“Anyone else hear voices?”

We had been walking so long that I had kinda zoned out. So it took me a second to parse what had been said and then even think about listening for myself.

When I did, I realized they were right. I could hear someone shouting up ahead, but the words were being distorted as the sound bounced around the tunnel. That meant we were finally getting close to people and hopefully finding my three wayward Pawns. A quick look around confirmed that everyone else was now focused and ready for whatever we were about to walk into.

So once that was done I rolled my shoulders and walked out into what turned out to be a massive auditorium of some sort.

And it looked like we had finally found the missing townspeople - whether that was a good thing or not was still up in the air - sitting on stone bleachers, facing a massive podium where one man was giving a very impassioned speech to everyone there.

“...believe in me! Only through faith will you be rewarded, only through the Lord will you be given power, and only through me will that power be brought forth!” He made a grand sweeping gesture with his hands. “Behold! See how the faith of our flock has grown our power!”

Three glowing shapes appeared behind him and my heart nearly stopped when I saw the wings.

How else was I supposed to react when someone summoned three angels all of the sudden?!

But once the glowing died down and I got a good look at the summons I saw that besides the white wings…there wasn’t much angelic about them. Each figure looked like a vaguely humanoid fusion of rock and metal with two big white feathered wings sticking out the back. They also remained completely still, almost like they were robots.

Actually I couldn’t say that.

The Dr. Wily lookalike’s Robot Masters were pretty lifelike. Hell, even the little grunt bots shuffled and moved around. Whatever these things were were more like statues than anything else.

I also didn’t feel anything especially ‘holy’ about them and while that wasn’t proof that the summons weren’t angels of some sort, I mentally marked them down as some sort of projection ability instead of a summon. Probably powered by the cult’s belief in their leader somehow considering his earlier speech.

Or he could just be narcissistic.

Cult leaders did have a habit of making themselves out to be crucial holy figures after all.

And speaking of cult leaders, he was still talking.

“...time to grow our flock.

This town has nurtured us greatly, but now we need to look further afield if we are going to continue to grow and gain strength. To enlighten others in the light of our Lord that all of you enjoy today. I am happy to announce that later today I will be making my first televised sermon to the country. To begin sharing our gifts with the rest of this nation.

But you will still have a role to play in making our faith known to all.

To do this we need to spread our roots. Invite friends and family to our town so they can be illuminated, call on strangers to visit and see the light, and encourage the new members of our flock to bring new members themselves, but most importantly - you must continue to believe. Believe in our mission. Believe in me and our power. And believe that I will deliver all of you to the Kingdom to Come.”

“Oh, so it’s a brainwashing cult.”

“Who dares!?”

I blinked, surprised he had heard me.

Either the acoustics here were fantastic, or there was some sort of power shenanigans going on. Maybe both.

“Who was it, you ungrateful heathens?! Answer me! Or I’ll just send you all back for more conditioning!”

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Well then, the image of a charismatic cult leader sure fell apart quickly, I thought as I took a step further.

“Hi there!” I shouted as irreverently as I could. “We came looking for three friends of ours that came by the other day. You wouldn’t happen to know where they are, would you?”

“How did you get down here?” The cult leader demanded instead.

I sighed even as the auditorium broke out into a low buzz of whispers. Critical thinking didn’t seem to be this one’s strong suit.

“You left behind a ghost town with every door wide open, a church bell that rang despite that, and a secret tunnel that wasn’t too hard to find because - oh right, all the doors were left wide open.”

Oh, he didn’t like that at all.

The cult leader went completely red in the face before throwing a few glances at the crowd and holding himself back from whatever he was about to start shouting.

Interesting. I guess whatever brainwashing he used on everyone here wasn’t complete control.

“It doesn’t matter.” He said instead as several more ‘angels’ appeared behind him. “You will be illuminated just like everyone here. Then you can join your friends that way.”

Well, I tried asking nicely.

I raised a hand and prepared to blast the leader with a bolt of lightning, only for Crystal to push my hand down and step in front of me.

“Hn?” I made an inquisitive noise. Because there was no real good reason for her to stop me.

“Let New Wave handle the Master.” Crystal said lowly. “You focus on finding the girls and either getting the civilians out or breaking his control.”

“We could just blast him. Quick and easy win.” I countered but she shook her head.

“Mom drilled us on situations like this. We don’t know if taking out the Master will release his victims or cause them to defend him. Until we figure out which it is, we need to stall. And our powers are better at that than yours.”

I disagreed but we didn’t exactly have a whole lot of time to argue with the fake angel things getting closer. “Fine, you handle those things, we’ll search for the girls and keep the others safe. Everyone hear that? And this whole place is now considered enemy territory. Pawns feel free to Promote if you think you need it.”

