Step 9.8
I looked her over.
Tinker-tech gas mask, obviously. Plus the grenade launcher. I didn't see anything that looked like a rocket launcher on the small pack she was wearing. I saw a few grenades and probably other explosives on the bandoleer over her chest. She might have other things hidden under her coat.
I could imagine any number of uses for a tinker-tech grenade launcher, but it hardly seemed like the best weapon for fighting Astraea. It looked modded. Veda identified it as being based on a M32, but I spotted some parts I was confident were not stock. For one, the magazine seemed to be two separate drums.
And her jeep's engine block was firmly crushed under my foot.
So, fuck this, her targets are gone and her car is wrecked. Leave her.
The GN drive flared, and I flew backward. Bakuda stepped forward, the launcher going to her shoulder. I fired the right side thrusters and pivoted, turning down the street and ascending.
Behind me, she raised her launcher and fired. I pulled Astraea to the right and let the round fly past me. Fast for a grenade, but she missed and there was nothing ahead but road. The shell went forward and hit the street. It burst with a brilliant blue light.
I watched the charge, and pulled away from it. It didn't explode on impact. Just a small light show and—is that the ground?
My heart seized and I threw Astraea's legs forward. I bounced off the pavement and rose into the air again, my head spinning. The compass on my HUD said east. I was flying west.
Raising my head and ascending again, I watched as my compass snapped around as I turned. West became east, and I was once again going the wrong way despite flying in a straight line. Bakuda stood in front of me with a small flare gun in her hand, barrel pointed at me.
My jaw slackened.
Vista's power.
I fired the left side thrusters, sliding over the street as her shell flew right past me. My realization echoed in my mind. I got Astraea's feet under me and flew up right as the weapon came back.
The wave of force slammed into me, throwing Astraea off balance.
She copied Vista's power with a fucking grenade?!
My mind raced.
How long did it last? Could she control its size or shape? I guessed not that long and probably not. Might have been wishful thinking.
Behind me a building crumbled, an entire section just gone. Like Stratos' power. I'd thought maybe I imagined that before. Bakuda never showed herself, and surely Lung would have pushed harder if he could have that cooked up in a garage.
I tried the com to tell someone something, but all I got was my own signal bounced back at me. Vista's power didn't do that, I thought.
I threw Astraea left, flying down an alleyway and staying low. I kept flying toward the next street, only to get turned around again. I dodged the corner of a building as I got turned back around at an angle.
A sphere?
I turned straight up, looking for the light but seeing nothing. How long could she maintain a space warping effect? How much space did I have?
I kept going up until I got turned around. Five hundred feet or so. Five hundred feet high and maybe a block and half in diameter. She'd need a lot of energy to cause space to fold on itself at all. It couldn't last long.
Unless it did.
I swirled left, avoiding a shell as it flew past me. I spun about, firing one pistol while raising my shield. The grenade started coming back at me, and I adjusted the focus of the beam into a wider spread.
GN particles sprayed over the device and it exploded into a swirl of crystalline dust.
Me and my big mouth. I'll face Bakuda and catch up. I could have asked Dinah a question instead of trying to preserve them, but fuck how? How was she copying powers with her tech?
I gritted my teeth. A quick scan of the area showed no one in the half dozen buildings around us. I'd seen that crystal bomb before. Between the space-warp field she'd thrown up and that, it felt like she intended to kill me if she could.
Fine then.
Astraea came about at my command and rocketed forward on a stream of Green. Bakuda began to backpedal, and I brought my pistols up. I fired, eyes tracing Bakuda as she ran for a nearby car and slid across the ground.
I readied to swing with the GN blade as I came at her. Another grenade shot up into the air. I kept my course.
There wasn't time for this.
I'd smash her into the ground and be done with it.
The grenade began to spin, something flying off of it and a dozen little lights fired off. And turned straight toward me.
I forced Astraea to a quick stop and spun around, turning my pistols on the swarming things. I pressed the triggers and fired as I flew back. The GN beams cut into the encroaching cloud, and the air began exploding.
I fired the thrusters on the right foot, just barely avoiding another grenade as it flew through the smoke and light.
She planned for this fight.
My eyes lingered on her for a moment, considered she might have put as much effort into planning a fight with me as I put into planning my battles against the Empire and Lung.
So this is what it feels like.
I threw one foot back, bracing myself on the ground. I lowered a pistol and swung the GN blade back before grabbing a car and hefting it into the air. The remaining mini-missiles exploded into the vehicle, and I flew forward through the debris.
The GN blade swung forward, and I used it as a lever to flip another car at Bakuda. She turned her grenade launcher on the object and fired. The explosion ripped through the air, shattering the windows around us and covering the street in streams of glass.
