Topside wasn’t much different up close than it had been when Victor had seen it from the openings of caves. There were crowds of people walking on the ground, following Angelos high above them in the skies.

Each of them bore a different insignia, a certain style of dressing or some other identifier that marked them as the retinue of an Angelo. When they’d look to him in questioning, his glare would quickly turn them away. It helped that in his disguised form, he didn’t stand out much from the crowd.

They stopped across an intersection on one of the roads as traffic passed. Wetajha Vices that covered the width of the road crawled on by as Victor readied his hand on his concealed guns. The cold comfort helped, especially when they spotted more of the Demigods on the other side of the road.

They were coming out of a store with their cloaks billowing behind them. They didn’t have the golden eyes of normal Demigods, but that belied a more threatening realization. They had bloody red eyes and spears carried on their backs proudly.

“Stop. We need to hide,” Victor urged the others. Leo, Loki and Ashley were stunned for a second and didn’t understand.

“What for?” Leo asked.

But by then, the Ares Blessed had already caught sight of them.

“Point to note for the future. Those are Ares’ children. And they don’t like anyone else in the Pantheon much at all,” Victor told them.

He needed to think of a way to defuse the situation. The Ares Blessed had begun glowering at them, and they were quickly approaching. The road was still blocked off by then, and Victor decided to gamble on his escape.

He pulled his Strengthened M-16 off of his back and threw it between his group and the Demigods. When it hit the ground, the Wetajha Vintaric’s eyes locked onto the piece. Its mouth started slobbering and it jumped onto the sidewalk to chew up the machine gun.

“Run!” Victor shouted and the group took off in a sprint.

“How do you know that’ll hold them?” Loki asked.

“Any enchanted or magical piece of weaponry is like a five-star meal in Vegas to a Vintaric. Those Ares Blessed have spears made from their own souls. Now that I’ve given it an appetizer-”

“It’s getting ready for the main course,” Ashley finished. Screams and smoke exploded behind them, but they kept running.

They dipped in between the buildings, into an alley that the bigger Angelos shouldn’t have been able to get past.

Victor and the crew waited there for a while as the dust settled. There were Angelos still flying past, but they didn’t seem to be searching for the ones who had caused such a commotion in the city. Loki was sent out for scouting, aided with some boosts that Victor provided.

He thought to give him Voltaic Form, but the ability wasn’t as broad in application as his Timewalker powers. If Loki didn’t come back, that was a sure sign that the path ahead was even worse than before, and that their best bet was to turn back.

But he did come back, and without a scratch on him.

“The warehouses are being closely monitored. Metamorph Thinkers. If we must do this, we should do it quickly, before day breaks,” Loki told them.

Victor applied Speedup again, but this time spreading them among the group. Victor opted out of Voltaic form, if only because it would give away his position to the Thinkers.

When they arrived in the district, they landed softly atop one of the Warehouses. Victor would’ve preferred to stick to the ground, but it was being patrolled by the Metamorphs.

“Leo, where’s the Thinker?” Victor asked.

“I’d need to get down on the ground,” Leo replied.

Victor grabbed the man and jumped down into an alley below. He pulled out his twin guns and watched for the slithering masses of Metamorphs passing him by. Metamorphs didn’t have great senses at the best of times, but it still put him on edge.

They popped bubbles on the surfaces of their clay-like skin, talking to each other in a language Victor couldn’t understand. He tried to decipher the meaning, but that proved to be useless.

After what felt like half an hour, Leo finally opened his eyes.

“Got it,” he said, all too loudly.

A Metamorph glanced at the alley they were hidden in. It popped to alert its allies, before moving in. By the time it could glance inside, Victor and Leo had already escaped to the top again.

“Could you be quieter next time?” Victor asked, annoyed.

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“Could you stop holding me like I’m an unruly kid?” Leo replied, tucked under Victor’s arm.

“I don’t know, Leo, it suits you,” Ash told him.

“You can banter later, both of you. Now come on, where is the Thinker?” Victor asked.

“It’s inside that office,” Leo replied, pointing an impressive distance away at another warehouse.

“And the hallowed iron is right under its nose,” he added.

Victor nodded.

“Then here’s what we’ll do. Me and Loki are going to go in and take it out and you and Ashley move the iron away as quickly as you can.”

“We’re supposed to float the iron away on the rocks?” Leo asked.

“Just try to be quiet about it. Once the Thinker’s dead, we can carve a way out without alerting every Metamorph in the district,” Victor told him.

Leo still looked skeptical, but he obeyed regardless. They jumped across the rooftops of buildings with closed curtains over windows and cracks running down the sides. Until they reached the end of the road, and the office of the Thinker.

Leo and Ashley would be at the entrance then, planning their own break-in. Hopefully, they’d just tunnel underneath without a problem.

“Target’s in sight,” Loki told him. Victor’s attention snapped back to the window and the figure walking inside.

It looked more human than the rest of its compatriots, giving it an eery look with features that Victor would’ve found appealing in a human. Smooth skin, sharp angled nose and thick eyelashes. Something unnerved Victor about that, even as Loki readied a slash to cleave the monster’s head from its body.

