Interlude 12: Mirror, Mirror
Foreign District, Tokyo-2, Mid-November 2016
Vesta awoke in a now at least somewhat familiar space, stretching as she slipped out of bed, got dressed, and opened up the curtains to let the light of Tokyo-2 into her rather spare apartment.
As she prepared for the day and began her walk towards Azranyth's shop, she wondered what worlds she would be witness to. There were a few projects that Ghynza had her helping on, ones that mostly went to unpopulated, wild worlds. Such 'safaris', as Azranyth called them, seemed to be a specialty of theirs.
There was other news she had heard over the last few days while working. News that could only come from a tight-knit community such as the Echo-linking business had proven to be. News of an increase in robberies, and an increase in sightings of creatures that clearly did not belong to this world. It was growing… concerning.
And, as Vesta felt a familiar psychic brushing against her mind, she paused on the sidewalk for a moment. "Master Azranyth?"
"Vesta, send for the Worldstriders. The thieves. They're here.'
A shocking, cold spike of fear stabbed into Vesta's mind for a moment before it melted under her resolve, and she pulled out her clear-pad, dialing the number that the newly rotated Worldstriders had given their shop.
A long tone sounded before a soft beep, and a man spoke on the other end. "This is Percy, go ahead."
"Master Perseus, our shop has been intruded upon by thieves."
"We hear you. We're on our way. Meet us there, but don't go inside."
Vesta nodded, for all it was worth. "Very well. I will see you there."
She hung up, and quickened her pace towards her shop.
She soon arrived, staying out of sight of the doorway as she looked up and down the street, silver eyes almost filled with a restrained worry. She could hear Azranyth and Ghynza inside, along with the voices of strangers. Low. Anxious. One even sounding mad.
She glanced to her left, and saw three figures approaching, slowing to a stop by her side. One, a man with tan skin and black hair, stepped forward slightly from his companions, a woman with blonde hair and grey eyes, and a man with almost bright red hair and piercing blue eyes. "Can Azranyth tell us how many are in there?"
Vesta nodded, reaching back out to Azranyth as Perseus, Annabeth and Atreus linked to her soul. "They're here. How many assailants are there?"
In response, an image of Azranyth's sight as he swept the second floor. Three people were dressing down one of the Looking Glasses to be transported out, Azranyth's sight focussing on another man as he held himself and Ghynza up with a pistol. "There are two more keeping lookout on the first floor. They appear to be native to this country, but at least one of them is Interfaced, and they have weapons that are clearly not of this world."
As the vision faded, Vesta looked at Percy as he nodded.
"Alright," he said quietly as he turned to the other two, "we go in quick. Draw their attention, see if we can capture someone, and prove our little hypothesis right."
"I'll be giving long-range support." Atreus said quietly. "At least, as long of a range as indoors can manage."
"We'll have to be careful, too." Annabeth warned. "After all, if they have control of one or more Looking Glasses, they could easily turn something out for us to deal with as they get away."
"Yeah." Percy sighed. "Looks like we get to have a few decades' worth of bad luck, seeing as we'll probably have to break them."
He looked over at Vesta. "Give us a little room to set up by the door."
Vesta nodded, stepping away as the trio stacked up at the doorway. "Have Azranyth close the door behind us." Atreus said quietly to her. "No need to put others at risk."
Vesta nodded, sending the word to Azranyth as Percy silently counted them down. "3… 2… 1… now."
. . .
Percy Jackson had found that, in all his time becoming proficient wielding swords, spears, and bows from his time at Camp Half-Blood and Camp Jupiter, that a gun really was just easier sometimes, wasn't it?
Not that the thought crossed his mind anymore as he leveled a, frankly, piratical pistol, a deep tone replacing the flare of gunpowder as a spike of coral burst out and slammed into the shoulder of one of the two men, sending him to the ground as the others turned to face the three new assailants as their way out hazed out of existence, just as Annabeth laid out the second man in front of them with a deftly thrown sphere that exploded into a sticky webbing.
