ANYWAY! I think I really have to thank DiamondLavender (you know who you are, 'Eliza'!) for constantly squeezing the number fourteen wherever she can. Beats me why she'd want to read it so badly. >.>
WITHOUT ANY FURTHER ADOOOOOOOOO...
37 Borden Trail was nothing more than a small steel-sided warehouse. It had sat empty for a tremendously long time, at least until a truck with Pozzi Cartage Ltd. pasted to the side had pulled in early yesterdaymorning. Nobody paid attention to this small event; they were far too engrossed in their own affairs to mind those of an abandoned warehouse.
When the three people came latethe nextevening, the moving truck was long gone. They didn't take any notice.
Sonata glared at the chain-link fence. Somebody had secured the gate with a heavy padlock, effectively barring the three 'Control Squadders' out. She looked over at Raiden. "Can you jump over it?"
"Nope." He shook his head to emphasize his point. "If it was straight up I could, but it's almost out of my range as is and it has that annoying overhang. I'd rip myself to shreds on the way up."
"I could try," Thor offered.
Raiden shrugged. "If you think it'll work, go right ahead."
The American grinned and wiggled his fingers just for show, singling out the gate's weakest points. Hinges screamed and broke. In a matter of seconds the right half of the gate had been ripped away from the rest of the fence and was hanging dismally, only supported by the chain that held the two doors together.
"Mission accomplished," Thor said with an air of calm finality.
The trio pushed their way past the abused gate and into the minuscule parking lot. There wasn't a single light on in the entire building. It seemed like a completely innocent place, nowhere near important enough to contribute any thought to and even less likely to be observed as a gang base.
Thor folded his arms. "I don't like this," he announced. "Everybody would still be awake right now. It's seriously too quiet."
"I think he's right, Raiden."
He looked at them pleadingly. "C'mon, guys, don't wimp out on me now. This is our chance to surprise them and maybe steal a couple of parts for the Boomstick and"-he turned to Sonata-"get revenge for your mom."
She shifted her eyes down at her feet. "You...you're right. Let's go."
The pair of robots started across the parking lot. Halfway along Raiden stopped and looked back at Thor. "You coming?"
"Uh...yeah. Wait up."
"P-please don't t-tell me we h-have to go i-n t-there!"
Raiden squinted around uselessly in the near-total darkness. Sonata brushed past him into the warehouse's tar-black first level. "What's the matter with Thor?"
"Scared of the dark," Raiden responded shortly, finally giving up on the hope of making out anything. "Come on, Sir Wimp. I'm not going to hold your hand, but Sonata might."
The straw-haired girl, who was now completely lost to sight, giggled. "I won't either. Sorry."
"R-ray, why'd y-you bring a f-flashlight if y-you're not going to u-use it?"
"I call it being careful."
Raiden grinned at Thor and followed Sonata. The American let out a tiny whimper and took a half-step forward, as if afraid that the darkness might develop arms and drag him in.
"Thor, you damned idiot!" the Wilybot hissed, making the platinum-haired robot jump slightly. "Hurry up and get your ass in here!"
"We haven't got forever to pull this off!" Sonata added indignantly.
Two pairs of hands seized and yanked the poor robot in.
The three of them headed across the room behind the back door. Raiden led the way with Triple Spear in hand and Sonata stuck right behind him, her arms tight around one of Thor's to keep him from bolting. There weren't any windows and only the tiniest bit of moonlight tumbled through the narrow door.
All of a sudden a very high-pitched screamed ripped through the room.
"Sonata!" Raiden whispered frantically, stopping short and causing her to blunder into him.
"What are you talking about? It wasn't me."
"Then who could it have been, then?"
"Sorry," Thor muttered. "I just...I t-thought I felt...t-there was s-something against the b-back of my h-head, I knew there w-was."
An abrupt explosion of snickering erupted in one corner of the room. Raiden whipped out a flashlight and switched it on, flooding the offending area with a yellowish-white glow.
"N-nothing there..." Sonata mumbled, stating the obvious.
Raiden swung the light around toward a rustle that came from behind him. Again, nothing out of the ordinary was present. In fact, nothing was present at all.
"It's a small warehouse-they'd have to make the best of their space. We should be up to our ears in boxes. Something's wrong," he muttered to the other two.
"Well, I kind of noticed that!" Sonata almost snapped back. Raiden turned the flashlight on her. "Either we're all hallucinating or something invisible is-"
She screamed and was dragged out of the light. Raiden flailed about wildly with the beam, yelling her name. Sonata fired a blast of water at the indetectable person who had grabbed her but missed and soaked Thor instead. Somebody wrenched the flashlight out of Raiden's hand and turned it off. There was a small click dangerously close to Sonata's ear.
"Nobody moves unless you'd like to see her central processor smeared all over the floor."
Raiden and Thor stopped dead.
"The Boss knew you'd be coming. How stupid do you morons think we are?"
There was a short silence in the pitch-black room. "Guys?" Sonata ventured finally. "Are you okay?"
"Y-yeah, we're f-fine. H-how about y-you?"
"He hasn't hurt me. Yet."
The invisible person chuckled darkly. "It's so touching to see how much you dopes care about each other. Makes it exponentially more fun to kill one of you."
"Leave her alone, Spectre!" Raiden thundered suddenly, realizing who the attacker was. "Let her go and I might give you a quick death."
Spectre snorted and pulled the trigger. Sonata screamed, Thor reflexively dropped to a crouch and Raiden made a weird gasping noise as the bullet embedded itself in the same place on his shoulder where Bladewing had injured him nine days ago.
"Damn, that sounded like a bad shot. Hold still so I can-oomph!"
Sonata sprinted across the room and barrelled into Thor.
"You all right? What'd you do to him?" he implied quickly, his fear of the dark completely forgotten.
"I kicked him in the crotch. Where's Raiden?"
"Over here...ow..."
Thor gently pushed her toward the voice. "You go make sure he's okay. Gimme your flashlight. Hey, Spectre!"
Sonata pulled a secondary flashlight out of her sweater's front pocket and handed it to him. There was a flash of purple as Thor activated the teleportation sequence for his armor. The handgun went off three more times, swiftly followed by a trio of pings as the bullets bounced harmlessly off Thor's next-to-unbreakable armor.
She did her best to ignore the exchange between the two and ended up walking straight into Raiden. The .45 roared twice, neither shot striking anything, and was reduced to clicking helplessly. The flashlight beam roved around the room and locked onto Spectre.
"We have to get out of here," Raiden muttered. "It's just one big ambush. We'll try again some other time."
Sonata had no time to react to the soft footsteps behind her. A pair of clawed hands was too big for any human tossed her carelessly aside.
"All right, that's enough!"
A quiet buzzing started and a triangular yellow sword of electricity appeared in Raiden's hand, shedding a surprisingly large pool of light that revealed Rast standing almost in front of the brown-haired robot.
One swing of the blade sent the Mexican stumbling away with a gash across his stomach. Spectre smashed into the wall not far away and landed in a heap of trenchcoat on the floor.
"Thor, let's go!"
The trio of Control Squadders headed for the doorway. Raiden and Thor both tried to lunge through it at the same time and subsequently got stuck, forcing Sonata to tackle them from behind to clear the way.
By the time Rast had helped Spectre to his feet and the LIST members had reached the door, their foes were lost to sight.