As far as Finn could tell, his shock went unnoticed by the DHD heroes, since they didn’t react. Lyra, on the other hand, stared straight at him in a spike of alarm, having heard the near-inaudible hitch in his breath. A single nod of reassurance caused her to look ahead again.
To recenter himself, he peered around the room. His eyes tracked the layout of the otherwise nondescript space; it was close to empty, only a few chairs and tables scattered around. Nothing interesting here.
Switching focus back to his power’s senses, he gave himself the chance to register everything else around the strange crystal thing. The building itself wasn’t too tall, three floors total. None of the Venin’s villain roster were around, as he saw no one in costume. The possibility of one going around the building unmasked crossed his mind, but he dismissed it. There was no point in doing that with the information they had at their disposal.
No, it was all rank and file stationed around at different locations to protect the most important assets on the top floor, along with the floor below that. Really, the bottom floor which they were currently on was the least staffed. The guards protecting the building from intruders were either outside or on the roof.
And there were all sorts of strange things he couldn’t identify in the same room as that crystal. Nothing that had the same weird effect on his power as the unknown mineral that he now noted was locked in a safe together with a bunch of other things. He had to get there fast, preferably alone so he could secure what he was after without anyone seeing.
Mountpin pressed two fingers to her earpiece, giving the confirmation signal. She turned to the group, her eyes sharp. “We don't have time to squander,” she stated, her voice measured and leaving no room for debate. “Efficiency is key, so we’re splitting into two teams. Sweep through the building, and we’ll round up the stragglers before they even know what hit them. Calliope, you’ve already scanned the layout, correct?”
Both his and Lyra’s powers were well-suited for the task, but Mountpin made it clear where her expectations lay. Lyra just nodded at the older heroine and looked to the wall where Finn was displaying an exact map of every room, door and staircase in the building.
The government hero glanced over the floor plans Finn projected, her expression unchanging, as if the information had simply appeared out of thin air rather than being carefully gathered by his power. She didn’t waste time acknowledging him—her focus remained on what needed to be done. In contrast, Lyra shot him a quick, appreciative look, then shifted her attention back to the mission at hand.
After the brief second she took to memorize it, Mountpin was talking to Damsel. “You’re with me. Calliope too.” She addressed the shifter. “Scalestrike, take… him,” she said, gesturing Finn’s way with a dismissive flick of her gauntlet. “Keep your team intact—no injuries, no casualties. That’s your responsibility.”
They formed up, and Damsel took a moment to speak to Finn. “Shade, I think your control is very precise and—”
“Focus,” Mountpin cut her off. Damsel blinked but ceased talking. Lyra, meanwhile, was scowling, anger starting to roil in her aura. Before she could say anything, Finn strode forward to the doorway, camouflage colors matching the surroundings.
As they began to move, Mountpin’s gaze swept over them once more, her expression cold and determined. “No delays, no mistakes,” she said in that same clipped, authoritative tone. “Scalestrike, to the left. We’re going right.”
Split up to cover more ground, take care of the thugs quickly, get out. It was a plan Finn could agree with, except he now had another objective, one that took priority. His hand went to his back where the staff he hadn’t actively used on the field in quite some time rested, ready for him to use.
Lyra’s group diverged from his own, with him leading the way regardless of what Mountpin said. Scalestrike wasn’t initiating conversation for obvious reasons, but that suited Finn just fine. The mission here was to strike from unexpected angles, not go for an evening stroll with unconventional conversation partners.
With one of his claws, the overgrown pangolin ticked on the floor twice to get his attention. He turned, and saw the other hero pointing diagonally above them. Finn already knew what was there, but it was good that he didn’t have to explain that there was a weapon storage not too far away from their position. Enhanced sense of smell?
At the end of the corridor, the first Venin member they encountered had no clue he was even being targeted until a dart was sticking out of his neck. It was inconvenient that Finn had to hold a hand over the struggling thug’s mouth, but without Lyra here to silence his cries, some measures had to be taken. At least it didn’t take more than a few seconds until he slumped.
Scalestrike was giving him a look he couldn’t interpret, having witnessed that encounter. Why? Was it the darts, did their regulations not allow those or something? Or was it the act itself? Whatever, he didn’t care about all the DHD’s sensitivities. Besides, Scalestrike wasn’t making too much of an issue out of it either, since he pulled out a pair of cuffs and slapped them on the unconscious criminal.
After the first guard, it seemed their luck had run out, as the following moment a group of armed men were leaving the room nearest to them, seconds away from opening the door. He frowned. Couldn’t they have just stayed where they were and made his mission easier?
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Without hesitation, he signaled to Scalestrike what was about to happen, and the naturally shielded hero charged into the fray right when the door handle turned. The guy on the other side was greeted with a hulking ball of scales bowling him over and taking some of his comrades out as well. Others jumped out of the way and aimed guns to shoot at Scalestrike, bullets bouncing off him like they were hurling popcorn into a block of concrete.
