Dashing through more empty streets in the tight zone at the center of the city, they eventually started seeing the vast sea on their right side, expanding outwards to a night horizon. Looking further ahead, the crumbled up trio saw that Gaz was indeed leading them further and further towards the ocean, having the speed of the car increasing whenever there was a straight road ahead. Eventually, they reached their destination through the monotone, dark concrete streets with the exact same buildings and decorative patches of grass and flowers engulfing them from each side. As soon as all of them managed to squeeze out of the car, a horrible, wrenched smell entered their noses, Ikarisa gagging due to her unpreparedness for what she was about to face. Lass and Anya on the other hand barely held back themselves, almost being at the state of vomiting, while Gaz faced it without an issue, instead trying to desperately get into contact with Riko.
"What the hell is this place?", Lass gagged.
"Smells like a sewer...", Any covered her entire face, "Demi-human struggles are real...god. My nose can't take this."
Ikarisa stepped further away to the side of the road, covering her nose while looking down at the steep slope, "Yeah...and I think it's because it's an actual sewer. Look."
Bellow them, inside the steep slope, was a massive pipe pinned right at the edge, constantly having an outflow of liquid flowing towards the ocean, finally finding the origins of the foul smell. The running liquid being a green color, it only added further to their disgust, making them squeamish about what they were facing.
"I have nothing against green, but...that's not a good color for this thing to be.", Anya stepped back.
"Better than black in this case.", Lass gagged.
"From what you were wearing, I'd assume black was your favorite color." Anya said.
"Yes, it is, if it doesn't get correlated to literal shit.", Lass stepped back.
"Merging is such a useful thing, I swear.", Yuno happily echoed in Lass's head.
"Mister Gaz, do we have to stay here for long?", Ikarisa begged to go away.
"Hang on, kids. I really need to get a hold of Riko.", Gaz ignored them and focused on his phone.
After a short moment, Gaz finally managed to establish connection with Riko, his voice heard from the speaker of the phone.
"The image was correct, right?, Riko asked.
"Yes, it was. I'm at the escape site right now. Do you have any other leads?", Gaz answered.
"I just got done shutting the place down, so nothing more. Where are you right now?"
"Furthest north point of the city, by the sewage system. But there's a problem. The other's I'd normally bring to pre paid brokers, having them escape by sea from the side here. But no way she actually did it the same way, when I had no brokers with ships or boats notified.", Gaz looked down.
Lass looked down over the railing, "What is that?", Lass pointed down, towards the left.
Anya looked where he was pointing, "Trash? Hell did you expect?"
Gaz overheard them, "Wait, what? Show me!"
Having taken a particular interest as to what they were looking, Gaz went right next to them and looked down to where Lass was pointing, further confirming his own suspicions as to what was happening. The item itself looked like a shiny magnifying glass stuck between a big pillar made of rock, having an aggressive downward angle towards the walls of the slope. Weirdly enough, that same pillar had penetrated the outside walls, making it look even more out of place than it already was.
"Riko. She was definitely here.", Gaz replied with upmost certainty.
Riko saw through Gaz's video feed, "Yeah, we got it. I'm grabbing two of my most trusted men and I'm heading in there right now! Gaz, you should go back to your base and prepare for that plan you've been talking about. If she used the sewer system instead of escaping by sea, then she should still be somewhere in the city. The worker maps around the commercial area started to be removed rapidly to be updated with the new architectural designs, so there's no way she could've found her way around that maze! I'm off!"
"Wait, wouldn't it make more sense to enter from this side too, to close in on-", Gaz saw that Riko ended the call.
Gaz then sighed as he leaned towards the car, starting to get lost in his own worried thoughts. The others kept looking at the distance in the sea, avoiding the pipe that dribbled waste towards it and focusing on the clean horizon, alternating between that and the massive pillar bellow.
Lass exhaled, "Yeah, I'm going to take a look at that thing.", he moved towards a ladder at the side of the railings.
"Are you sure you want to get into trouble just like that?", Ikarisa asked.
"Trouble in what way? We drove 30 kilometers on the outside are where toxic waste usually flooded and no soul to be seen throughout the drive.", he began descending down.
"And I also kind of want to see what the hell that shining thing down there is too. Doubt we'll get into any sort of trouble for it. Risa, you coming?", Anya started climbing down as well.
