The fact that they had fitted the brig with magic dampeners told Azucena that they dealt with the Corrupted at least on some regular basis. Of course, the Red Fist had access to a fucking nuclear submarine, so it was not like they were strapped on resources. But if she knew anything about such organisations, secret or now, they were always very frugal about everything. After all, if you needed to rule the world, it was going to be expensive, whether some magical superbeings were involved or not.
On the other hand, they had been surprisingly relaxed with her. Sure, there had, at all times, been guards and whatnot, but first they had taken her into their airship and even placed her in a room with a view, so she had been able to keep track of their location. Puzzlingly enough, they had not even bothered to take down Cassandra's airship, but had just left it floating above the temple ruins. To her, that signaled overconfidence.
Such massive ego would come with centuries of secretly ruling the whole world, of course. That was always the weakness of these overlords, be it the Necromancer or now the Red Fist: they had painted themselves as invincible for so long they had started to believe it themselves. She would have thought Luca's escape would have taken them down a notch, but apparently the second they recovered their missing "asset," they were back on the super ego express. That, she could use to her advantage.
Not at any point had she seen her friends, but she was sure they had to be somewhere in the submarine. Whatever the organisation's plan for them was, it was clearly a plan since they had not been eliminated given the first chance. She did not imagine she played a big part in the lives of the Primordials, but clearly the Red Fist thought she was more useful alive than dead.
That meant her best plan of action was to bide her time until something inevitable went wrong and she and her friends could make their escape. Unfortunately, when you had been captured by a seemingly all-powerful evil secret society, just biding your time was frustrating at best.
She had gone through multiple rather obvious plans of escape, but was not very confident any of them would work. Whatever their plans for her were, she knew they would be more or less contingent on her co-operation. They had gone through great pains to recover the boy, and most likely would quickly eliminate any potential risk factors.
The cell itself was a plain room with walls of steel, a small cot and an undecorated toilet. Even without her powers dampened, she would have struggled to find a way out. Yet, somewhat surprisingly, there did not seem to be any depletion tactic present. Keeping your captive's powers low was magical warfare 101 and it was weird an organisation who was actually ruling the world had not thought of that. It seemed like another sign of their over-confidence.
Still, the place was slowly driving her crazy. With no stimulation or any means of keeping track of time, it was hard to keep concentrated on her plans of escape. A lot depended on their potential position, and even with just time enroute to calculate with, she could at least pinpoint several possible locations. After all, there were not that many sensible destinations when you set off from the western coast of South America. By now, she had no idea if they had been travelling for five or fifty hours. It was crazy how quickly you lost your track of time in this kind of solitary confinement.
I could just keep on expending my powers on a steady pace and use that to – oh, fuck, that's the depletion tactic, she realised suddenly. They were betting on her to use her magic just to not go insane. Clever, but they had underestimated her patience.
Then, the door opened.
Azucena was about to attack when a familiar face peeked through. "Cas."
"Hop in loser, we're going to punch some magic nazis," she said, grinning.
"And the others?" Azucena asked.
"I haven't seen them yet," Cassandra shrugged. "But, apparently, Luca has gone missing and every soldier on the sub is looking for him."
"That was even faster than I expected. Wait. How long has it been?"
"I have no idea," the pyromancer said. "I was unconscious for most of it."
Azucena shrugged. "We'll find out, I guess. It would be good to know where we are."
"Just so were are on the same page," the Brit said as Azucena stepped out of the cell. "We are going to hijack this thing, right?"
"That might be a tall order," Azucena said. "There are a lot more of them."
"I wouldn't worry too much, I took out five of them already. They're scrambling to find the kid. Everyone is isolated from each other."
"Oh," Azucena said. "That's good. But I'm sure the bridge is still more heavily guarded."
They emerged into a spacier corridor and ran into two soldiers, who apparently not had expected to run into two escaped captives. Azucena and Cassandra had been distracted by their conversation, but they were still less surprised than the two men. The fire mage was on top of things even faster than Azucena, as she could feel the warm breath of the heated air. Around their opponents, it was less of a warm breath and more of an infernal breeze. She sent two force blasts at the soldiers and before they had time to react, they were lying down on the ground, unconscious.
"These guys are not the assault wizards," Azucena said.
"No," said her friend. "They are just mundies employed by whoever these guys are."