I threw my left foot forward and slammed the front end of the car down to the ground. Bakuda's form rolled back in the dust and smoke enveloping us, and I swung.
You started it.
Bakuda scrambled to her feet as the GN blade arced toward her side. She raised her arm—I thought to block at first—and turned her elbow toward the blade. Air rushed out, and an alarm blared in my ear.
sys.g[001-a]/ arm_ , critical
The GN blade snapped away from her before snapping in half.
What…
I watched the larger half of the blade spin off and burying itself into a wall.
How?
Astraea spun, the force of the blast enough to whip the right arm back and pull the torso of my suit around. I fought with the controls. I raised Astraea's shield as Bakuda wrestled inside her jacket for something.
I threw my legs back and fired the thrusters, throwing Astraea forward and arresting the spin. Bakuda ducked as I went over her, hand still in her coat.
Gaining control of the right arm I tested it for only a second before taking aim and pulling the trigger.
The GN pistol exploded in Astraea's hand, a wide spray of GN particles throwing Bakuda into the air. Her body skipped over the street and rolled, but she'd managed to hang onto whatever she'd been looking for.
She pointed another flare gun in my direction and fired.
Astraea crashed into the ground, and I forced my suit into a crouch and opened the panels on the shield. GN particles flooded out into a semi-sphere as the explosion ripped through the air.
I felt the blast hit me like a punch. I gagged on my own breath, pressing Astraea's other hand to the ground to avoid falling over.
Warnings flashed across my vision as I forced my suit to its feet. Left leg damaged but functional. Left and right arms damaged but functional. GN drive casing damaged. All in all, the armor was holding up…Except for the part where she snapped the GN blade. And my shield wasn't able to project a GN Field anymore.
Beside me, a smoldering crater glowed with red heat. She'd melted the asphalt in a pattern similar to the bomb Ali Al-Saachez used. I felt the heat through the armor, even as it remained mostly intact.
Bakuda rose ahead of me, a hand holding her side.
I kept both eyes fixed on her as she coughed, raising Astraea's right hand to get a look at it.
Crystal?
The tips of the fingers and the end of the GN pistol were all crystalline. A little transparent and dull gray in color. The index finger on the hand was broken, and the pistol looked like a blown apart mess.
She turned the blade into the crystal and it snapped?
I didn't see her fire anything though.
As the dust and smoke cleared, I looked at Bakuda's side. Her coat hung open, a whole section missing and revealing a vest she wore underneath. I took note of the two shimmering white capsules set against her sides.
Some kind of body armor?
Bakuda turned her head toward me.
And she's really trying to kill me in the middle of a fucking crisis.
I faced my shield forward and charged. I waited for her to lift her launcher. My thumb disengaged the latches fixing the shield to the arm, and I threw it forward. The explosion rolled through me, but I kept Astraea straight against the shaking controls.
Reaching over the shoulder, I pulled a beam saber free and swung it through the cloud of fire and ash. Bakuda stumbled away from the blade, and I swung the right arm at her.
She jerked, raising her arm again.
I saw one of the silver vials snap and explode. The arm crystallized and shattered, just like the blade. I felt Astraea beginning spin again, but disengaged the arm at the shoulder. The arm spun off and crashed into a wall and I swung back at Bakuda with the GN blade.
Bakuda threw the grenade launcher at me and ducked.
I cursed and started to retreat. Only made it a few feet before the launcher exploded and my HUD became static.
Astraea crashed and spun, flipped and turned. Even without the static, the alerts would have blinded me. I felt open air on my cheek, catching the warning that the right leg was inoperable and the chest armor gone. I tried to keep pace with them and compensate, but there were too many.
I swallowed and braced myself.
My right hand pulled back and yanked on the release.
Astraea's chest exploded outward and I spilled out onto the street. The chest plates clattered against the pavement while the rest of my suit flipped over and crashed into a building.
Move Taylor!
I looked ahead at the rubble and debris settling into the street. My arms and legs hurt, and my vision was spinning a little. One foot pushed off behind me and I forced the other forward.
I ran, hair fluttering behind me.
Bakuda scrambled to her feet on the other side of the street, two torn up cars and a brick wall between us. I ran at her, pulling a blade and pistol from my waist.
Bakuda saw me coming and reached into her coat. I fired my pistol, two shots going past her and the third hitting her in the knee. I heard her wheeze but she pulled another flare gun from her coat.
I swung my saber at her, turning the power up. I hit her in the arm and she wheezed again. She held her ground, the flare gun's barrel turning toward me. I hit her in the wrist with the butt of my pistol and it clattered from her hand.
"Bitch," she snapped.
Why is that word so popular tonight?
I ran my pistol up her arm and hit her in the jaw.