"I'll sit by for this one."
"Alright then. Man...I ain't a half Calico but this is already putting my nostrils to their limit breaking test.", Anya sighed.
As the two of them reached the ground floor, they got a better look around. The massive pipe that looked like it was made to outflow tons of waste dribbled liquid slowly, lacking use for a while, and separated by two concrete platform on either of it's side, both surprisingly clean and untouched by the waste, each also hosting a set of clean ladders heading up and inside the pipe. They closed in more and more to the shining object, only to then realize that it was actually the sunlight reflecting of a heavy looking rifle, damaged and scratched all across its slide and barrel.
"Wait, what? This looks...way too out of place here. A fight definitely broke out.", Lass picked the rifle up.
"Not only that. That's way too heavy a rifle to be given to anyone with an Insinian gun license. And that build...it's an anti Obsulyte user one for sure.", Anya looked at the rifle's build.
"I need to tell Risa about this, this is not just a small find. The pillar was one thing...but this. This is another story.", Lass dialed Ikarisa's phone as she gazed at them from above.
Telling her exactly what they had found and Ikarisa naturally relaying it back at a worried Gaz, it wasn't long before he decided to descend and come at them from above, this time followed by Ikarisa. Gaz grabbed the rifle and began flipping it around, inspecting it in any way he could.
"This...this is not good at all.", Gaz worringly said.
"Something definitely went down here. I thought you said that there weren't any soldiers or official personnel here.", Anya said.
"Because there aren't it's just the waste disposal zone for all the companies around here. It's not worth to station anyone other than specialized workers here to dispose of this. Oh...no.", Gaz gasped.
"I definitely did not like that at all.", Lass said.
"Serial numbers scratched off. I've seen one too many of those going around in my time.", Gaz looked at the gun.
"You don't have any of those lying around back at your base? I mean you are rebelling against armed forces and everything.", Ikarisa pointed out.
"We only had one successful raid at a military armory, which landed us 20 of those that I gave to people who either worked in special armed divisions before joining us or otherwise knew about guns. With only those 20 present, even if Terna chose to take one for herself, it would've been reported almost immediately given how easy it is to track their number down."
"These are highly specialized guns, made for anti Obsulyte user warfare. I know it because we shipped parts and whole guns like that left and right the past couple of years. If you don't have one missing, taken from her, then the one who had it either knows their stuff or got stupid lucky to come across someone who sold him one unregistered.", Anya said.
"But that doesn't make sense...why would anyone sell something like this, not keep it for themselves? It's way too big a fortune to pay for a normal person, even criminals."
"With how little of those there are in circulation, accounting for the fact that it had to be stolen, scratched off and then guarded, etcetera...I value this at around 5 million on the fly. This came from here, most likely, so it's safe to assume it's a latest model. So, know anyone with that kind of money?"
"Literally no one in Delpha has that, not even officials. We are a modest middle class city, and receive funds from either the city's bank or other sources to do our researches and infrastructure, no private funding. Even if the money was stolen, it's not hard to miss such a dent. So either one of two things happened. Terna somehow stole one of those, which is highly unlikely due to how well they're guarded, if not for a full scale raid from numbers like ours..."
"Or?", Ikarisa insisted.
"Or...with the number's scratched off, the fact that Terna would never be able to handle this due to lack of training and the fact that it's left behind while being in a firing condition...this gun belonged to a mercenary. Someone who was given a tool to get a hit off to an Obsulyte user as powerful as Terna. You saw the pillar. No way that the person who faced her came this prepared, unless they knew something. But to end up here...they must have followed her as soon as she escaped the camp.
Yuno came out of Lass, "So that means she fought her way out of this. God, ugh...the smell.", he covered his nose, "Now I get it."
"Hey, Yuno.", Lass said.
"Yeah?"
"Do me a solid real quick."
"You have a hunch?"
"More than just a hunch. Can you please fly up to the tip of the pillar and cut it off?"
This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
"Uh, sure. Easily so."