A shout, and the room devolved into chaos. As Percy, almost on instinct, sent his physical abilities to the Second Peak, he rushed forward under the hail of gunfire, his gun disappearing as a hand reached into a pocket, pulling out a familiar weight as he spun off the cap with practiced ease and prepared to settle into his usual, familiar rhythm.
Anaklusmos sprang into being, the gleam of celestial bronze glinting almost out of Percy's line of sight as he charged up the stairs to the left, Annabeth taking the right and Atreus making do by simply leaping into the air towards the second-floor balcony.
He focused on the sword, using his Interfacing to… well, solidify it was the best way to put it, allowing it to damage those that were mortal. Granted, he could never do that to the whole blade, years of trying aside. But, at the end of the day, 2 or 3 feet of metal was still a force to be reckoned with, edge or no, as the man who he came to a stop in front of would soon find out.
He aimed precisely, his opponent's seemingly sluggish movement allowing him the chance to tap arms and legs, hearing the fracturing as he went to the ground.
Glancing to the side, he watched as Azranyth took one of the men packing the Looking Glasses away and shoved him into the aperture, then took the frame and tore at it, causing the Looking Glass to shatter. 'Well, I guess we won't be seeing him again.'
Then, out of the corner of his eye, he saw one of the men moving far faster than most should. 'Ah. The Interfacer, I presume.' he thought as he turned and blocked the strike the man made with a collapsible baton. It crackled and hummed with an electric current that buzzed across the portion of Percy's blade that it touched as he jumped back. 'Man. What I'd give to have Jason here…'
Strike and counterstrike, duck, dodge, and parry, that was all that mattered for seconds that felt almost like minutes. A nick here, a burning bruise there, all healed as the fight began to stretch on, and Percy's brow began to furrow slightly in concentration.
"I've got you."
A hollow puff presaged Annabeth's web-bomb exploding across the man's back, freezing his weapon arm in place for the moment that Percy needed to get a solid smack across the face with the pommel of his sword.
As the man went down like a sack of potatoes, Percy took a deep breath as he looked around. There were… a remarkably small amount of things broken, weren't there?
The shop was in good condition, only a few baubles and one or two Looking Glasses a casualty of the scuffle. Otherwise, all of the men were slumped over on the floor. Annabeth stood a little ways from him, walking towards him. Atreus was out of sight but sounded like he was on the first floor, tending to the man Percy had put a piece of coral into.
"All good? Already?" Percy asked, an eyebrow arched.
"5 mortals and one novice Interfacer versus 2 demigods and 1 actual god." Annabeth replied levelly. "Frankly, I'm almost surprised it didn't go more quickly."
Percy shrugged. "Alright. Makes sense to me."
Annabeth rolled her eyes as they all heard Atreus coming up the stairs. "Of course, it does, dear. You know my mom, to say nothing about me."
Percy smiled slightly as he turned to Azranyth and Ghynza. "Are you guys okay?"
Ghynza nodded. "We will be alright. This," she waved at the wares, some of which were broken across the floor, "can be replaced easily. Our lives, not so much."
"Indeed." Atreus said, coming to a stop by Percy and Annabeth as he looked over at Percy. "The man you shot has been stabilized. He'll hurt. But he'll live."
"Does that mean you'll perhaps find out the motive behind these robberies of our associate's wares?" Azranyth asked, no small amount of hope in his voice.
Percy bobbed his head side to side slightly as he smiled equally slightly. "There's a better than good chance they'll talk. After all, Piper's a great conversationalist."
. . .
Unknown Location, 1 Day Later
Shingo Morita slowly stirred back to consciousness, then snapped into focus as he found himself bound to a chair in a rather dark room. He jerked at his restraints for a moment but found that he was secure in his seat, shackles on his wrists and ankles preventing much more than a squirm.
He tried for a moment to use his Interfacing, but there was nothing. No heightening of sense or strength to aid him. He then noticed the odd sensation around his neck, like someone was gently kissing it. There was... something on it.
"I wouldn't worry too much."
Shingo blinked. The woman hadn't been here before, had she?
She leaned back in a chair, looking at him intently with eyes that were a deep blue. No, they were black, or green, or a deep purple. Whatever they were, they were pretty, and her voice… it was utterly soothing. Spellbinding, even. He found himself relaxing despite his circumstances.
