Chapter 7: The man with the machine gun.
A new set of orders arrived from Bex: Meet him at his Castle.
Faris, Flan, and Marcus bowed down before the tyrant Rex Bex, clad in bright blue armor and a horned helmet that obscured his face. The armor plates on his legs showed fractures and cracks. Signs that a crippling blow was delivered to that area, rendering him immobile.
"Squad One... Today, you three will track down that boy to whatever world he escaped to." the demon king started. "Once you three discover which universe he resides in, I shall send in my drones to find him."
"Yes, your majesty." the trio said in unison, careful not to speak in Tempi in his presence. In their minds, they imagined their fingers were crossed behind their backs, despite how dangerous that would be in the presence of his drones.
"If I may ask a simple question, Rex Bex, what is it you need that child for?" Flan asked. "A reason as to why you pursue him can help motivate us to track him down." he reasoned.
"Hmm... simply put, the boy is in possession of something I desire."
So Faris and Flan were right. It was something that the boy had that drove Bex to make several attempts on his life. Satisfied with his reasoning, the trio of friends were smart enough to not ask further questions, as to avoid his wrath. He may be crippled, but Bex could wipe them out with just a single thought. "Thank you." they said in unison.
After their personal briefing with Bex, the trio of friends were sent to the Laguna street district in Lethfalg. The place where the Tempus child had escaped from this world.
This was it. No turning back now. No second thoughts. They had to carry out Valence's orders, for the boy held the power to free Lethfalg from Bex once and for all.
The three of them put on special combat rings made from silver and drew out their weapons.
"Combat rings. Check. Weapons. Check. Boombox. Check." Faris gave the 'all green' sign with his hands, signifying to the others that everything is prepared for Portalfall.
"You ready guys?" Marcus asked as he raised his comically large sword.
"Ita." Flan said, brandishing his M60 machine gun he got on sale.
"Ready!." Faris drew out his twin daggers of steel and silver alloy.
Each of them equipped an eyepiece with a special display on them to keep track of each other's vitals, as well as relay information to them. Flan approached the console and pressed a button on the touchscreen, causing a few lasers to scan them.
This was an important step as to not cause any complications involving that universe's specific science.
"Compatibility scan complete. Everyone, get ready for Portalfall." Flan said, inputting a few commands and pressing the holographic 'Enter' button.
One by one, the trio leapt through the portal.
Everything went white as they entered Nullspace, and they kept in contact with Valence Sulga via a device called a Qomiqare. The earpiece buzzed for Flan with Valence on the other end. "Remember. You've got ten days. Afterwards, all hell breaks loose. So you better prepare the kid fast if you wanna take down Bex."
"I got it." Flan responded. After the call ended, the trio suddenly landed hard on some very damp grass, almost shattering their kneecaps. The white around them faded away as it was replaced with the scenery of a tall hill overlooking a village of some sort. "Oof..." Flan groaned. "What is this place?"
"Don't know." Marcus responded. "But remember. No 'Breaking', got it?"
"You've got it!" Faris eagerly answered.
'Breaking' referred to the act of 'Breaking the 4th Wall' so to speak, which doesn't cause anything bad to happen per se, but it just makes things more complicated than they need to be. After all, with access to a nearly infinite amount of other universes and timelines, you're bound to come across a world from a form of fiction. Getting all excited about everything would freak everyone out, and normally wouldn't end well.
That was the main reason why Valence wasn't allowed to come with, because she would run the risk of 'Breaking' and potentially be considered insane by the inhabitants.
Remaining incognito was a top priority, and that meant another rule had to be put in place.
"No Tempi either. We have to blend in as to not make things complicated." Marcus added. Although with the weapons and uniforms they had, that would be impossible to do.
Since the nearest point of interest was a village, the trio decided that it would be a good idea to start looking around there and ask questions. Questions like 'Have you seen this boy? Short, black hair?' which would most likely be answered with 'Who the hell are you?'
The three of them made their way down the hill towards the village, hoping to find some info as to where the boy was located.
As Faris, Flan, and Marcus prepared to enter the village, a strange growling came from behind them. The growling of wolves. Probably landed in their territory or something.
"Uhh, Flan?"
"I heard it too."
"You know what that means?" Marcus asked.
"RAVE BATTLE TIME!" exclaimed Faris as he took out a Sony Walkman and put in a cassette tape with custom music on it. The first song being Faris' favorite rave music.
The wolves closed in as the music started, with Faris tapping his foot to the beat as he prepared his Daggers for battle. The others drew their weapons too.