"The Red Fist," Azucena said absent-mindedly. She was remembering her encounter with the Witch and the things she told her. The Primordials, unimaginably powerful magical beings – and Luca was one of them. They had learned he had powers quite beyond what anyone thought was possible, but overall, he seemed like a normal kid, if a little strange. Not a godlike being. She wondered if the Witch had been wrong about the Primordials and their power level.
"Who now?" Cassandra turned and looked at Azucena quizzically.
"It's a long story, but they are a secret society, uh, controlling the world."
"Like the Illuminati?" Cassandra asked, tipped her head and added: "Except instead of a long dead educational community, a real deal conspiracy?"
Azucena nodded and stepped over the two unconscious soldiers. "Kind of like that. They use Luca and his kind to steer the world into any direction they want."
"His kind?"
"This is going to sound crazy," Azucena sighed. "But according to the Witch, the boy is not even human. He's from some magically powerful species she called the Primordials."
"Huh," said Cassandra as she opened the next door. She suddenly jumped in, and there was another blast of heat and a muted cry. "Clear!" she shouted.
"They're bound to notice the missing soldiers at some point," Azucena said as she entered the small cabin. It was full of boxes with blinking led lights and had a hatch in the middle of the floor. "We need a better plan than just exploring the whole submarine blindly."
Cassandra nodded. "I'm all for a better plan. Do you have one?"
Azucena grimaced.
"I thought so. So, randomly exploring until we think of something better, it is."
Azucena opened the hatch and descended the stairs that led down from the hole. The space was considerably larger than the room above and filled with all kinds of machinery. "It's an engine room," she said.
"It's quiet," Cassandra noted.
"The engine is not running, must be a backup engine."
"Can we," Cassandra said thoughtfully, "find the main one? I mean, faster than just randomly exploring?"
The pyromancer had a point, Azucena knew. If this was indeed a backup engine, it should be connected to the same mechanism as the main power source, and by that logic, they should be able to see which way the other engine room was. She just needed to locate the shaft that connected to the submarine's propeller. "I think it's this way," she said and pointed to one of the walls. Unfortunately, there were no doors on that wall.
"We have to go around," said Cassandra.
Azucena climbed back to the computer room above. The two escapees returned to the large corridor and set out towards the main engine, or at least the way they thought it would be.
The next room on their way was another larger one, but this time, it was unfortunately not occupied by just one person. It was filled with all kinds of equipment, and judging from the console in the middle, all of it had to do with navigation. In addition to the machines, there were four people. Two of whom seemed to be part of the ship's crew and two assault wizards.
Azucena knew that they would have less of an advantage from the surprise factor than they had with the previous mundies and acted as fast as she could. She pulled some energy and fashioned an energy shield around the door. It made the air in the doorway sparkle in a light cyan colour.
Cassandra struck her fist through the barrier and flame erupted from her hand. She did not need much, as the space in the room was limited. "Block the airflow," she told Azucena, who did as instructed. Their opponents in the room started to suffocate as the fire burned through all the oxygen. In two minutes, they laid on the ground, unconscious.
Knowing that their time was running out, they sprinted through the navigation room and out of the door on the other side.
The space was even larger than the previous ones – and filled with bunks.
"This is the barracks," Cassandra whispered.
"I can see that," Azucena replied quietly.
"I think there are some people sleeping."
Azucena nodded and started to very quietly advance towards the other end of the barracks. They were almost on the other side, when another familiar face came into view.
"Anna," Azucena seethed and prepared her force blast.
The German woman froze.
"You betrayed us," Azucena said venomously.
"We really don't want to start a fight here," Cassandra whispered.
"I was thinking more along the lines of execution," Azucena said.
Cassandra laid her hand on Azucena's wrist. "Look!"
From behind a set of bunks, Heinz emerged. He smiled embarrassedly. "There was a bit of a misunderstanding!"
"You can tell us all about it, later," Cassandra hissed and dragged Azucena towards the door.
The next room was full of lockers. The pyromancer didn't stop and soon they went past showers until ending up in a small space full of pumps. She finally stopped.
"I think we're safe for a moment," she said. "Now talk."
Before Heinz or Anna could say a word, all the lights turned red and a siren started blaring.
* * *
"I want a report, now!" Eduardo blared at the captain, who looked small and distraught. How was it possible that they had entrusted the command of one of their nuclear submarines to a man this incompetent and shrivelling. It was a mistake he intended to fix the moment they were finally at their destination. Alas, for now, he had no choice but to rely on this fool.
