The forcevein thieves moved like water down a stream.
They vaulted over the stone fencing lining the north lawn, dancing from one bush or tree to the next to take cover. The timing required to progress closer to the north wing building while staying out of line of sight of the rotating security cameras and the patrolling guards was razor thin.
But the group pushed onward without hesitation. One member would cross a certain gap in the time it took one of the guards to scan the area from left to right, and the next would move through another stretch of lawn when he blinked.
When they struck the first guard, it was as though they’d emerged from thin air — he hadn’t even had time to process their sudden appearance before his throat was slit and he was stuffed into the bushes.
After delivering identical fates to the next two guards, the forcevein thieves arrived at a ventilation shaft. It was opened in half a second, and in the next half, they were diving into it, flooding into the building.
* * * *
ULTRA ROCK
* * * *
Rocky Roran moved like a boulder down a stream.
A big, clunky, misshapen boulder that’s a bit too big to glide smoothly across the water. It still makes its way forward, but not without spinning around and smacking other objects in its path.
One would think that, following the trail left open by the forcevein thieves, navigating to the north wing would be quite a breeze. After all, Rocky could simply mirror the pathway the group had taken to avoid detection by the security cameras. Not only that, he wouldn’t even have to deal with the guards, seeing as they were already dead.
But alas, Rocky was not quite cut out for stealth and infiltration. At first, he certainly gave it the old college try, scaling the stone fencing like he’d seen the forcevein thieves do. However, he didn’t quite lift his rear leg up over high enough, and ended up kicking over a potted plant.
CRASH!
The plant launched a few feet away, smashing right into the side of a gazebo where it exploded into pieces.
All of the surveillance cameras in the area jerked over, having been equipped with noise detectors.
“Woops….” Rocky said, as each and every camera locked onto him.
[DO YOU FIND ENJOYMENT IN BEING AN ABSOLUTE BUFFOON?]
The gargoyle stood still, slowly lifting his hands up. However, despite having all of the cameras on him, nothing seemed to actually….happen to him…. There were no alarms, no flashing lights, no guards rushing in to apprehend him.
“Huh….” His eyes panned around the lawn, though it remained a still image. “Think those guys killed all the guards?”
[OBVIOUSLY.]
“So….what should I-?”
[JUST GO INSIDE, YOU IMBECILE!]
* * * *
ULTRA ROCK
* * * *
Moving through the interior of the north wing building had been just as easy for the forcevein thieves as as the yard outside had been; actually, it had been even easier, given the uptick in hiding places. Around corners, behind large cabinets, underneath tables — they didn’t even have to kill any guards on their way to the depths below.
They still did, but they didn’t have to.
The first true obstacle they came afoul of were the massive vault doors that led to the forcevein plant. They were locked by passcode, retinal, and fingerprint scanners, and getting close enough to even interact with those devices required bypassing the mesh of red lasers stretched from floor to ceiling.
The thieves were not deterred.
Three of them splintered away from the group in different directions, while a fourth stepped closer to the laser grid. He cupped his hands over his chest, as though he were holding a ball between them, and a lud, almost mechanical voice screamed out from within him:
LASER!
A thin sheet of bright red light pulsed out from the center of his chest, like ripples in water. They concentrated on his hands, which he then held out towards the laser grid.
The red beams immediately began to coalesce into his hands, as though they’d found themselves in the clutches of a vacuum. Within a few moments, the beams had been displaced from their original defensive position, and were now naught but glowing gloves around the forcevein thief’s hands.
As if on queue, the three who’d departed earlier returned to his side, two of them carrying a severed hand and a detached eyeball in their clutches. The first sadly hadn’t brought anything to the show-and-tell party, but he was able to punch in the correct passcode for the vault.
The eyeball and the hand had worked as well, bypassing the appropriate scanners. Everything seemed to be in the clear, as the locks within the doors began to click open.
However, just before the vault doors could begin to properly open, an alarm began to blare around the building.
The thieves pressed their backs to one another, forming a circle that allowed them to observe the room in all directions. They’d been caught off guard by the alarm, certainly, but they weren’t about to let that shock tank their entire operation. Not without a fight, anyway.
They each tried to search for the cause of the alarm. After all, they’d carried the mission out flawlessly, hadn’t they? So what was going on?
A barrage of footsteps echoed around the halls as guards from the other wings rushed to the scene, cutting off the thieves’ escape routes.