Yuno flew up to the tip of the pillar that had smashed into the wall, materializing a sword in his hand and landing a clean cut, separating the tip of the pillar from both it's main body and the wall. As the massive chuck of rock fell down, it broke into pieces, lifting a cloud of thin dust that was quickly blown away by a soft gust of wind. As soon as the dust cleared, it revealed a most gruesome part hidden at the caved in layer of the wall. A figure of a human, horribly crushed and disfigured had almost completely merged with the wall, completely unidentifiable. Around it was a thick layer of black, dried up blood, signaling the fact that it had been a while since they were killed, the same thing able to be seen at some of the broken up rocks at the bottom, as the rising sun's light as able to shine a small part of it red instead, confirming any doubts.
Yuno looked away from the horribly disfigured body, "Man...this is gruesome indeed."
"Yeah it is.", Lass looked through his phone's zoomed camera, "I think that's the person who had the hit on her."
"She is indeed powerful looking.", Ikarisa was left in awe.
"I'm going in.", Gaz picked up the gun right after, heading towards the ladder at the pipe, "I hope to god it was just one...but I won't sit back after this."
"Can't say we won't be joining after all this.", Lass took a swift, logical decision.
"Sure as hell we won't after the entire ordeal. Faster we do this, we can get going to the other big ones as well.", Anya walked behind Gaz.
"Yeap. Let's go find that idol!"
"For a bunch of newbies, into both the city and this situation, you've more than pulled your weight. I can't thank you enough as is now, but I won't relax into doing so when this is over. I know I can't stop you from coming with me, so be vigilant. We don't know if other mercenaries are in there."
"Good thing we strapped our gears before this.", Lass followed.
Entering the giant pipe from the ladder on the side, all of them started to head deeper and deeper inside the giant sewer system. The green liquid from the outside, drooling from the middle gradually turned black and odorless, finally giving them a more comfortable feeling to move forward with. Eventually, after they could only see through the dark via lights attached to the ceilings instead of sunlight, and when the way behind them was far gone after they had turned many corners, they eventually started to come across splits instead, leading to all sorts of different directions, forcing them to briefly stop in search for directions.
"Ah, finally. This thing solidified for good already.", Anya relaxed and breathed deeply through her nose.
"Better to move down the line with. Don't touch it anyways, this thing is acidic as far as I recall. If smell won't kill you, touching will.", Gaz lead the way.
"Didn't plan on doing so anyway.", Lass readied his weapon.
"Mister Gaz, where to?", Ikarisa asked.
"Let me see from the map...honestly, not pretty far. Which is good news.", Gaz looked at the map drilled to the wall.
"I thought this connected with the entire city? How come she's not as far as possible with all the time she was missing?", Yuno wondered.
"There was a plan before they had to change the maps here. Basically, they wanted to separate public sewer systems from corporate ones for safety purposes. This sewer system shouldn't be longer than 10 kilometers in total, from the disposal facility to here, at least after they blew up the connection between the two systems."
"It's still a long distance to-hmm?", Lass paused, "Wait, what? You guys hear that?", he looked down one hallway.
"I kind of did, yeah. It sounded like a bang.", Yuno nodded.
"Check this out. The red parts here indicate access points throughout the system. Most of the map is red beyond this point, which is where they cut off the two systems. One of them is flickering green and red all the time.", Gaz pointed out.
"So, it's broken?", Ikarisa looked at the panel map.
"Could be, little goddess. But Delpha isn't exactly notorious when it comes to machinery malfunctioning. I'll take my chance and move towards that. Something tells me that the censors are very well functioning...and are tracking a cleaning process on that sector."
"She's been trying to clear her way out all this time? How? We saw the giant pillar, this should have been a cakewalk for her.", Lass thought.
"I hope I can get her to answer me. Let's move!"
Running down the designated path by the panels scattered throughout every hallway, they quickly made their way towards the flashing line in each one, moving ever so deeper in the entire system. A couple hallways before they reached the line they were looking for, Lass briefly paused again, having his ever growing hunch take over once again.
"Can we stop for a moment. There's something off here...I can't put a finger on it, but I really don't like something.", Lass unsheathed his weapon.
Before he could explain, a loud boom was heard from a few hallways in front, followed by loud screaming and yelling that was rendered inaudible from the constant echoes between the point of origin and theirs. They once again rushed towards the location, now hearing gunshots being fired, some sounding closer than others, before they finally reached the source to find out exactly what was happening. A beautiful, young, pink haired girl was standing behind a collapsed chunk of concrete. Her body filled with scratches and bruises, she had obviously taken a few hits of her own, turning around to face Gaz, their eyes connecting immediately. Before they could say another word, another blast was heard, and a thick cloud of smoke covered the area, having everyone cover their face and looking around to try and find an opening to escape from.
