"All set, Donnie?" Hugh asked, adjusting his safari outfit and sharpening his machete in the arms outpost in the sewage outlet.
"All set, Hugh!" Donnie called enthusiastically from the other room.
"SQUAWK! ALL SET HUGH!" A squeaky voice gawked in response.
"Oh for the love of-" Hugh opened the door to face Donnie. "Are you seriously taking your flying rat to this do-or-die operation?"
"Who, Zags?" Donnie questioned, wiping the dirt off of a grimey grey bird whose feathers varied in size and hue from its natural white, sporting a jet black beak. A knock on the door emanated not far from them. "We're gonna need eyes out there; Zags and I will help you out!"
"SQUAWK! I WILL HELP YOU OUT!" The bird mimed as the door opened behind them to reveal Maraya underneath Hugh's sunhat.
"Recon bird, huh?" Maraya inquired. "It'll be quite useful, even if it looks like you found it in the trash."
"I did," Donnie confirmed confidently, chin up. "Zags and I have been best friends since I was five. Sure, he's a little beat up, but we're gonna need that intel; trust me, you'll all find him very useful."
"So you guys are ready?" Maraya asked, warming up a bit, leaning against the doorframe. "We leave in thirty minutes."
"Ready as ever, we'll meet you at the sewer exit." Donnie explained, petting zags behind the ears eagerly, and Maraya gleefully shut the door behind them, nodding in confirmation.
Maraya walked the outpost like it was the last time she would. Elated, she waved joyously to the plumbers priming the flood release valve shut, and they happily returned the favor, waving in unison back at the short-haired woman across from them. Entering her tent, she briefly prepared herself by grabbing her wrist-mounted crossbow and gathered in her pouch several small arrows. She was frantic and tense about it as she almost started running to another tent almost immediately. She faintly heard mumbled speech as she opened the tarp out of the smaller tent, and there sat Clint, and across from him the heart of their mission and the source of their - at least she believed - imminent success. Maeve sat, staring at the ground, her eyes swelling from what seemed to her like hours and hours of tears.
"It was an accident and I believe you," Clint insisted and with his right arm he pointed right at his head. "But up hereā¦" he moved his finger as Maeve sniffled to point right at her chest. "Has to be different from down there." As the finger touched Maeve's heart she stared down at it, welling eyes as she nodded. Clint reached his hand out to help Maeve out of her seat, and Maeve accepted, rising from her weep and wiping her tears.
"Are you ready, Maeve of Blades?" Maraya cleverly asked, raising an eyebrow. The title was impulsive.
"Ready."
. . .
The Enchanted Forest gusts along with their inhabitants, led by the jungle voyager Hugh and the toolmaster Donnie at his side, Zags scouting the sky as he soared, taking quick breaks upon his master's shoulder. Clint, Maraya, and Maeve followed close by, listening to Donnie's ramblings about the Forest.
"The Forest covers hundreds of miles, and a lot of creatures call it home," he babbled with enthusiasm. "A lot of people live here, too. Huntsmen and huntresses of the wood, they find their home filled with pride and game of the most ravenous beasts in the Realm - Hugh was one of them." Hugh continued slicing the bushes, obviously less enthralled at discussing his troubled past.
"Another mile," Hugh mumbled through his stride, eyeing his compass handed to by Donnie. "Maeve, you ready to start?"
"Yes," Maeve replied. "I'll move with Zags, he can keep track of me."
"Go on, Zags," Donnie ordered at his shoulder, and the bird leapt off and followed the prowling little girl. "Let him know when you're ready!"
"Don't start without us!" Clint raised his voice at the streetrunner, mounting onto the treetops like a swimming sea lion.
Hugh halted his work, watching the girl bound off trees above him and sighed as she faded from his vision. "She's real fast," he panted, distraught. "Why am I even doing this?" He fell comfortably on a log, sweating profusely.
"Water?" Donnie asked, grabbing a bottle from one of his long, skeletal extension arms.
"Yeah," Hugh accepted, reaching his hand out, parched as he took a massive swig. "Thanks, Don."
. . .
Crates moved at an insane speed along the conveyor belt in the center of the facility, holding armaments and provisions to take to their respective carriages for transport. The Resistance did not magically arm themselves although their crystal experts may be working on that solution soon. A secluded base once used to defend against the Goblin Scourge, the simple open sun windows helped illuminate the room with vibrant natural light as the base sat atop one of the rare plains occurring in the Forest, accompanying all of its space as the sun faded in the horizon.
A blonde, muscular woman featuring a cape of bearskin and a breastplate of dragon skin turned from the entrance, sporting a confident look, which almost instantly departed as she briefly sniffed the air. She raised an eyebrow and knelt, pulling her automatic self-loading assault rifle to bear.
"Someone's here," She configured. "At arms, men! We have an intruder."
"You want us to send the dogs?" Her associate asked to double check.
"Not yet," she replied, her voice low. "I want to see them first." Soldiers put their rifle at their sides and scattered to the edges of the base, covering gaps, each personally trained by Tyra herself, a professional ex-Magistrate operative in the war against the deviants. The silence was cold, all with the exception of the whirring machinery within as she oversaw her soldiers spreading out across the base. She noticed out of the corner of her eye a ghost-like figure scampering about the trees, reflecting a faint particle-collective pink streak in its path and immediately pulled out her compass.
"Southwest, 236 and climbing 60 degrees up!"
The gunners trained in accordance with Tyra's callout, engaging their firearms in a phonically satisfying sync. Branches ripped from their foundation like fireworks as they whizzed past the ghostly figure, cloaking in the darkness as the sun finally set, encasing the base in the moonlight. Bullets scattered along the silhouette in the dark, painting the night in a visual sea of muzzle flash and pink streaks.
As Maeve looked up the bird immediately separated back into the sky as it headed back to the group. The branches cracked and gnashed at her clothes as she glided along the forest, lucky enough to survive their onslaught. In sync, the controlled firing ceased, and the sunroof's open window next to the edge of the forest acted as Maeve's entry point as the soldiers reloaded their firearms with adequate speed. Seizing her moment, Maeve elegantly jumped right through the window, tucking herself in to fit through its narrow height.
"Go, go, go!" Tyra barked, and the soldiers desperately breached into the base to chase the pink streak that compromised it, but not after Tyra snagged an unlucky private by his shirt collar, "Release the dogs. I think there's something else I have to take care of."
The inside of the base was akin now to a factory compiling boxes of mysterious objects rummaging through a maze of conveyors, slides, and scaffolding, covering every inch of the building floor to ceiling in metal and motor, organizing the Resistance's resolve in an efficient eco-friendly wave of industry. The narrow space was euphoric for the parkour kitten, cloaking herself in the rapid mechanical noises and the sea of support beams and machines. Balancing on a beam right as she landed, her slow fall into a low crawl began her invasion of the base not through gentle sneaking, but through loud and abrasive force; it was intentional. The soldiers would chase a detectable yet unseekable anomaly only to distract them from the sneaky Marauders who would inevitably enter the west side of the building to retrieve their prizes.
