Nikola couldn’t call the trip any more pleasant than it had been the years before, her stomach having been forced into her spine brutally. Physically, she was as right as rain. Mentally? She could use a few minutes to calm herself. Too much time had been spent on that carriage of gold. How her former mentor could even handle it so casually was beyond her.

“Get up now,” Harold said, putting on the final piece of his outfit. The man was back in his white and gold uniform, the suit glinting in the harsh sun. Even now, it fitted the man quite well. The years hadn’t stopped the old man from keeping up his fitness. Nikola had to wonder how he made the time. “We have a man to catch whenever he deigns to visit us.”

“You don't think he’s already here?” Nikola questioned, already on high alert for any fluctuations in the air. She had already dealt with Umbra before and had seen how his powers seemed to push away her senses in waves. While she wouldn’t be able to react to it instantly, she would be more than able to sense it from afar. “An ambush wouldn’t be completely useless against us.”

“If he had been here, he would have already attacked us,” Harold said, rejecting the woman’s paranoia. He went down the road towards the farm, the old man seemingly able to remember the place from memory alone. Looking at the road they walked on, Nikola wasn’t surprised if it was the very same that had been used all those years ago. It certainly looked cracked enough to rival her age. “There are few things I can be sure about but this is one of them. He didn’t attain such great power just to get me by surprise.”

They walked along until they found the farm, the signposting at the front making Harold stare into the dead air. It took a shout from Nikola before he could move on, the guard at the front quick to block their way.

“Excuse me but this is a restricted area,” the guard said with full confidence. It didn’t sound like what somebody would say to a pair of fully-suited Heroes. Just what kind of orders had this guard been given? “Please leave the premises.”

“I am afraid that is not possible, young man,” Harold said with a stiff voice, sounding like he was speaking down to a child. Nikola could see just how little it worked before he even finished his sentence. “It is of utmost importance we get inside.”

“Then get permission from the administration,” the guard replied. “Until then, I am not authorised to allow you entrance.”

“How important is it we get in?” Nikola whispered to her old mentor, trying to see whether or not she needed to do this.

“Very,” Harold answered.

Having gotten the answer, Nikola stepped up about a metre from the guard before putting out her hand towards him. The guard looked briefly confused before the woman channelled her power, sending a shock to the man’s nervous system. It didn’t do anything close to killing him, merely immobilising most of his muscles. Letting him down on the ground easily, making sure no damage was had from the fall, Nikola looked back at her mentor with a smile.

“After you,” Nikola gestured, another twist of her power letting the gate open. Having things made of metal around them was great like that. However, her old man did nothing but give her a blank stare before walking in. He was not as amused as her, for some reason. “You can’t say I didn’t get us in.”

“I had been hoping to enter diplomatically, Tesla,” Lux replied, flexing his power to put up the initial shields around his skin. No other guards were coming at them, however. Even when Nikola could see the camera pointed at the guard, no alarms had been set off. “Now the farm is going to be against us.”

“If they are, do the parts you need to get over with then,” Tesla replied, letting the waves of electromagnetism get through her core. Nothing was detected yet. No sign of the enemy in sight. “We won’t have all day.”

“I doubt we’ll have the full hour,” Lux replied. With a deep breath, the small pieces of light wrapped around the man began to control, letting Harold fly into the air. It was only about ten metres but Nikola saw no reason not to follow. There was nobody on the ground going after her either. The workers in the distance seemed to be retreating, going into buildings at a rapid frequency.

“Either they have very good evacuation protocols or they had foreseen the chance that this farm would be targeted by powered people,” Nikola commented as the last few workers got out of sight. At the administration buildings, all curtains were being drawn as well. No clear sights were allowed. In just a minute, everything had been turned into empty air. Using her senses to see further in, everybody seemed to be hiding in corners or under chairs. It was incredible. “Maybe it’s a mix of both.”