The thief with the laser-clad hands nodded his head towards the vault doors. “I’ll cut through. Kill them all.”
He shaped the glowing red gloves into one handheld saw blade, and began to slowly grind through the thick doors. It would take some time, but it certainly seemed to be working.
Meanwhile, the other thieves burst out towards the incoming guards, weapons at the ready. Though the Redvein Militia trained their fighters well, it became immediately apparent that they were completely outclassed in combat by the thieves. Their eyes could barely fathom the speed at which the thieves flowed around the halls, gliding around the bullets fired in their direction.
Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.
Knives cut into flesh, and batons smashed into bone.
The guards fell one by one, until only a few remained standing.
One of the thieves, wielding a baton, dashed towards the next guard, his weapon flying through the air for the kill.
But the baton did not crack through the skull as had been intended. Instead, the weapon bounced right off the stoney skin of Rocky Roran, and suffered a crack of its own.
Rocky turned towards the thief who’d struck him, though not with speed or urgency. No, it was more like someone had tapped his shoulder to get his attention. “Oh, here’s where everybody is! What’s up, guys? Sorry for tripping the alarm, I didn’t see the sensor! Can you turn it off? It’s pretty loud.”
Before the forcevein thief could even process the sudden appearance of the gargoyle, Rocky decked him square in the face, knocking him unconscious with barely any effort.
“See, Rak? Told you I can fight!”
[BAH. AN INFANT GIRL COULD ACCOMPLISH THAT.]
“What kinda scary little girls do you know?”
The guard standing closest to Rocky shot him a bewildered look; the night had already devolved into craziness, and the sudden appearance of the strange gargoyle had just amped the crazy up to the next level.
The one moment was enough of an opening for the next forcevein thief, this one sporting a knife, to swoop in for the kill. However, the guard ultimately managed to avoid the slice to the throat — or, rather, he was yoinked out of the way by Rocky, who’d clutched the back of his uniform and lifted him aloft at arm’s length.
The knife hit Rocky’s body, but only managed to chip off a piddly amount of dust on contact. Her eyes flickered over to Rocky’s free hand, anticipating a punch like her ally had suffered, but instead, she was struck from the side as Rocky swung the dangling guard around, causing his foot to clock her in the head, downing her.
Rocky set the guard down, patting him on the back. “Haha, never got to do that before! Thanks, bro!”
By that point, the battle had slowed down and transitioned into more of a stand-off, as Rocky stood alongside the two remaining guards, while the two remaining forcevein thieves were backed up against the door.
The one with the laser blade gloves, who seemed to be the leader (or perhaps he just really fancied himself as such), had been forced to pry his attention away from cutting through the door now that two of his allies had been incapacitated. He locked eyes with Rocky immediately. “A gargoyle….?”
Rocky waved across the room at the remaining thieves. “Hey!” But his attention did not linger on them for long, instead shifting over to the massive vault doors behind them. “Whoa….what’s back there?”
“Uh, th-the forcevein harvesting plant,” said the guard he’d used as a bludgeoning weapon. The other guard then slapped him across the back of the head for divulging such information.
“What’s a forcevein?” Rocky asked. “Sounds pretty neat.”
[HMPH. THAT MUST BE THE SOURCE OF THE REDNESS IN THIS AREA.]
“Oh, cool. Let’s go check it out!”
Everyone in the room watched in silence as Rocky took a few steps forward, waving at the lead thief. “You need help gettin’ those doors open?”
[WHAT IN THE BLAZING HELLS ARE YOU DOING?]
“I wanna go see the forceveins. They’re behind that door, and this guy’s cutting it open. If I help him, he’ll get it open faster, right?”
The two remaining thieves exchanged a look. The one wielding the knife seemed confused, but the leader appeared to have made his decision, turning back to the gargoyle with his eyes narrowed. “It’s a trick. Take the guards!”
[BAH! AS IF THIS IDIOT WERE CAPABLE OF SCHEMING ANYTHING!]
His partner nodded and dashed off towards the two remaining guards, ready to dispatch them. In the meantime, the leader charged directly at Rocky, extending the laser blade in his hands until it had taken on a machete-like shape.
“Wh-whoa!” Rocky gasped, caught off guard by the sudden attack. He stumbled backwards ungraciously, and while he managed to avoid getting decapitated by the laser blade, his right hand wasn’t so lucky as the red laser sword chopped off his pinky.
Reeling back in pain, Rocky’s black eyes suddenly shifted to a bright blue, and his torso hunched forward.