"Th– the prisoner in the brig has escaped and we haven't been able to locate the boy," the captain stammered.
"How is it possible that you can't find a child in a submarine?! He has no powers here."
"I assure you, everyone available has been tasked to find the boy. It is only a matter of time."
"Time, that's something we at least have," Eduardo sighed. "What about the prisoners?"
"The Chilean woman has escaped and managed to attack the navigation room, as well as take out a couple of other crew members."
"And the other prisoners? We have confirmation on their status?"
The captain looked down. "No, everyone is busy looking for the child. But the pyromancer should be in the freezer and the German is with the lady Anna…"
"Should be? Should be?!" Eduardo hissed. He was losing his temper. He did not like to lose his temper. He felt it made him seem unprofessional, but this excuse of a ship captain was seriously getting on his nerves. The man had been tasked with commanding a fucking nuclear submarine, and he could not keep track of a couple of prisoners? "I want confirmation on their status, right now."
"I will send men right away!" the captain said and quickly scuttled away.
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Eduardo sighed. It had seemed so simple after they finally captured the fugitive Primordial. They were in a submarine, how the hell could that go wrong?!
He pressed a button on his table. Another crew member appeared at the door.
"I want to talk to the person responsible for guarding Luca," Eduardo said.
The sailor said nothing and widgeted in place like a broken toy.
"Out with it!" Eduardo fumed. He was on the edge now.
"We haven't been able to find him…"
"How hard is it to find someone in this fucking can of steel?! Wait – there's more isn't there?"
"Uh, we checked and… he wasn't supposed to be on this mission at all."
Eduardo breathed in and out a couple of times to cool himself down. "There is, right now, someone on board who was not supposed to be here?"
"It must have been a glitch…"
"The Red Fist is not very fond of glitches," Eduardo said. "Bring back the captain."
"Yes, sir!"
He was going to kill the captain. The Red Fist could, at times, be tolerant of errors. It was, after all, only human. But there was a limit. Extreme incompetence, well, for that there was only one cure.
* * *
Heinz had tried to explain the situation with Anna as fast as he could, but they had also been moving to avoid capture and, for three times now, fighting both the submarine crew members and the assault wizards. He was afraid that his friends has possibly missed or misunderstood some parts.
"Can you please explain," Azucena panted as they slammed yet another door closed. "Why were are suddenly bosom buddies with the fucking Necromancer's daughter?!"
Heinz sighed in exasperation. "I told you, she didn't even know! And sins of the fathers, and everything!"
"Those are some bloody big sins," Cassandra interjected.
"We are somewhere under the pacific in a nuclear submarine, chased by world-controlling secret society and their assault wizards, and you don't feel like the daughter of the most evil magician to ever exist – who, do I need to remind you, betrayed us once already – could be a bit of a risk to our survival?" Azucena's voice was somewhere between raised and absolutely furious. Probably closer to the latter.
"When you put it like that–"
"I'm sorry," Anna said suddenly. "I can go."
"We should kill her," Cassandra said coldly.
"We can't kill an innocent–" Heinz protested.
"How is she innocent?!" Azucena shouted. "She is the reason we were captured!"
"I don't see that as a capital offence–"
"She wanted to kill you!"
"It was a misunderstanding, like I said!"
"Going to the wrong café to meet someone is a misunderstanding, Heinz," Cassandra said. "This is quite something else."
"Even so, I'm not going to be ok with just murdering her in cold blood," Azucena said quietly. "Whether she deserves it or not."
"Well, I guess we all are just going to bloody die when she decides she doesn't need us any more!"
"I never intended to kill anyone else!" Anna protested.
"Well, you were most definitely alright with that happening when you sold us out."
Anna said nothing.
"We're here," Azucena said. She had reached the door on the other end of the corridor.
"Where was that, exactly?" Heinz asked.
"The main engine room."
"Wait, the one with the nuclear engine?!" Heinz had not known their destination, and sure as hell was not prepared to just go to a room with an active nuclear reactor. But he had little room for protests as Cassandra ushered him in.
The space was large and stretched from one side of the submarine to the other, as well as top to bottom. In the back was a large cylinder that supposedly held the actual reactor.
"What is your plan?" Anna asked.
"Yeah," Azucena echoed, "what is the plan now, Cassandra?"
"Well, first of all, they won't attack us here. The risk is too great."