"Okay… but where am I?" he asked slowly.
"You're safe." the woman said with a shrug. "No one is going to hurt you here. We just have you secured so that you don't accidentally hurt yourself with your Interfacing."
She leaned forward, putting her head on her hand. "How did you start Interfacing, anyway?" she asked, an interested look on her face. "And why use it to do… well, whatever you were doing?"
A part of him, one that was growing quieter by the moment, screamed at him not to trust her, to not tell her anything about the operation. But… she seemed so nice. What would she do, really?
"Well," Shingo began, relaxing as best he could, "it's a funny story, really…"
. . .
"So, that's what Mr. Morita had to tell me about the operation." Piper said to the other Worldstriders, Saoirse O'Hanrahan, and Duncan Idaho, the Outrider's new liaison.
It had only been an hour since the man had spilled nearly everything he knew about the Looking Glass ring that had sprung up several weeks ago. He was, apparently, quite knowledgeable.
"All this," Percy mused, "operating out of a warehouse in Burbank." he scoffed softly. "Pretty dicey part of town, last I remember."
"That was with monsters and demigods roaming around, dear." Annabeth said patiently.
Then she paused for a moment. "And they're keeping all their Looking Glasses there?" Annabeth said quietly, her brow furrowed slightly. "No other caches, no fallback points or other plans to keep it all from falling apart in one fell swoop?"
As Piper shook her head, Annabeth continued. "Either they're dumber than I thought, or…" she trailed off somewhat ominously.
"They want us to find all of them at some point?" Duncan said somewhat incredulously as he glanced over at Saoirse. "That seems… far-fetched."
"Maybe." Percy replied with a slight shrug. "But if there's anyone who's gut feelings I've learned to trust, it's Annabeth's."
He turned to a screen that linked to the Festus hanging in high orbit. "Leo, what have the Looking Glasses we got from Azranyth told you?"
"Well, bossman, these things are a lot more comfortable when they're turned off, for one." Leo Valdez, a son of the forge god Hephaestus, began. "I've been doing my fair share of digging, both physical and not-so-much, and let me tell you, these things were linked to some nasty looking places. At least two of them were linked to somewhere with some sort of self-replicating swarm. Xenomorphs, Tyranids, giant monsters of every flavor, all kinds of mean shit. Not only that, they've been modified to allow something of any size through. No matter how big."
"Man…" Jason said, running a hand through his hair. "And I thought the gremlins were the worst things we dealt with…"
"For real, Superman." Leo said with an emphatic nod. "These Looking Glasses didn't have their bubble fields or foreign matter blockers turned off though, so all we have to deal with is a bad-looking view before we disconnect them and return them to the shop."
"Do you think you can track their signatures?" Annabeth asked.
"Well, thanks to Calypso's Spirits, they'll have the scent, and should be able to track down the location of the others in…" he leaned away, his voice muffling for a moment before his face reappeared. "About 6 hours, give or take?"
"Alright." Jason said quietly as he looked at Duncan. "We'll put an operation together, get some of the Outriders involved."
"How loud are you planning on taking this?" Saoirse asked. "Depending on how noisy you get, you might want to warn local law enforcement."
"We plan on warning them anyway." Jason replied frankly. "But I was planning on going in quietly. The last thing we need is for them to get spooked and bolt."
Percy nodded. "Sounds like Loki will get to have some fun with illusions. Nico gets his shadows, and we get the drop on them."
"Maybe…" Annabeth cupped her chin thoughtfully as she looked back at Leo. "Were there any sort of transmissions that you were able to intercept coming from Azranyth's shop?"
Leo shook his head. "Negatory, Ghost Rider. Nothing out, and nothing in."
Annabeth pursed her lips. "Well, we'll still want to be quick, then."
"While there's still the cover of night?" Percy said.
Annabeth nodded. "Yeah. But we'll need to be quick then."
"Then we'd better not waste any more time. Let's get to work."
. . .