I got a few muttered acknowledgements and then our group splintered as Laserdream, Shielder, and Glory Girl went to fight the projections and the cult leader while Carl, Gloria, and Amy split up to look for my three missing Pawns in the crowd or the surroundings.

As for me, I hung back a bit and did my best to watch over both groups for any surprises.

Unless the cult leader had other powers, someone had dug that tunnel and built this room, and presumably someone else was responsible for brainwashing the townspeople. Two more potential enemies that weren’t conveniently sitting out in the open for us.

So I was watching out for them, even as I watched Laserdream and her family exchange laser beams above the crowd. Because of course the fake angel things could use lasers. They seemed pretty unconcerned about hitting the cult members below too, which forced Shielder and Laserdream to focus their shields on protecting them instead of using them for their own defenses. Thankfully Glory Girl was doing a good job of getting in close and breaking the projections from above, even if they were quickly replaced by the cult leader.

I was getting really tempted to ignore Crystal and try to take him out. How long did she want to stall for?

But she was the one that had more experience so I was going to trust her.

At least until something forced my hand. Then I was going to blast the cult leader into next week.

As the fight went on though, I was increasingly tempted to attack him anyway. Because while the New Wave kids were doing a good job of trying to keep the bystanders out of the fight, the cult leader didn’t seem as worried.

Several times he even aimed close to his own followers in an attempt to bait one of them into taking the hit instead or breaking off their own attack to throw up a shield instead. Not that they were the only ones shielding the crowd.

Amy had put a lot of effort into learning shield spells after her brush with death. And now she was doing her best to cover for any spots her family members missed to make it easier on them.

I was also helping out as much as I could, still mostly focused on keeping an eye out for when the cult leader's powered friends would pop up, but I could still throw a decently sized shield over the area for now.

And I didn’t have to wait long.

After Glory Girl nearly knocked the cult leader off his pedestal, forcing him to use one of his summons to catch himself and as an improvised flight pack. Then he started flying away!

The others were more focused on the man himself so I didn’t blame them for not noticing. But since this would be the perfect time for a sneak attack from someone else I had been watching the surroundings. So I saw the precise moment a perfectly square chunk of the ceiling suddenly decided to separate from the rest of the stone and fell directly on top of Glory Girl.

I managed to call out so the blonde wasn’t taken by surprise, but as strong as she was…she couldn’t hold a multi-ton cube of rock above the now panicking cult members by herself. Laserdream, Shielder, and Amy quickly moved to support her with their own shields.

I was about to join them when laserdream waved me off.

“Go after the Leader!” She shouted. “We can handle this, but we can’t let him get away!”

“You sure?”

“Yes, get going!”

I wasted a few seconds checking they would be okay, but while the rock was slowly pressing the four of them down - it was a slow controlled descent. They could easily move anyone before they got trapped underneath. So I followed her advice, spread my wings, and took off after the Cult Leader before he could get away.

-o-

Crystal threw one last nervous glance at the hole Rias disappeared through before dragging her attention back to supporting Vicky and making sure the stone block didn’t tip over unexpectedly.

She couldn’t help but be worried about sending her redheaded friend after an unknown Master but the PRT based training her parents had put her through had been very clear to not let them out of your sight if they didn’t have control over humans.

They couldn’t be sure the Cult Leader didn’t have something like that, but he at least hadn’t shown it so far and letting him slip away after he had already taken over a small town once was a bad idea.

She would just have to trust Rias could handle him.

“Okay, your boss ran away already, so why don’t you come out now!” She called over the sound of the few panicking cult members that hadn’t cleared out yet.

The sound of slow clapping echoed out from the tunnel behind the podium the Cult Leader had been speaking at. A single man walked out wearing some sort of black robe thing Crystal recognized as vaguely chinese with yellow trim along the edges and surrounding the green circle with a square hole he had on his chest.

“Impressive.” He called back, walking forward a bit and folding his hands behind his back. “How did you guess I was here? I thought that you would have assumed Sanctus was the one behind the escape route.”

“Oh please, that guy was too busy panicking about getting knocked off his perch.” Amy of all people snorted - apparently getting turned into a devil made her snarkier side come out in public now too. “He wasn’t in a position to control anything.”

“Hmm, I guess that’s fair. You’re sharp. That’s good, we’ll need some smart minions now that we’re expanding again.”

“Like hell we’ll join you, creep!” Vicky shouted. “Better yet, give up now before we break your legs and drag you to the PRT!”

The man sighed. “So quick to violence. This is what makes you parahumans so frustrating to deal with. But fine, I can…educate you on following orders after defeating you.”

He pulled his arms up to his hips and stomped heavily on the ground, and all the rock around him rippled and surged forward…