Heinz considered what he knew of the organisation. They were clearly not above collateral damage, and with their resources, even a nuclear submarine had to be disposable, if an unfortunate loss. "I'm not sure about that," he said.
But Azucena clearly agreed with the firecaster. "They won't risk killing Luca."
Anna nodded, and said: "And the boss guy is on board too. I didn't talk to him too much, but I'd say I definitely didn't get the vibe of a guy willing to sacrifice himself."
"That still leaves finding Luca," Azucena said. "He might not even know we have escaped."
Heinz nodded. "We need to somehow alert him to our whereabouts."
"Easier said than done," sighed Cassandra.
Azucena nodded. "He could be anywhere."
Heinz shook his head. "No, he could not." Everyone looked at him. "He can't be in places any of us has been. I trust even if he had been hiding, he would have come to us." Everyone seemed to agree so far. "He can't also be in places where the soldiers have already searched. We also know they have been looking for quite some time now."
Anna nodded. "So he must be somewhere they never thought to look."
Cassandra raised her brow. "Could he not just use his powers to stay undetected?"
The other German shook her head. "I heard them talking earlier. The iron in the submarine dampens their abilities."
Azucena's eyes widened. "Well, how about that!"
"But the crew knows the ship inside out," Cassandra said. "How could we find him, if they didn't?"
"Because," Azucena said. "We know him."
She had a point, Heinz admitted. "Where would he hide, then?"
"Do they have ice cream?" Azucena asked.
Everyone looked at her. "What?"
"Do they have ice cream?" she repeated with emphasis.
"There was some in the freezer they locked me up in!" Cassandra exclaimed. "And if they think I'm still there, they might not even have looked."
"Getting back there is going to be a struggle, I'm sure they know by now that we're here."
"We need a distraction," Cassandra agreed. She glanced at the nuclear reactor and then at Heinz.
He understood what she wanted, and was not at all happy about it. "Oh, no, no, no! I'm not going to try to magic a nuclear reactor!" It was an insane plan. Everyone knew that trying to use magic, in itself a rather volatile force, with something as delicate as a nuclear reaction was a recipe for a very sudden self-annihilation. Some said that was exactly what had happened in Chernobyl in the 1980s, but Heinz had been unable to locate anything to back that up with, but the Corrupted society back then was pretty crazy, so it wasn't entirely unfathomable either.
Azucena paced around the chamber, looking at the various machinery. "Is there something you can do without actually touching the nuclear core?" she asked.
Heinz considered it. He was in no way familiar with the workings of a nuclear submarine, or any submarine or nautical vessel for that matter, but finding a power line that connected to non-critical functions could be possible. "I could disrupt the power grid, turn off lights or cut off electricity to at least part of the ship, I suppose."
"They have the other engine near the other end of the ship. Wouldn't they use that as an auxiliary power source?"
Heinz nodded. "It must turn off automatically, if the power is cut. I can probably blow a few fuses, though. In that case, the second engine won't help them."
"That sounds like a plan," Azucena said. "Heinz causes a power outage and me and Cas go fetch the boy."
"I can–" Heinz started, but was cut off by Azucena.
"You need to do it after we leave. I saw a door leading under the barracks. It seems to be a tight space, so we'll be sitting ducks in there without the distraction."
"So, I'll wait for a bit and cut the power when you're near the other side," he said.
Azucena nodded and started climbing down.
Heinz put his hand on one of the pipes and started extending his magical field. He really, really, hoped this would work.
* * *
The space under the barracks was just a meter high and, worst of all, a lot of the ceiling between them and the sleeping area now teeming with soldiers as see-through grilles. If any of the people above them thought to look down, Cassandra and Azucena were toast. That distraction could not come soon enough.
Slowly and very silently, Cassandra crawled on, stopping frequently to calm her beating heart. She didn't dare to look up, but could hear the clattering of boots overhead. It was surprisingly hot down below, but using her magic to cool the air was not a viable option, as there were probably very trigger-happy assault wizards just waiting to blast something right above their heads.
While stealth and infiltration was nothing new to her, she hated the helplessness brought by their situation. Usually, she was the predator, not the prey, but now, her opponents were already aware of her presence. That balance of information put her at a disadvantage she loathed, unable to use their ignorance to her benefit. It was clear there would be no picking them one at a time anymore.
She could see Azucena cursing silently as they reached the hatch on the other end of the cramped space under the barrack floor. She knew what that meant.