Its eyes were fixed inside on some documents. It didn’t seem to notice them at all. But given how advanced it looked.

“Wait, Loki-”

The Thinker turned and looked straight at Victor.

A psychic scream went out all around the monster. Victor felt it invade his mind with noises and compulsions. Loki lost his grip on his Seed and every Metamorph in the vicinity of the Thinker stopped. Then they began to converge on top of it.

Voltaic Form. Speedup.

Time slowed around Victor as he fired grey lightning at the Thinker. It raised a hand that calcified upon the bolt’s impact. It wasn’t going to escape.

Victor braced his leg against the rooftop and blasted towards the window. The ledge exploded behind, and he landed in the room, cracking the floor.

Before the Thinker could raise its other hand, Victor plunged his twin guns into its chest.

He fired the bullets, Slowdown and Paralyzing. The Vintaric further slowed and Victor kept firing until he could see the Seeds bursting from its chest. The Thinker hadn’t been a Thinker only. It was a Metamorph Great Thinker, and Victor had been foolish in not considering the possibility.

He looked back at Loki and shouted a single command.

“The warehouse! Get to it, fast!” Victor ordered him.

Loki took off and Victor jumped out of the window. There, he was met with Brutes covered in gems and Basics hiding behind them. the Brute ahead of him took a swing, but it was so painfully slow that Victor sidestepped it.

He fired a round into the Vice’s chest, exposing its crystalline core. Then he fired lightning that fed off of his Voltaic form to destroy it.

The first Brute fell only for more to take his place. The Basics threw their bodies against Victor, but they were taken care of in a single shot. Victor mowed them down with bullets, lightning and his bare hands, but the more he fought, the more tired he grew.

And the commotion was bound to cause more Vices to start coming. Victor could see a group of Demigods already at the periphery of his vision. They looked angry when they saw him, but Victor thought he could use that.

“Cecilian’s betrayed us! Tell the others!” Victor shouted for them.

He was glad there were only lesser Demigods in the group. They believed his every word and came to his aid, firing lightning from their fingers to fry the Metamorphs.

The fight drew more and more attention to themselves. Victor caught a glimpse of Leo, Ash and Loki from the side, carrying large sacks of hallowed iron on their backs on the rooves.

He then grabbed the attention of a Metamorph Brute and led him inside another alley. There, his crew blasted the Vice to death. Victor jumped atop the rooves and cleared his throat.

“They’ll keep fighting for a while yet. Pantheon members are stubborn. Let’s go,” Victor told them.

While the battle continued underneath them, they made their way back into the city through the back alleys. Their disguise fell away halfway through so Victor had to be extra careful with the routes they took.

A few times, running patrols of other Vices almost caught a glimpse of their face. But they would fall to a slash not even a moment later. Like that, they carefully proceeded until they were out of the city and the gaze of the other Angelos.

But that wouldn’t be for long. Cecilian would realize someone had stolen from him. they had a scant few days before he sent an entire army down into the depths of the caves to get back what was stolen from him.

But Victor had a plan for that. Leo opened the path into the caves and dropped the sacks in front of the waiting Altesians. They were afraid at first, but when they saw the glow of the hallowed iron, they crowded around it.

“You… you actually did it, Vic-tor!” Aidano told him, jumping with delight.

“As if the rest of us were just tagging along,” Leo muttered under his breath.

“Quarrelling over semantics will not help us,” Loki told him.

“Put a bit of emotion into that and I might believe it,” Leo replied.

Loki scoffed at the man and Ashley had to lead her brother away. Victor was left with the chief and he kneeled down to talk to him.

“The iron’s the good news, Aidano. It’s what it comes with that’s bad for you. A Thinker caught us, and Cecilian’s going to send down his forces any minute.”

Suddenly the delight on Aidano was gone, and he was back to worrying.

“Incubate your Angelo. As quick as you can. We’ll need its help if we’re going to fight against him.”

“B-but, he cannot come down here himself. The cave pathways are too small.”

“Doesn’t mean he won’t send anyone else. Now ready your people and tell me when the first attack’s coming.”

Aidano bounded away to ready his people. Victor had his own preparations to do, and so he talked to Leo.

“What’s up?” he asked Victor.

“You should go back to Angel Heights,” Victor told him.

“What for? You think I can’t handle myself?” Leo argued.

“No. I know you can. But we’ll need more than four Wielders if we’re going to guard the Altesians,” Victor told him. But it seemed Leo had a bone to pick with him today, as he didn’t seem to want to listen.

“Leo, please, I’m trusting you with this. You can tunnel through the caves quicker than me, Loki or Ash. I need your help if we’re going to survive and get these Altesians on our side,” Victor told him as honestly as he could.

The man’s expression softened for a moment before he glanced at his sister.

“He’s got a point, Leo.”

Victor was glad for the support.

“Fine. I’ll do it,” Leo said. Victor held out a hand for the man and he shook it.

“Try to hold out,” Leo told him.

“We will. Godspeed,” Victor replied.