The thief leader had prepared to charge in for a follow-up attack, but hesitated. Rocky’s body appeared to have locked itself into place, his monstrous face extended forward. It was a chilling sight, but he was able to shake it off, and quickly resumed his attack.
[MOVE, YOU IMBECILE! OR IS NOW WHEN YOU CHOOSE TO KEEL OVER AND DIE?!]
Almost immediately after Rakshasa screamed into Rocky’s head, the latter kicked into action. While his body remained perfectly still, a rushing geyser of glowing blue water exploded out from his jaws, colliding into the chest of the incoming forcevein thief.
[HM?!]
The powerful blast of water carried its momentum forward, launching the thief directly into his partner until both men were splattered against the farthest wall of the room.
And still the water continued to burst from Rocky’s open stone maw, like a busted fire hydrant.
[THE BATTLE IS OVER, FOOL! SHUT THIS OFF BEFORE YOU FLOOD THE PLACE!]
Rocky did not appear to immediately take heed of Rakshasa’s words, as the stream of water continued for another few seconds. Finally, though, it died down, reduced from a gigantic beam to a stream, to a spray, to a splash, and then nothing.
The gargoyle’s eyes slowly returned to their natural color, and his body returned to motion. “Whoa….haven’t done that in awhile!”
[MM….]
* * * *
ULTRA ROCK
* * * *
“Thank you once again for protecting Redvein, Mister Roran,” Captain Carmine said, bowing her head low. “This city is forever in your debt. You truly are a hero to us.”
If it were possible for his stone cheeks to redden, Rocky would have blushed. “Aw, hey, it’s no big deal.”
It was early in the morning the day after the forcevein thief incident. After helping the remaining militia guards arrest the thieves, Rocky and Rakshasa had returned to the hotel room for the night. The instant they’d opened the door to check out, Captain Carmine stood there, accompanied by her usual squad, offering more confections to the gargoyle.
“So what was behind that door anyway?” Rocky asked as he chomped into the chocolate. “Forceveins or something? What’s that?”
The smile on the captain’s face vanished, and her eyes darted to one of the guards who’d survived the previous night’s encounter. All he could offer her was a shrug.
While Carmine would never be thrilled at the prospect of an outsider being aware of the forceveins beneath the city and would ordinarily quell the conversation the second it began, she truly did feel indebted to Rocky for his deeds.
Eh….perhaps a little explanation would be alright….?
Clearing her throat, she said, “They’re lines of forcestones and ULTRA Force particles buried deep underground beneath the city. They’re a very important part of our culture, and tampering with them in any way is strictly prohibited.”
“Oh, ULTRA Force, yeah I’ve heard of that,” Rocky stated. “They sound pretty cool! I wanna go see-”
“My apologies, Mister Roran, but civilians are not allowed near the forceveins for any reason,” Carmine said, her tone sharper than a blade. “And that includes you.”
The captain then bowed her head once more before turning to leave.
Rocky brought his (pinky-less) hand up to his chin. “Hm….”
[DO NOT PRETEND YOU ARE CAPABLE OF THOUGHT.]
The gargoyle did not respond immediately, but after a few more moments of contemplation, he snapped his fingers. “Let’s sneak back in tonight and go check out those forceveins!”
[FINE.]
“Wait, what? You’re actually okay with that?”
[HMPH! I HEED NOT THE WARNINGS OF MORTALS! NONE CAN FORBID ME FROM ANYTHING!]
“Ah, you don’t like bein’ told somethin’s off limits either, huh?” Rocky said. “See, I knew we were on the same wavelength!”
[SHUT YOUR MOUTH BEFORE I SMITE YOU WHERE YOU STAND.]
* * * *
ULTRA ROCK
* * * *
As Carmine and her squad stepped out from the hotel and into the streets, she felt another pleased smile appear on her face. The forcevein siphoners had all been apprehended, leaving the city safe once again! Though she would have liked to have dealt with the siphoners personally, she would certainly have the time to do so when she returned to the prison later that day.
For now, though, she would-
The ground suddenly trembled. The pedestrians in the streets stopped mid walk, and some fell over completely.
Captain Carmine felt a chill attempt to rush over her body, though the ULTRA Force particles within her flared up, burning the fear away before it had a chance to truly spread.
The radio on her belt called for her attention, but she didn’t need to listen in to know exactly what the scout on the other end was attempting to say.
“Another kaiju attack….”