Burbank, California, 3 Hours Later
It was a cold, wet night in what was now known as the Bay of Angels. The rain came down gently, but not softly, the persistent pattering on the rooftops filling the air with a quiet, almost comfortable hiss. Every once in a while, a rumbling of thunder sounded in the distance.
The hiss was joined by the pattering of a tin roof, one that stood over a warehouse that was surrounded by a concrete fence with a further iron fence atop it. Within the fence's perimeter were several men scattered about the premises, dressed in coats that concealed guns of various makes and models. The grounds were well lit, and all stood within sight of at least one other. The security was… comforting. If not particularly warming.
One of the men got under a tarp that was stretched out by the building's wall, taking out a pack of cigarettes from a pocket and trying to light one to stand as a sentinel against the cold.
As he flicked his lighter again and again (the damn thing was nearly broken, but it had been a birthday present, after all), he scanned the courtyard with watchful eyes. This was a dangerous business to be in, after all. Even if he didn't quite fully understand it yet.
He finally got the lighter to catch a flame, flickering and dim though it was, and as he lit his cigarette, he caught movement out of the corner of his eye.
He looked over as he took a puff… nothing. No one. His brow furrowed slightly, but he shrugged.
He took another deep breath. Then he caught another flash of movement, out to the right this time. His brow furrowed more deeply as he reached for a walkie-talkie. "Any of you guys in the security room seeing anything… funny?" he said slowly.
It was a moment before the man on the other end replied. "Nope. Nothing inside that we don't want or outside that we might be worried about."
The man outside sighed quietly. "I might just need to get some sleep then." he muttered as he clicked off the radio.
"So, how about you go ahead and do that?" a posh, British voice said.
He looked to his left, his eyes widening as a man with long black hair and blue eyes that crinkled under an impish grin touched the space between his brow before deftly catching the cigarette as it fell from his mouth.
With a little more ensorcelling, Loki masked the guard's unconscious body as he took on the man's image, smirking slightly as he took a puff of the cigarette. Mortal tobacco was weak, frankly. Nothing his Asgardian physique couldn't handle. But, like all actors, he had to settle into the part.
So, he tried his best to look tired, cold, and miserable. It was quite the trial, however. After all, he was having so much fun, now. 'And they wanted me to do this under cover of darkness, the poor guards all confused. As if.'
No, if he was going to be a hero, he was going to do this right.
"Alright, everyone is in their places." he said through a link to young Mr. Perseus' soul. "I would hurry, however. It would not surprise me to find out they do regular check-ins."
"Alright. We're approaching from your front. Be ready to make us look like we're not here."
"Please. As if that takes some effort on my part."
He felt a quiet exasperation on the other end of the link before he glanced up, a blob of shadow began to seep through the iron fence, and Loki began to weave his magic.
To anyone else, there would be no crawling inkblot of darkness. Not for the cameras, or any of the men in the courtyard, if they were still conscious. He, however, saw a sheen of scintillating green light spider-webbing across the surface of the shadow as it crawled towards him.
Smirking slightly, he began to amble his way over towards the front door, opening it with a flourish. "The way is clear, ladies and gentlemen." he said with an almost decadent satisfaction and a smile to go along with it.
As the blob began to move towards the door, quiet sighs from one or two people to be heard within it, an alarm began to blare, smashing the expression of contentment off Loki's face as the illusion, both of them, fell away, revealing Perseus, Annabeth, Nico, Will, Ryuko and Satsuki as they looked at him.
"Okay, magic man." Ryuko nearly growled as she summoned a crimson blade with a looped handle out of thin air. "What did you do?"
"Absolutely nothing except what I was asked, young lady." Loki said in an affronted tone.
"We'll talk about this later." Percy said quickly. "Right now, move!"
. . .
Ryuko Kiryuin was in her element as she dashed from room to room, thumping people with the flat of her blade and slicing weapons apart. For the shit she gave Loki, she was honestly kind of grateful that she could just cut loose. It helped that they had split up. That way, she wouldn't deal with his insufferable attitude and actually get to focus on the job.
"Though you're likely as grumpy about the 'no blood or bodies' clause as I am, I'm sure." her scarf, or at least the Spirit within it, grumbled.