"Terna! Sweetie, hang on, I'm coming!", Gaz yelled.
"God damn smoke bomb.", Lass angrily said.
"Let me try something!", Ikarisa materialized the Key Of The Gate.
She slammed down the lance at the center of the now abandoned and dried out sewer line, forcing the smoke to slam at both of the walls on the side, then pressured into going behind them and forward, clearing the area. As soon as the smoke was cleared and the figures of the aggressors were shown, Gaz didn't hesitate for a moment, opening fire with the heavy rifle. With utmost expertise, he shot down all three of those figures, landing clean kills on two, while the third one fell down and grunted, wounded heavily but escaping a mortal shot. Terna once again yelled as she dropped down with them, escaping their grip and looking at their dead bodies. She quickly shoved herself to the side, gun at hand, curling up to the corner of the opposite side of the concrete boulder. Moaning and groaning, the third figure tried to wiggle away, before Gaz took notice and quickly moved forward, grabbing the man and unmasking him. He found a face he never saw before, smacking him to the ground and yelling at him, muzzle firmly placed on the man's forehead.
"Who the hell are you?! Who send you to kill my daughter?!", Gaz yelled at him.
The man tried to pull out a handgun, "Selfish rebellious scum!"
"Ngah!", Gaz slammed his face with the back of his gun, "Answer me you bastard!"
"Damn...", the man was stunned from the hit.
Terna yelled, "Gaz! There was a fourth guy! With a sniper-"
Before she could finish her words, another loud bang happened yet again. This time, however, it was anything but a bomb blast. It was the very distinct sound of a powerful rifle being discharged. Almost instinctively, even before the gun was fired, Lass made a mad dash towards Terna, jumping forward as soon as he heard the gun firing. He turned at the side before touching down, covering his entire body by pushing the flat side of his massive sword above his head. A very quick clinging sound and a few sparks flying happened in an instant, Lass dropping down in front of Terna, his sword falling forward as he clumsily touched down.
"Yuno!"
He yelled as he was hitting the ground. In perfect sync with his words, Yuno's already materialized sword in his hand found itself being thrown by him, following a trajectory that aligned perfectly with where Lass was looking towards as he fell, causing a small shake an a collapse of the wall it collided with, completely destroying the area and path going further down the hallway, more than enough to confirm a kill on a faraway target. As everyone gazed in awe to what had happened, Ikarisa's instincts took over as well, as she started running forward, followed by Anya mimicking her movement.
"No!", Terna raised her gun.
As Gaz stood besides Terna and Lass, in front of a dashing Ikarisa and Anya, with Yuno recovering from his well placed throw, he snapped out while looking at Terna as she got saved. The pinned grunt pulled out his gun, quickly aiming it up and catching Gaz by surprise, him failing to act back from the shock of witnessing Terna narrowly escaping death before his eyes. The very next moment, almost in unison, two gunshots synchronized, with two bullets hitting their mark, one at an angle from Gaz's lower front to upper back and another directly in the side of the man's head, heavily injuring and forcing Gaz to fall down and killing the other man almost instantly. Unable to reach him in time, Anya and Ikarisa froze in place, as Terna quickly crawled towards Gaz, shaking from top to bottom, tossing the gun to the side and grabbing Gaz's head, slowly lifting him up a little bit. She pushed against the hole at the back of his neck as he firmly grasped himself on the front, struggling to breathe.
"I told you not to follow me, I did! Gaz...dad, why?!"
Gaz gurgled, "To find you...and I did.", he coughed.
"Again because of me...I knew this would happen because of me! First you, then everyone else...why couldn't you let me go?!"
Gaz tightly gripped her arm resting on his chest with his other hand, "You made the choice to escape. I made the choice...to go after you. You made a choice for yourself only...not for others. The others...made a choice for you."
Terna's eyes teared up, "I won't be able to live with that...it's such a poor, worthless excuse. Dad...please."
"Last minute...telling me what I want to hear, huh?", Gaz chuckled as he coughed.