"You blew up my suit!" I snapped.
As she stumbled back I swung with my saber at her throat, only to step back as she turned her side toward me. The ground gave way beneath me, a rock gave way beneath my feet and I fell.
Lucky.
The air blasted above me, streams of crystal flying through the air. I lost a few strands of hair, but nothing more.
Bakuda stumbled herself and fell down. The scrambler in her mask put a heavy rasp on her breaths.
"Oh build another one," she growled. "You wrecked my jeep! I paid for that! Legally!"
I rolled onto my side. I'd held onto my beam saber, but I'd lost my pistol at some point. One knee came under my torso first, and then the other. An elbow pushed me up.
I didn't think I was seriously hurt, but damn did I feel sore. Little numb in the right leg. A few quick taps against the ground confirmed it worked just fine.
I inhaled deeply and got one foot underneath me. Pushing my body into a standing position, I tested that my beam saber still worked and turned to Bakuda.
She leaned against the brick wall laying in the road. Her chest heaved, and I noted that her exposed vest only held one silvery vial now.
She turned her crystal bomb into a defense?
"Pretty cool, right?" She chuckled. "Figured you'd come at me with that ridiculous sword. Should have just built a bigger gun." She chuckled. "That combat prediction software your heterosexual life partner ran on my system helped."
…fuck.
Why did that make sense? She ripped the combat prediction engine off her system, or at least enough of it to build her own. And then she rigged it to be used on me instead of Leviathan. That way she could stay ahead of Astraea and use that ridiculous vest.
I took one heavy step toward her.
I did not have time for this shit. I'd lost my suit—again—and I fucking needed it.
"How long does that Vista bomb last?" I asked.
"No idea," she chuckled. "Never actually used it before!"
Of course not. That would be too simple!
I breathed through my teeth. "Sure are prepared for someone who'd rather be doing something else."
"Yeah, Lung's a shit boss." She raised her head, revealing one broken lens on her mask. A single dark eye peered out at me. "Girl's gotta live."
I stopped. One hand held her side. Her other arm hung over the top lip of the broken wall. I couldn't see her hand.
"I suggest a new employer," I said.
"You hiring?"
"I have my limits," I spat.
Bakuda cackled. "You really need a sense of humor."
"Fuck you."
She inhaled. "See? That's just rude."
I stepped back as she pulled her arm down. She held a flare gun in her hand and pointed it at the ground between us.
"Still want to find out what this one does," she mused.
I froze.
I was close enough.
Three steps and I could swing at her. She'd used all the vials on her left side. I figured she had more on the right, but that would be an awkward defense if I moved fast.
But it didn't matter. She'd shoot that flare gun before I could hit her and we'd both get to enjoy whatever it fucking did. Standing around like an idiot wouldn't get me anywhere though.
I tightened my grip.
If I hit her hand first and knocked it up, I might have a chance.
I was ready to take that action when she dropped her hand.
"Oh well, effort spent." She slid down to the ground. "We'll call it a draw."
I blinked. "What?"
"We wrecked a city block and you lost a suit," she said. "It's good enough to keep Lung from flaying me." She waved the flare gun at the air and I stepped to strike. "The warper will wear off any moment now anyway. You can just walk out."
"Warper?"
"You called it the Vista bomb." She tilted her head. "Actually, that might be a better name. Might take it."
I stared at her in disbelief, blood pounding in my ears. She couldn't be serious. All of that, and she just wanted to stop?
"Why not?" She shrugged. "Good fight. Go save the day or whatever. I'm gonna nap."
I stepped up and stood over her. "And what stops me from dragging you in right now?"
"A couple nine mils and some shot guns. Not much, but do you really have the time for it?"
She nodded past me, and I turned.
Orga Itsuka stood there with a line of twenty others, all pointing guns at me. Because when life shits on me it shits hard.
"Any moment now, huh?" And my patience is done for one evening.
"Bad guy," she said. "Don't act so surprised."
"You okay?" Orga called.
"I need to fix the coffee maker," Bakuda said. "Bunch of brats shot it."
So they did break into her workshop?
Bakuda pushed the flare gun back into her coat and pulled herself to her feet. I held my blade defensively between us, tip pointed to the ground.
She took one fumbling step to my left.
"Anything we need to worry about?" Orga asked.
"They ripped off some of my gear. Sensors I use for testing. No idea why they want it. I had a bunch of bombs ten feet away and the goonies didn't even touch them."
I stared as she walked past me, stumbling toward Orga.
She was serious. She fought me like she wanted to kill me, and now she was just done? Just like that…Or did I overreact? Now she was telling me what I wanted to know in the first place.
…Was that shit about Lung hurting her if she didn't try true?
Sensors, she said. They took sensors, plus Vista, Labyrinth, and Aisha Laborn.