"It's locked," the latina mouthed.
Bloody hell, Cassandra thought. There was exactly one of them who could unlock a door without making a sound, and he was back in the –
She felt something behind her back. Sixth sense was a real skill, but not one she had, yet life of danger had made her instincts razor sharp. She tilted her head slightly and saw a woman. She was in uniform, and clearly a member of the crew. Their eyes locked.
In a fraction of a second, several plans were brought forward and discarded inside Cassandra's head. There was no attack that could take down the woman without anyone else noticing. There was barely space to dodge an attack. It didn't even matter, it took basically no time for her to alert everyone.
Everything went black.
Her vision slowly returning after the lights went out, Cassandra could see the woman above try to say something, only to be pushed away by a panicked crewmate.
Knowing there were precious seconds to waste, Cassandra leapt into action and quickly pushed Azucena away from the door. She concentrated a big burst of energy on the tip of her forefinger and cut off the hatch hinges with the searing hot flame. The light was blinding and the steel door made a loud clang as it fell on the ground, but that was a secondary issue right now. Their priority had changed from stealth to speed.
Cassandra jumped through the opening after her friend and landed on the floor about meter lower than the hatch. Even in the darkness, she could see they were in the galley. "We're close," she said.
The dark figure of Azucena nodded and advanced rapidly towards the only door visible. Cassandra followed suit and they settled on both sides of the gateway. They both nodded almost simultaneously, and moved into the corridor one after the other.
This was a familiar place. Even though it already felt like ages ago, this was where she had first emerged after the freezer. "I really hope you're right about the ice cream," she said.
"Me too," Azucena replied.
They entered the room that held the walk-in freezer. The door was still open. Cassandra lit a small flame on her palm.
Luca looked surprised. His face was covered in jam. Behind him…
Cassandra quickly upped the intensity of the ball of fire in her hand and prepared to throw –
The person behind Luca, in the black uniform of the officers on the ship, raised their hands. "I'm on your side!" they said.
"I don't even know what side that is, anymore," Azucena hissed.
"He's nice," the boy said with a mew stick of ice cream in his hand.
Cassandra and Azucena glanced at each other, and relaxed. If the person indeed was one of the people running the place, there was no reason for them to be hiding here. It was clear that the crew had absolutely no idea where the boy was.
The lights went back on.
"Do you have a way out?" Azucena asked their mysterious new ally.
They nodded.
"We need to get Heinz first," Cassandra said. "And Anna too, I suppose."
"You need to get all of you one of these," the person said, holding a bright orange packet. "They're in the next room over."
"I'll get them," Azucena said. "You keep an eye on Luca and… our new friend."
The person smiled. "Ready to go, Luca?"
The boy shrugged and got on his feet.
"There's one problem," Cassandra said. "There's the whole crew of this ship between us and our friends. And the way we came in won't be an option anymore."
"Where was that?"
"Under the barracks."
"Oh, that's ok, we can go above them."
When Azucena returned her hands full of the curious packages, they set out to return to the rear of the submarine. The supposedly fake officer led them up the ladders in the next room, through a sonar room – where a couple of unfortunate crew members found themselves woefully unprepared to fight a couple of very experienced magic users – and past a narrow corridor into another long hallway lined with nuclear missiles.
"Fuck." Azucena's sentiment was one shared by Cassandra. Like most people, she had never seen a real live nuclear missile. She had assumed she wouldn't, as every single one of these were supposedly unarmed, but it came as no surprise these motherfuckers would have their own secret arsenal.
"I wish I could just–" her friend said as they ran past the collection of tubes that could end all life on earth thrice over.
"I feel you," she replied. "But I don't think there's anything we can plausibly do now. We can report this to the Shadow Commission later."
"That won't do much good," said their mysterious benefactor.
Azucena groaned. "Don't tell me, they run that shit too?"
The person nodded.
They almost crashed into Heinz as they came through the door on the other end. There were many glances exchanged.
"No time," said Azucena and lifted one of the orange packets. "This is our exit." She paused. "I hope."
"It's a pressurised diving suit," said the man.
"Oh."
"But if we leave now," Heinz questioned. "Won't we most likely be somewhere in the middle of the Pacific Ocean?"
"We're about fifteen minutes away from a very small, but inhabited island."
No one asked how they knew something like that. Everyone knew they were running out of time and even a hail mary like that would be better than getting overrun here.
But they sure looked stupid in those suits.