Finn had run around them and used his grappling hook to pull one of them toward him and knock down some more in the process. With his other hand, he extended his staff and smashed it down into the arm of one of the last gunmen. He cried out in pain and dropped the weapon.
On the floor, he saw one of them with a phone in hand shouting in a frantic voice to send reinforcements. It was inevitable, of course. But still, it made Finn rush even faster. If he couldn’t get that crystal…
One of the other guns was pointed in his direction, but he didn’t even look to stay out of its line of fire no matter how many times its wielder tried to target him. Doing something like this when he could sense both the person operating the weapon and the weapon itself was simple, really. When you could see every muscle twitch through people’s clothing, it would be hard to incorrectly read how someone would move.
To his surprise, one brave thug wanted to test his mettle with a knife, having run out of ammo from firing at his larger, scaled companion. He dodged to the side and grabbed the offending arm by the wrist, pulling the gangster off-balance with a shoulder check and slamming him into the ground. The fight ended in a single move, the entire scuffle lasting no more than a minute.
All the guards were lying on the ground in varying degrees of pain, no longer having the will to fight. Scalestrike was also getting up from tackling the last three guys on his end, and tilted his head in an unspoken question.
Concentrating on his senses, he said, “Reinforcements are coming in from the upper floors.”
With a nod, the pangolin moved to secure the defeated enemies, but Finn just felt they were wasting time. What if the gang members got an order to relocate the crystal somewhere else? What if Viperia herself came here to extract it?
Fortunately, no such things happened. Perhaps Viperia had learned that moving her—likely stolen—possessions did her no good. If that were true, great. One less thing he had to burn energy on.
His senses also registered the other team fighting on the opposite end of the building, the three females of their squad making quick work of the waves of Venin thugs. They were already fighting their batch of reinforcements, because that side was closer to the stairway.
Damsel used her warrior strength to lift thugs into the air and throw them into each other, the flat of her blade cracking guns open and rendering them useless. Further back, shockwaves tore through the crowd as Lyra repositioned herself with quick hops. Whenever the gang members grouped up, she scattered them with another blast. Together, they were dealing with maybe half their opponents.
The other half was being casually handled by Mountpin. The woman’s right arm was transformed into a man-sized shield of silvery needles, bunched together to block a hail of gunfire while she stepped deftly over a prone criminal. Her arm turned back to normal, and she extended her other arm in a sweeping motion. Partway through, it turned into an enormous hammer made of hay. Every thug left standing was done in one move, blown away by the sheer mass and volume of the impact.
That was Mountpin’s power—the “needle in a haystack” personified. But she had developed it further and mastered the ability to invert the form and turn into a needle stack with hay at the core. And she had the control required for partial transformation in situations like this where taking up too much space might be impractical.
Despite her attitude, Finn had to admit she wasn’t incompetent. But they had no time to spare. He took a moment to assess the damage around him. Their room was littered with unconscious thugs, groaning and defeated. Scalestrike was already tying up the last few, his bulk moving surprisingly fast for someone of his size. Finn briefly considered helping but figured it would only slow him down. They had to move faster.
When it was done, they made their way for the rest of the reinforcements on their end, who were grouping up near the stairs. Their answer was to apply the same tactic as last time. Finn making himself effectively invisible, Scalestrike playing vanguard. It was a simple strategy, and they weren’t shy of applying it again.
The repeat went off without a hitch, so much so that it almost felt too clean. Not even five minutes later, they were standing over another bunch of downed Venin members. They were tied up in record time, and Scalestrike soon stood again, beady black orbs assessing their work as if satisfied.
Something strange happened then.
Outside the building, someone was walking in their direction. That wasn’t common, considering they were in an industrial area, but also not unheard of. Moverover, her appearance didn’t suggest anything special: a youngish woman in faded skinny jeans and a crop top.
This one in particular, however, had an unerring path, making a beeline for them.
His mind went on high alert. It couldn’t be Viperia in her human form, could it? That made no sense. Why not shift in advance if she was going to kill them anyway? He discarded that idea. It wasn’t her.
His other teammate, who had been quiet most of the evening, spoke up. “Cal, you have incoming. Four o’clock,” said Gridlock over their comms.
Sure enough, not even five seconds later, he sensed a green-suited masked villain riding a glowing energy disc riding into range. When he neared the building, he fired one at the wall. When it made contact, the resulting explosion sent a tremor through the building.
Without losing a beat, the woman on Finn’s end started emitting dark blue mist and formed it into blades to cut the front entrance open to kick it in, sending the doors off the hinges.
In that instant, the reality of the situation dawned on Finn.
Havoc and Niebla were here.