitor happened to be in the way. He was just subdued so it should be fine as long as the guards don’t start any trouble.

Todd was finally called up. Four-Leaf led the way to the chamber closer to the radial where he was needed. Along the way, he saw the guards tied up in piles. The drones and turrets were just hunks of paperweight without pilots or automated systems to guide them.

Some of the prisoners were already being pulled out, the simpler ones for heavy containment: they had on straightjackets, aluminum foil caps, radometer cuffs, shock collars, leg shackles, and more restraints to fit the mutation. It seemed pretty easy, surreal even that he was here in this place in this situation. It’s like the battle was already won, and everything else was just a formality.

How did GalvanGal put it? This trouble’s already over? Kenny was the one into that stuff. Today, Todd could show his brother what real heroes could accomplish.

They finally arrived at that large chamber, sealed with a door-locking wheel that would be opened by one of the scientists. Immortals flanked on either side of Four-Leaf, with all but Todd wearing the gargoyle flesh.

Based on that heavy iron door, the Pantheon did not want this thing to get out. But from what Todd was told it was supposed to be a little girl like Lanying. Actually, Lanying would be locked behind a door like this. Even if it’s a powerful mutant, it should not take this much space to contain a child.

The scientist struggled to turn the wheel and heave the door open. A crystal harpoon pierced through the immortal next to Todd and pinned them to a wall.

This novel is published on a different platform. Support the original author by finding the official source.

Todd was frozen as he processed what just happened and Four-Leaf pulled him away to leave only a glimpse of what caused that: a cybernetic gorilla-thing with pellucid skin and swollen crystal limbs trudged out of that vault.

Todd followed Four-Leaves as they ran back to the teleport point in the bathroom. The guards in the radial began their counterattack, seemingly heedless of the hostages as they opened fire across Tartarus. Then the machines came back on. That could only mean that the command center was retaken.

The gargoyle flesh, along with body armor, made the Immortals seemingly impervious to bullets, but sustained fire could wear it out. With the drones and turrets above them and the guards in front of them, the immortals were shot at from all angles which forced them to retreat. Gunshots rang incessantly across the island.

Four-Leaf must have killed his clones on the other floors because he spawned new ones around Todd as they ran, each armored as he was, to act as distractions. They finally reached the bathroom and a clone shut the door behind them as the battle could be heard on the other side.

“What happened!? What was that?” asked Todd.

“UnderDog retook the command center and is making his way down to bust the positions we secured” answered Four-Leaves, “I don’t know what that other thing was, neither does Auntie Chen, but it seems like they were prepared for the attack. For now, let's get you outta he—”

Sludge from the vent above splashed onto Four-Leaves’ back. Before it could spill further, it reversed its flow to condense into WhiteOut on his shoulders. Four-Leaf lurched back to slam her into the mirror but the vice grip of her legs clamped down and snapped the neck—of a clone.

She tumbled down as the clone dissolved in time to see it replaced by one more while Todd scurried off. She transformed into a honeybadger that swept the legs out of a leaf and lept to shift into a vulture that flew forward into a jellyfish that latched onto another leaf’s head for a brain-melting zap and then returned to sludge.

Todd locked himself in a stall, a thin partition panel being all that separated him from chaos. He heard dolphin squeals, mantis clicks, goose honks, and bee buzzes. The mirror they would use to escape through was cracked. A quake that shook all of Tartarus drowned out gunshots for a moment. It must have been from that abomination and it sounded like it got closer. Why was something like that thing here!?

A leaf crashed over the top of the partition with WhiteOut on its shoulders. Todd spurted a torrent of flame that slagged away the leaf’s head, Whiteout’s upper body, into the ceiling and the next ceiling. It felt… good. Like he was back in Cheetum Hammock. What wasn’t good was WhiteOut’s legs turning into a snake on the dissolving leaf.

The snake struck out with its fangs bared, but only spit reached Todd’s face. The snake was caught by Uncle Deimos, in his full gear, who threw it against the wall. As WhiteOut shifted again, a cryogrenade landed and detonated at her feet to freeze her solid. Deimos opened up the stall to show Todd the WhiteOut sludge sculpture and an exhausted One-Leaf Clover.

“She’s like, neutralized right?” asked Todd.

“Probably. But this is just a clone of hers. It is frustrating to deal with a fake for anyone, it seems,” said Uncle Deimos.

“Ya hanging in there, Four-Leaf?” Four-Leaf gave a thumbs up. “Oh, there was this gorilla that had clear skin and an endoskeleton and spiked club hands it was kind of awesome but also scary as sh—”

“That’s taken care of. But we still need you. Come on.”

Taken care of? When? Actually, it is a whole lot quieter than it was a moment ago. Not just because of WhiteOut, most of the gunshots and shouting were gone too though there was still some fighting on the upper floors. He followed Uncle Deimos out of the bathroom.

Bodies. Some were still tied up. Some of them he had to walk over. All of them were dead or dying, their necks sliced open and bled out. The drones and turrets were carved apart as well. Corpses of flesh and metal were dragged out of the way by the immortals. It must have been Angel’s work. That was what Angel was there for: this is what these people got when they rejected the chance to surrender to a just cause. Even those who were not fully culpable of starting the injustice are culpable for preventing its end.

Still, Chen really wanted those scientists to cooperate to make the transfer as smooth as possible. If Uncle is here so soon, then the distraction at Olympus must have fallen apart. GalvanGal might be on her way now.

They got to the cyber gorilla, bisected by the midnight ax, slathered in plasma that gnawed at its skin, and yet—

“It’s still breathing!” shouted Todd.

“Magnificent, isn’t it? Its toughness and regeneration are able to slow the plasma, if only for a time. But that’s not what you’re here for right now.”

Todd felt the lick of chill brush over his body. A pink mist permeated the hallway, and it came from the same direction as the gorilla’s vault. That’s right, the mission came first, and he still had a crucial role to fulfill.

They arrived at a magnetically locked door that groaned under strain. From its frame, pink rime seeped through to grow its roots outside. The air here was even colder. Todd warmed his own body and his surroundings into a digital hearth to counteract the cold.

As the door lifted, a blizzard burst through that blew away the door and the heat. Todd himself was punched down by the gust but was caught by Uncle before he fell.

Held up now, Todd enkindled his whole body to unleash a chromatic conflagration, a radiating heat just under an all-out inferno. Still, that heat was pushed back by winter frost, which forced Todd to ignite the blistering winds with the flame of the scorching desert. The clash of temperature twisted their surroundings in a flurry of fire and ice that threatened to tear Tartarus apart.

In the opening that Todd made for him, Uncle Deimos stepped forward into the breach where the door once was. He unbuttoned his trenchcoat, already his armor began to be lacerated by the swirling icicles, and removed the coat. He came to the eye of the blizzard, and though it clawed out at his body, he did not flinch as he set down his coat which blanketed a scared little girl, and ended the storm.

The gale that remained sputtered out as it was kicked around by the heat. The tornado of fire and ice whorled her hair all around but Uncle brushed her bangs to the sides to reveal her eyes.

At that moment, for the first time in forever, Carol Muse felt warmth.