"Phalanx formation!" Flan instructed. Giving a swift 'aye-aye!' Faris and Marcus stood with Flan side-by-side in a line formation. This would form an almost unbreakable wall that the wolves would have to take down to gain the upper hand.
Unfortunately, more than 3 people and more rows would be needed for this tactic to be effective. Instead, the trio used this to easily keep track of one another and quickly come to each others aid when needed.
The first wolf lunged forward towards Faris, who promptly sidestepped the attack to the rhythm of the Walkman playing at full blast. Turning around, Flan extended his arm towards the wolf. His intent was to 'draw' energy from the wolf into a combat ring on his finger.
The display on his eyepiece lit up brightly as it brought up a menu of the wolf's available magic that could be drawn. The display said the magic was unknown.
"Unknown magic?" Faris asked.
"Draw it and see what it is!" Marcus instructed as he swatted a wolf from out of the air as it lunged at him. Being big, tall, and muscular enabled you to do that.
"Draw: new magic!" Faris shouted, and a red colored energy flew from the wolf into Faris' ring, with the silver acting as a conductor for the magic.
9 Fires, the eyepiece said on the small display. "Score! 9 of 'em!"
"Let me try!" Flan shouted, firing a 3 round burst from his M60 at a wolf and extending the gun forward. His display revealed another magic the wolf had, with his specific model giving the name without the need to draw it first.
"Blizzard. That's cool." Flan said, pun intended. Giving the command 'Draw: Blizzard' to the microphone on his armor, a light blue energy came forth from the wolf and into Flan's machine gun. His eyepiece said 5 were drawn.
Injured, the wolf got back up and made a temporary retreat, only to arrive with more of them following it. This was definitely near a wolves nest, because the entire pack came charging in on the trio.
The village was so close, but Faris, Flan, and Marcus were too busy fighting off wolves to get even a single step closer. But then, Marcus had an idea.
"HEY FLAN!" the body builder shouted as he plunged his sword into yet another wolf. "Try a double cast with Faris!"
"Good idea!" Flan fired off another burst of .50 Caliber rounds, barely making a dent in the pack. It killed a few, but their numbers were so great it barely mattered.
It seemed Faris had the same idea, because into his mic, he shouted "Twincast: Fire! C'mon Flan, I need your help here!"
"Twincast: Blizzard! Set target all!" Flan issued his commands into his mic.
Faris made a motion to fling an imaginary ball, and Flan mad a motion that looked like swinging a bat by both ends, with the Fire and Blizzard spells combining to cause a massive explosion that wiped out almost every single wolf around the three of them. Surprisingly, the magic was smart enough to not harm the casters, so the trio was left relatively unscathed.
"HELL YEAH! This calls for a Victory Fanfare!" and Faris meant that too, because he loudly sang some sort of victory tune before Marcus shut him up for now.
"Yeah, no." Marcus said as he tossed his sword away, causing it to de-materialize into thin air as he did so. "Anyway, now that that's done, we should probably get going."
"Right. The village."
Flan led the way, and as usual, Faris and Marcus followed.
Upon entering the village, Marcus had concluded that they were somewhere in Japan, an eastern region of earth. Before Bex had arrived and screwed up everything, Marcus would regularly use a Slipgate and visit a custom timeline of Earth, and travel the globe to find out more about what was essentially an alien culture to him.
Well, cultures, because his home world of Gaierra was essentially just a continent floating in the middle of nowhere, so the concept of a single world having multiple cultures was still a foreign concept to him, but not one he didn't like.
"Don't recognize this place. Must be a completely different universe than the one I used to visit" Marcus said to the others. Pressing a button on his earpiece, Marcus asked Valence "Know anything about this place? You always keep telling me about it."
"That's the human village. It looks... different that what I expected. I don't see any Youkai, but I do see..." the High Commander paused a moment. "An ad for 'Dean's International House of stale bread, rotten tomatoes, and crappy customer service?' Who on earth would name their store that!?"
"Well, with a sign as brutally honest as that, we should probably check it out!" Faris said, changing course to the store.
One other thing that struck out as odd to Marcus was that the sign wasn't in Japanese. It was in English. Must be some sort of alternate timeline. Hopefully it's the right one.
That wasn't important now. Faris, Flan, and Marcus had a store with a terrible name to check out. After all, they wanted a piece of that crappy customer service too.
Who knows? Maybe someone there knows something about the kid they were tracking down...