A/N: I'm gonna be putting this warning on all of my fics for the next rotation: updates may stop being so regular in the near future, as my backlog empties of chapters. My dad was on death's door a few weeks back, and while he made a frankly miraculous recovery, he still has a long road till he's able to take care of himself at all. Between the stress, the incoming holidays, and the occasional road trips we may be making to visit him, rebuilding my backlogs necessarily takes a backseat. If I go quiet for too long, just know that I'd make an official announcement if a fic was going to be abandoned, so unless you see that then I just haven't gotten back to it yet!
If you want more updates on writing setbacks, plus bonuses like writing prompt responses and life events, or just want to have a friendly conversation, feel free to check out my profile page on Spacebattles.
This chapter beta'd by Undead Robot.
Ascent 2.6
We stood in the alley behind Asset One, an ABB whorehouse that we suspected served double duty as a human trafficking hotspot. It was by far the most complicated of the two jobs, with no way to tell civilain prostitutes and customers from the forcibly indoctrinated, and the risk of a stampede or mob was enough to make us wary. We'd decided that a two-pronged attack, driving people out from the top floor while controlling the crowd on the streets, was the best way to tackle it. Unfortunately, none of us could fly, so getting to the rooftops was a tough prospect. Fortunately, I had a plan.
"Our first trick," I explained to the Snitch, "is a classic. Everybody loves to exploit the system's physics engine, and things tend to get strange when you do."
Most of the others were giving me a look, but Trickster looked amused. I rifled through a dumpster, still talking conversationally.
"You see, the fast route here would be flight, but none of us have that in our movesets," I explained, pulling up a full bag of abandoned laundry that easily weighed a hundred pounds with a heavy grunt and gesturing to Trickster questioningly. He nodded, taking one last puff from his cigarette before stomping it out. I carried the bag over with one hand, gesturing at the back of the building with the other. "So instead, we're going to do the backup strat. Watch closely."
I held out the trash bag with both hands, making a show of lining up a shot like a football player about to punt a ball down the field. Just before I dropped the bag, I activated Telekinetic Press.
-3 PP, 6/12 remaining.
As I brought my foot up to punt the bag, it rather comically changed direction, flying in a tall arc upward toward the roof three stories above. I dropped into a crouch as it sailed over the edge, and a moment later I was landing in a too-casual roll, unhurt and unwinded. The Snitch zoomed up to me a moment later, having gone out for a wide-angle shot. I turned back to the edge, looking back down.
"Now that we've performed the launch and swap, the game's gonna be a little confused around me for a while. It thinks I have flight, and while I don't, a little manipulation of RNG and I can transfer that property. Observe."
I gestured to Faultline, grabbing her left arm with telekinetic force and lightly pulling upward. She had been expecting it, and offered no resistance as I pulled her up in a smooth arc that ended with a gentle step onto the rooftop. I let go, and she made a beeline for the rooftop maintenance door.
It took about a minute to lift everyone up in that manner, using belts over limbs where I could to lower the chance of hurting somebody on the way up. Tattletale, Trickster, Regent and the Minions went right over the other side, setting up in a semicircle at street level to provide a distraction and make sure nobody got away. One of Coil's mercenaries requested a lift across the street, where they'd be setting up an overwatch. The slow-burning wick of my telekinetic power channel was a third of the way empty by the time everyone was in position. Faultline cut the deadbolt and knob off of the door, and we began our slow infiltration.
Perception Check(Wis): Rolled 7+0 vs. difficulty 7. Pass.
Tech/Pretech Check(Int): Rolled 6+2 vs difficulty 7. Pass.
The access stairwell was trapped, of course. Thankfully, the tripwire wasn't designed for people coming in from the roof; it was for escapees, strung up just before the first step up. Leet and I worked together to quickly disarm the bomb, which I determined was designed to rearrange all of the hydrocarbons in a small, carefully shaped radius into complex polycarbonate chains, either some kind of plastic, or possibly a sort of wood.
I pocketed the disarmed bomb, of course. Any tinkertech was valuable, and that effect in particular could mean big things for bulk transmutation tech if repurposed properly.
Faultline cut the lower door open, removing its hinges as well this time, and I pulled it out and to the side with telekinesis, setting it down quietly in the stairwell. We entered the building proper.
The hallway décor was a 60's idea of luxurious, all velvety burgundy carpets and textured yellow wallpaper, with poorly-cared-for wainscoting along the walls. Once upon a time it might have been a small hotel or apartment, with doors at regular intervals along the right side of the hallway, the left side a blank wall adjacent to the alley, the far end of the hall a stairwell leading down. The lights were dingy and yellow, making the carpet look almost the shade of blood, the walls too bright in comparison.
Faultline moved down the hallway, running a finger in a large semicircle around each door's handle as she went. We split up while she did, each taking a room.
I gently nudged open the door, Stun-Gun at the ready in case of a trap. A muffled yell from further down the hall prompted a shift inside the room, followed by a gasp of surprise. I pushed the door the rest of the way open, revealing a girl. She couldn't have been more than 16, dressed only in lingerie and staring wide-eyed at me.