“Yes, they would have known about this possibility for years now,” Lux agreed slowly, clearly unwilling to accept that ruthless efficiency from basic workers. “It should have been in every safety instruction there but I doubt that they would have been allowed to tell anybody about what truly happened at the time.”

“We can ask them about it when we finish with this task,” Nikola promised Harlod, looking around as they floated up in the sky. “Now… what do you need to see up here?”

“It is very simple, Tesla,” Lux replied with somewhat of a smile. “We know the enemy is coming soon, we know where he will be, and we have more than enough time to twiddle our thumbs. What is it that we should be doing?”

Another practical lesson. Nikola couldn’t say it was the time for such things but she could hardly find herself wanting to discuss it with the old man. Giving herself a moment of thought, a somewhat reasonable answer was found.

A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

“Since we know the area, we can scout out where we want to direct the fighting if we reach the farm,” Nikola began. “I know where people are hiding so the easy answer would be to go after the western crops. They’re also relatively good for emergency landings and could provide soft ground if we were to fall out of the sky.”

“Do you think we should fight at the farm?” Lux asked with a grin.

“No but we likely won’t have a choice,” Tesla answered. “Keeping it in the air will likely be our best shot at minimising harm and the ability for the man to conjure shadows. From my experience, Umbra needed some actual shadow that he could work from but the size of them seemed to not matter at all.”

“I can provide the energy of the sun,” Lux stated. “A lack of light isn’t going to be our worry. However, in the ideal situation, we would want him over by the forest. While it would provide him with plenty of shadows, there is next to no chance of human casualties inside.”

Nikola couldn’t say she agreed with those words. Extending her senses further, she tried to ignore the satellite endings coming down at them as she looked into the forest. The waves from most of the trees were annoying, such large organic plants tending to bounce signals left and right. Getting a good reading out in the wilds was too hard but a bit of focus was all Nikola truly needed before she began to understand the truth.

“There are humans out there,” Nikola corrected, looking into the woods blankly. She wasn’t looking with her eyes anymore, instead staring through the sixth sense that her power had granted her so many years ago. Something out there was pulsing like a heart, sending out wave after wave of searching energies. “And something more than just humans.”

It wasn't sonar. She’d seen too many of those in recent years to mistake that. No… it was something inventors would make, something that she would see on a Hero with Gadgets on their belts. Just who was building something out in the middle of nowhere and why had she not sensed it before?

Even more importantly, how had she not sensed it just a day before? From the power alone, it wasn’t something that a truck could have driven out. No, that kind of passive power only came from megastructures that took years of professional work. This wasn’t normal. This was highly irregular.

“Well, then let us check that out before we might have to fight to our deaths,” Lux said with a small sigh, floating down over the wall and into the start of the forest. He seemed like he wanted to walk the entire way. “Let us get to it then. Knowing the place of battle is the one thing you need before you can be sure of winning. The stable ground is the only kind you can truly trust, after all.”

“Maybe save those crazy ramblings for somebody who will listen and explain why we aren’t flying the entire way there,” Nikola said with some annoyance. She hadn’t slept in the last day and her legs were hurting already, the slight incline into the forest not helping her at all.

And that sensation of the waves beating through her body as well. How she hadn’t noticed it when standing by the road utterly confused her. Even though those thick walls that the farms seemed so proud of shouldn’t have been able to keep out something of this power. Was the farm’s security built of something that would make fortresses around the world envious or was there something more mystical about the forces that could be felt close by?

“If there is one trick about surviving in a planned fight, it’s to never be overconfident,” Lux rambled on as they went past tree after tree. There were so many around that they were uncountable, their numbers allowing for not clear sight too far ahead. Even though the path constantly swung, no real vegetation was removed to make that path. Honestly, any man on a bicycle would have been forced off it with so many sharp turns every metre. “Flying into an area where there shouldn’t be people but nonetheless is is a good way to be shot while in the air.”