"I can't...save you. Can I?", she came to the grim realization, her voice cracking under the rush of emotions.
Gaz used all of his remaining strength to quickly lean forward, leaving his front neck hole wide open as he hugged Terna tightly, her body reacting in the same way, ignoring the flood of blood between them. Terna kept pressure on the hole in the back of Gaz's neck
"I'm proud. Viola is too.", Gaz pressed his neck against her shoulder, allowing him to speak a little more.
"I..."
"Make a...song for me. Love you, superstar."
No one could say a word as they spectated the final goodbye between Terna and Gaz, his arm's strength giving into his own weight as he let out his final breath. Tears, much expected, now rolling down both their faces, he started lessening the force of his grasp around Terna's back, as he drifted into the dark. Months of planning, days of worrying and only but a single swift moment of reunion was all that the aforementioned could provide, once it all came to place and their plans into fruition. Between the tears and the blood, no one could help to calm down the pink haired idol, not even Anya, who knew her from long ago. Even knowing for a little more but a few mere hours, the other's sorrow surged from bellow as well, having at the back of their mind the fact of how cruel life in these circumstances can be, talking and getting to know someone who would cease to exist before a day could pass. Between all of them giving their moment of silence, Lass picked all of his gears up, momentarily ignoring Terna's tears and moving towards one of the men's bodies. He twisted them around, looking at the fact that they were as heavily equipped as the weapon they found outside, before coming to a gruesome discovery.
"Wait...Anya, come here.", he silently said, trying to not disturb Terna.
Anya came closer, looking at what Lass tried to point out. A weird symbol on the man's waist, right bellow his back on his clothing, was barely visible, his uniform soaked in his own blood.
"We saw that symbol as an entire statue when coming here, right?", Anya looked at the symbol.
"Any ideas on what it is?"
Without them realizing, as quickly as the crying had started, it ended, with Terna looking above them at the symbol, "Delpha City Police Department.", she answered with her sadness momentarily turning into anger, "Riko."
"That's why they had access to such heavy Thema class weaponry?", Yuno said.
"Makes sense...but I thought he hated his father's tyranny and wanted to end this before it escalated?", Ikarisa pointed out.
"I never trusted him after that day. Now, because of him, Gaz...dad is...", Terna couldn't decide between her emotions.
"Terna, relax. Let's get Gaz and get out of here. Please...don't run away again.", Anya approached her.
"I won't run again. Not before this is over. But dad...", she couldn't take her eyes off Gaz.
Ikarisa placed her jacked on top of Gaz's face, "Lass?"
"Yeah. I got it.", he softly picked up the body, working quickly in unison with Ikarisa, to prevent Terna's eyes from feeding more pain into her, even if for only a moment.
"Let's go back out, ok?", Yuno tried to comfort Terna directly.
"A little dragon?"
"We will tell you everything, but not now. Can you trust us enough to get you back without it for now?", Lass lead the way.
With a subtle nod, Terna followed them out of the area, away from all the bloodshed. Heading out to the now bright sun, the clear skies and new day did not reflect at all to the emotions felt and the atmosphere gathered between them all. A struggle of getting the body up above from the ladder later, they were all looking once again towards the sunny, above sea horizon. Lass joined them briefly after, having Gaz's body placed softly inside the trunk of the car, getting ready to take him back while refusing to let anyone but himself dead with the gruesome scene of doing so, especially Terna. It was still weird for them to think of how quickly one thing lead to another, and how the adrenaline still pumping quickly throughout their bodies lead them back out there, all within the span of less than an hour. Happening so quickly that in fact, no one could even process if they should feel as sad as Terna or simply shocked and unable to move a muscle. Yet, it wasn't the first time in their travels that they had faced the musky smell of blood, and they knew very well it wouldn't be the last, based on their choices. Simply staring at the scenery while completely ignoring the smell, no one said a word as they got in the car and left the area, neither did they say anything along the ride. With Lass at the wheel and the road smooth without cracks, it helped bring them back without having to endure a bumpy ride, all while listening to the cargo they were carrying behind move around or shove much, helping them escape more haunting thoughts and pictures forming in their heads. The next few steps taken had to be with care, lessen they wanted to have more tragedies unfolding before the sunset, their young hearts already reaching the upper limit they could momentarily endure.