"Oh, calm down, Senketsu." Ryuko said as she kicked in the door to another room. "After all, nicks and cuts happen all the time. And besides, it's not like you need any of it anymore."
"Maybe." Senketsu admitted as the five men stood from their seats, drawing guns with wide eyes. In a flash, he slithered down from around Ryuko's neck to her left wrist, and she raised it to point at the men as Senketsu began to glow, five tendrils of glowing string lashing out towards their weapons, wrapping them up and crushing them.
"Doesn't mean I don't get cravings." Senketsu mumbled as the strings withdrew, and he flashed back up to Ryuko's neck.
"Stay down," Ryuko said authoritatively, sweeping her Scissor Blade across the group for emphasis, "and don't do something stupid."
"Ryuko!" Senketsu said, his singular baleful yellow eye widening as a shadow imposed itself over the doorway.
She turned, raising her sword on instinct. The man who was now in front of her didn't swing the pipe above his head, however. Instead, a hand slowly reached down towards the blue blade that stuck out from his shirt before it slid back out.
The man collapsed, revealing Satsuki standing over him with the other half of the Scissor Blades, now shaded a deep blue spackled by drops of crimson blood.
"Thanks." Ryuko said with a sigh.
"Someone has to watch your back, after all." Satsuki replied.
Ryuko nodded, then turned back to look at the men in the room as they cowered a little further back. "He did something stupid." she said, nodding to the man at her feet. "Keep that in mind."
With that, they took off. "Where are the others?" Ryuko said as Satsuki led the way.
"Closing in on what we think is the main storage area." Satsuki replied. "We'll be there… now."
They barged through a door into a large, wide-open space, dozens of Looking Glasses scattered around as other doors around it burst open, the Worldstriders and Loki emerging from them. They all looked down on a man hurriedly applying some sort of patch to one of them, stepping back as the Looking Glass disappeared in a flash of light.
"Stop right there!" she heard Percy shout, a hollow crack following a crack of concrete splintering as the man jumped away from the warning shot.
"Alright, alright!" he shouted, dropping what turned out to be dozens of little patches with an extended hand.
"You may have stopped me here." he continued after a moment, and Ryuko's eyes narrowed as she sharpened her senses, the man's slowly moving hand under his coat becoming more clear. "But you can't stop what's coming. We've made sure of it."
"Get your hand out of your coat! Now!" she shouted, and the man jumped, a small cylinder clattering to the ground behind his feet.
"He has a detonator!" Satsuki cried out, and all around the man made a mad dash towards him as he scrambled to pick the device back up.
In the moment before they reached them, a wave of hazy green light swept through Ryuko's vision, and she gasped slightly as she felt the cold, dark, rainy night come into being around her.
The darkness was soon dispelled by a bright, booming light, the explosion behind her creating a shockwave that managed to make her stumble forward.
She looked back at the now raging inferno that was the building, then around herself. The rest of the group was standing there with her in various states of confusion, shock, and horror, while Loki was nearly bent over, hands on his knees as he gasped for breath.
"You can… thank me… when I'm able to properly… receive it." he said between panting breaths.
"How many do you think he got out before we got there?" Annabeth said after shaking her head a few times.
"Likely enough to cause a lot of problems." Nico said darkly. "Does Leo know where they might have gone?"
"One sec, dear, I'll call him." Will replied as he pulled out a clear-pad, the quiet howl of sirens beginning to make themselves clearer.
"Hey." he said quietly after a moment. "Were you able to catch anything with your eyes on the building?" A pause. "Okay… did Calypso's Spirits see anything that they were able to tell her?"
After a moment, he sighed quietly. "Okay. Keep us posted, bro. Thanks."
He hung up, turning back to the group with a somewhat anxious look on his face. "Leo and Calypso didn't catch wherever the Looking Glasses were going. We've got runners."
"And if they have their size restrictions turned off…" Percy said slowly before puffing his cheeks out. "We're going to have to let Daniel and the others at HERZ know. They might be getting very busy soon."
A/N: And with that, the Interludes for this story come to a close. The ball is in the air, now. Soon, here there be monsters, on both sides of the Divide...