“You can deflect a missile without thinking, Lux,” Nikola replied. “Should common weaponry stand that high on your fear list?”

“Never trust that civilians have regular tools. It is one too many times the regular people figure out how to make radioactive bullets or some piercing kind of projectile that can go through everything but water.”

Oh, Nikola could remember that first one. One of the Branded Heroes had become riddled with radioactive bullets in an attempt to kill him. That one had been a Shifter, however, meaning that everything was shrugged off easily. It also meant that the man had to be left alone on an island for a few months to detox from the high levels of radioactivity on his skin. It had been quite the story all those years ago. Nikola wondered if he was still out and about fighting crime. It wasn’t every day that dinosaurs with laser eyes walked the streets, after all.

“Fair enough,” Nikola said, tuning into her senses once more to figure out the general direction they needed to go. From the skies, it had seemed like the post was so close by yet it was quite the opposite on foot. It would take too long to get there with mere steps. “Another twenty minutes that way.”

“I should have brought a camera then,” Lux said with dismay. “Some of those bushes look quite lovely at this time of year.”

The woman glanced at what the old man was admiring, seeing the thorns on the red bush before she saw anything else. It was just high enough to get at her ankles and they certainly seemed like a pest that did nothing but harm. How the old Hero could admire them mystified Nikola, the woman having nothing but hatred against such annoying plants. They were the entire reason she refused to walk bare feet anymore.

Walking along quicker than ever, they did finally find what seemed to be the source. Standing on top of a hill, hidden behind trees and foliage, the two heroes were able to see what seemed like an improvised excavation site.

“What are they even doing down there?” Lux mumbled as the old man looked at the project beneath them. Nearly ten workers seemed to dig dirt into large wagons that were then pulled out and dumped fifty metres away. A large hill had already been created, showing how much effort had gone into it. “Oh, dear god, it’s an old laboratory.”

“I am not sure how you see a laboratory from that big metal box but I’ll trust your words with this one,” Nikola said as she tried to force her senses into the actual so-called laboratory. The giant box of metal had to be fifty metres across on both sides and about twenty metres tall. It was only the waves through the dirt that told her of the latter metric, the diggers in front only trying to uncover the top of the massive box. With how much still needed to be revealed, she wasn’t sure even Lux could sense the staggering scale of it. “What do you think it’s meant to be?”

“If I had to wager a guess, it would be something from my time. I could see Hollow making this in his spare time just to put up some false leads. So many of these empty shells were built, nothing sitting in them but traps and bombs. I lost too many trying to find the secrets within,” Lux said, pointing at one of the revealed corners. “Look at that, even. The steel has just outright fallen into disrepair over the years. With that old Villain’s knack for self-repairing buildings, I would wager that these people are trying to steal what is likely only an entry into their deaths.”

“Is that so…” Nikola said, looking more closely at the display. Some of those signatures of the people beneath were similar to those she’d seen a day before. “I think these people might be from the farm.”

“Yes, that could explain them keeping it a secret,” Lux said. “And how a malfunctioning prototype might have gotten out to attack. A scare-tactic by this place. Nevertheless, we need to report this. Maybe the other Heroes will finally arrive then.”

“Haven’t you already called them?” Nikola questioned, getting a complex expression in return. “Why not?”

“This… this is a private matter,” Harold explained, his face conflicted. “I made this happen from my actions and I am going to stop all of this by doing the same. Nothing more is deserved.”

Nikola felt the need to fire back with something but couldn’t, a wave of power washing through her senses as the sky above seemed to darken. That tightening of the old man’s fist was like a wail in the air as the singing of death came through their hearts.

The one who wanted revenge had come into the light with a grand entrance. Nikola wasn’t sure she truly wanted to meet the man. However, it was clear there was no choice in the matter. Those down digging at the metal box stopped as Harold became a beacon of pure light, rising into the air to meet the young man. Quick to follow, Nikola flew as well.

There was no chance she would allow her mentor to go through all of this alone.