"Are you alone?" I asked the girl quietly, glancing at the bathroom of the flat.
She nodded once, hesitantly.
I holstered the Stun-Gun. "We're closing this place down. Get on any clothes you have, quickly."
The girl sprang into action, scrambling off the bed for the wardrobe in the room. I turned away, keeping an eye on the hallway. The merc was dragging a partly-clothed man into the hall, hog-tied with a ziptie and gagged with a pair of panties. Leet was already on the room after that, saying something to the occupant in a muffled tone. The girl in this room finished pulling on a shirt.
"Grab anything you absolutely can't leave, then head downstairs," I told her. "If anyone stops you, tell them you saw people in costumes outside and were trying to warn them, then stay out of the way. You got that?"
She nodded, and I moved on. We only had so long before the people downstairs got word we were here, even with the distraction tactics, and we wanted as many people out of the building as possible when that happened.
By the time we'd cleared the floor, I'd cleared two empty rooms, sent another girl on her way, and rudely interrupted two people going at it. The latter became a problem when the woman began screaming, a situation that unfortunately had to be resolved using one of the beer bottles on my belt. The duo had done Deus Ex in a failed caper at one point, and the knockout gas grenades were just small enough to fit inside a glass bottle with the bottom cut out and replaced.
Rolled 11-2+9 = 18/20, a miss.
Grenade hits 1d10(10)meters away from the target in a random(Southeast) direction, and hits all targets in 5m.
I slammed the door shut as the grenade hit the back corner of the apartment. The room filled with a thick cloud of green gas that seeped under the door for a few seconds, and when it cleared the two were unconscious atop each other. I pushed the man off the prostitute with telekinesis, used it to assist me getting them basic underwear, tied them both up so they wouldn't struggle, and ferried them out into the hallway. I wasn't comfortable with it, the closeness of contact and the lack of consent, but there was little alternative that wasn't worse, and we had a time limit.
The next floor went much as the top had, until it didn't. I was on my second room when I heard someone shouting something in korean, followed by a coughing sound and violet light.
"Company incoming," the merc commented, walking by the room with gun raised and underbarrel steaming.
"Stay here and stay hidden," I told the prostitute in japanese, swapping my gun for the foam finger strapped to the inside of my coat as I ran into the hall.
I didn't have telekinesis active anymore, and I was equally bad with all of my current gear. The Stun-Gun was useful for its range, but in a situation where my opponents might have guns it just wasn't powerful or reliable enough in my hands. Melee simply gave me more options in close quarters. I grabbed a bottle in my left hand for good measure, ready in case I needed a quick knockout, but too unpredictable in my hands to use as an opener.
Initiative order set.
I sprinted past the merc and Leet, joining Faultline at the door to the stairway as a melee combatant. I took note of the downed man with a smoking hole in his chest, cursing silently as I saw the lack of movement. No power would help the man now, at best I'd revive him just long enough for him to die before I could heal him, and even if I got the heal off in time I'd be basically out of power for the night, with a healthy enemy in arm's reach. I dismissed the line of thinking for the moment as we heard shouting from below; I had no time to get moody about it.
"You take the front, I'll hit them from behind?" I asked Faultline.
Even with a welding mask and heavy armor, I could feel her appraising look. Admittedly, I wasn't the picture of healthy athleticism, but from experience, the rules of SWN simply didn't care about weight, size, or fitness level. I could be Honey fucking BooBoo and still move 7.5mph while squeezing off shots like a pro.
"Sure," she acquiesced, sounding vaguely skeptical. The first two mooks hit the landing below us a moment later, and I burst into action. I shot over to the railing of the stairs, vaulting over them to fall down to the next flight, landing in a crouch. There was some pain, but I wouldn't take actual damage for the first three meters of falling, without regard to terrain. The pain faded as I shot up the stairs, still at a rapid pace, closing into Pimp-Slapping range in seconds. One of them tried to point their gun my way, but I casually nudged it out of the way with the giant middle finger on the ridiculous weapon, the motions automatic.
Faultline closed in from the top of the stairwell at a more measured pace, creeping up from behind while the two were busy skirmishing with me.
Rolled 19-2+8 = 26/20 to hit.
Rolled 1+0, 1 damage.
The one who kept trying to get his gun aimed at me drew the short straw for who got Slapped. I stepped up and whipped my hand across, the foam solidly impacting his shoulder. Then the kinetic amplifiers kicked in, and the man went flying, slamming into and bouncing off the railing further up the stairwell before landing in a groaning heap near Faultline. It'd take about twenty seconds to recharge the effect, but it was oh, so satisfying.
The other gang member followed his comrade on his journey with wide eyes and a slack jaw, his eyes finally finding my team member three steps up. Immediately, he dropped his weapon, shooting his hands up. "I give up, not worth it!" he said earnestly, his english thickly accented and his face beading with sweat.
"Jung, you traitor," the downed man groaned, earning a kick from the cape next to him.
"Others coming soon, I could tell them it fine," Jung said quickly. "I want help, want to defect."
I considered it, and asked Faultline as well. "Think we could trust him?"
"No," she replied immediately. She paused, then continued, "But, I trust him to help us if the alternative is getting beat silly by that glove of yours."
Jung paled, and I grinned.
One call reporting a false alarm later, we had secured ourselves a few more minutes till the ABB noticed something wrong and sent muscle our way. The rest of the gang members in the building had been subdued by my teammates, and we dragged the customers and resisters down to join the crowd. Faultline and Tattletale raided the front desk and safe, earning us some dough, then cut enough support columns in enough places that the building would have to be condemned or completely renovated. Then it was time to move on, leaving our Minions to watch the crowd until the cops showed up.
ABB Asset Destruction Complete(2/7). 500 xp.
Configuring Game Environment...
By the time we reached the second asset, there were sirens in the distance. We had a time limit for Asset Two, and likely a lot of loot to seize or destroy in that time. We were hoping that the overwhelming force we had with us would be enough.
Asset Two was actually two assets; a weapons cache for the ABB's arms dealing operations, set in the space above a coin laundromat that served as, ironically, a money laundering operation. The plan was much the same as the last, a rooftop assault, with the caveat that there would be no ground team. We were hitting hard and fast, giving no opportunity to fire off shots that could either hit us, or tear through the adjacent buildings with their unknown occupancy.
-3 PP, 3/12 remaining.
The relay was much faster with only six people, and by the time it was done Tattletale and Leet had already identified and begun stripping down a double-edged trap. I crouched down and got to work helping them.
Tech/Pretech Check(Int): Rolled 8+2 vs. difficulty 9. Pass.
Bombs stripped and stowed, Faultline cut open the door at the bottom. Tattletale had just enough time to pull her back up the landing when the now-unhinged door gained several new holes in the span of a second.
"Four guys," she said after a moment as I braced the door shut with telekinetic power. "Some kind of break room, might be most of them."
"No time for half-measures, then," I concluded, pulling a flash bang from one of my excessive number of belts. "Think this will help?" I asked Coil's merc.
He glanced at it, shrugged, grabbed it, and strode down to the door while I pried it open a bit to more gunfire and yelling. He calmly donned his ear protection, pulled the pin, chucked it through the gap into the room, and stepped back with his gun coming up to rest in his shoulder, all in one smooth, practiced motion. I slammed the door shut for the blast, and threw it open a moment later as my ears screamed in pain.
Flashbang grenades in movies and games are often presented as nonlethal, temporary-effect psuedo-grenades. In reality, this could not be less accurate. A flashbang is, in many respects, as powerful an explosive as a fragmentation grenade. The difference is that a flashbang focuses on pure concussive force and light, with minimal shrapnel. They produce a light so bright that anyone looking in their general direction is usually rendered briefly blind from sheer sensory overload, and the 'bang' was so loud that it was almost easier to describe it as an extreme pressure wave instead of any kind of sound. Windows have been noted to break in large radii around unsheltered blasts, and the damage to the inner ear can be severe and permanent.
The four men were rendered deaf, blind, and unsteady on their feet from a shocked inner ear, or so I've heard it described anyway. The mercenary quickly and ruthlessly solved all of these afflictions, purple laser lancing out multiple times times before I even recovered my hearing from the partially-echoed blast.
"Room clear," he stated loudly as my ears settled to a dim ring. He took the lead into the room, and the rest of us followed. Four bodies decorated the floor, an overturned card table and steaming, shattered coffee pot painting a scene of disrupted boredom. As we pushed through the room, I made a point to stomp out the smoldering carpet left after the blast, taking up the rear. I wish I could say I was disturbed by the bodies, nauseous from the smell of burnt pork and coffee, but it would be a lie. It was fair to say I was unhappy with the loss of life, and frustrated at my inability to do anything about it.
That thought was punctuated by muffled yelling down the hall, followed by a cough of laser fire and the thump of a person collapsing.
"That's all of them," Tattletale confirmed a moment later. "We've got 5 minutes till police response, let's get to tearing the place apart."
The next few minutes were a blur of exertion. Faultline, Leet, and Coil's man went downstairs, wrecking the laundromat and looting the cash, while upstairs, the two Undersiders bagged weapons so that Trickster and I could ferry them to a nearby rooftop. The police rolled up to the laundromat, we hurriedly evacuated to the rooftop of loot, and I was forced to use my last scraps of power to get us to the adjoining alleyway with loot in hand, leaving me with a pulsing headache afterward.
ABB Asset Destruction Complete(3/7, 4/7). 1000 xp.
-3 PP, 0/12 remaining.
By the time the Minions rolled up in rented vans to pick everyone up, I was seriously starting to get tired, not just from the need to sleep, but from mental fatigue. Today had been exhausting, one thing after another with no time to process. Patents, surgery, sex, death, and the hollow emptiness of my wells of power running dry, it all caught up to me on the trip to the shop. I closed my eyes at some point, and they didn't open again till morning.