"Why?" I asked.
She stopped behind me. "Got nowhere else to go. Doesn't mean we like it." We? "You really got time for this bullshit right now?"
She took a few more steps. I turned at the sound of a collapse, watching as Orga caught her falling body and dragged her back toward the line of teens behind him. They kept their guns trained on me, but none of them shot.
I looked at Orga Itsuka's eyes. He stared back, and then said, "pull back."
He kept pulling Bakuda away from me, and one of the huge guy's I'd seen before came forward and took her from him. He hefted the woman over his shoulder and turned away. Their eyes lifted, and some of the guns went up too.
"Newtype!"
The air picked up strands of my hair, and I turned.
Queen hovered above, looking down at the scene.
Right. Veda would come running the moment I couldn't be reached on coms.
I turned back to face Orga Itsuka. He stood his ground while the big guy continued carrying Bakuda.
What a load of bullshit.
Pick a fight, trap me, and blow up my suit. Nearly kill me, maybe.
I'm taking tomorrow off.
I turned toward Queen and began walking. "We don't have time for them" Queen hovered in place for a moment. "What's happening?"
I glanced to my left. Astraea lay in ruins where it crashed. The building's wall covered half of it, but I saw enough. The head was gone entirely, and the armor was ruined. I could already tell many of the internals were trashed.
I fought back my anger on that.
Bakuda made the decision for how to proceed with the Trans-Am issues for me.
I'd deal with all of that later.
"What did I miss?"
Queen came down and landed in front of me.
"The Undersiders and Yellow have reached the clinic and are tracking Aisha Laborn. They are cooperating with my and the PRT's queries."
I watched the reflection in Queen's armor. Orga turned and led the ABB boys away with Bakuda in tow. Only a few were still watching me, and they'd all lowered their guns.
Queen could probably take them but it would take time and the PRT would need to send someone to secure Bakuda. It invited open confrontation with Lung and we couldn't fight him now. Not without Astraea.
One problem at a time.
"And Vista?" I asked.
"The children succeeded in escaping with her before I arrived."
I fought back the taste in my mouth. I expected that. For a bunch of kids, they were doing a damned good impression of Delta Force. Probably helped that they'd run three hits at once and left everyone uncertain what they were doing.
I tried to turn on my com, except it didn't work. Of course, it didn't. Veda would have called me that way if it did. My phone probably still worked, but the screen was shattered.
"Tell Ramius the kids stole equipment from Bakuda. Not bombs. She called them sensors. I think they're trying to go somewhere." Just need to figure out where. This is a lot of trouble to go through for simple travel.
I glanced at Astraea again. I couldn't leave it here. Bakuda might be out, but it was ABB central. Those boys might come back to take what they could, or Lung himself. I did not need that.
"Secure this location and get one of the vans to secure Astraea."
"There is something else," Veda said.
"I'm not going to like it, am I?"
"The Protectorate is not deploying in force. Ramius will not tell me why."
I jerked my head toward Queen's head. "Will not? As in an alternative to can not?"
"Yes."
I needed a few moments to process that. It did not compute. Not even remotely.
What the fuck is going on tonight?
Kid Win and Mockshow lost the group that grabbed Vista, and they weren't deploying? Were they simply gathering until they had something to act on?
"You told them the Undersiders are tracking Grue's sister?"
"Yes. I received the same answer. The Protectorate is not deploying in force."
"Are Laughter and Forecast at the PRT?"
"Not yet."
"Divert them."
I have a bad feeling and I can't put my finger on it.
Why wouldn't the PRT and Protectorate be all over a missing Ward? That was a cardinal sin. They'd outed capes themselves for it in the past. The Wards were off limits, or they were supposed to be. The line blurred like any but the PRT didn't joke with killing and kidnapping.
And I can't ask them directly, and using Veda as a go between is wasting more time.
"Remind me to build com backups for the com backups the next time I redesign my mask," I said. "Bring me a Haro and get me one of the spare phones as soon as you can. Guide me to the Undersiders. As soon as you've secured Astraea, be ready to redeploy Queen."
"Are you injured?"
"I'm okay." I took a step forward and started walking. "Astraea did its job. We need to be quick. Try and figure out what is going on with the Protectorate."
"Very well."
Queen hovered over toward Astraea and took up a position. I started walking down the street, waiting for a Haro to meet me.
"Hey!"
Which is why I was surprised.
"Kid Win?" I raised my head as he hovered down from the air on his board. "What are you doing here?"
"Looking for you," he answered. He lowered from the air and stopped just a few inches off the ground. "Are you okay? Ramius said you went to fight Bakuda and then no one could reach you."
"Yeah. That happened." I continued walking. I was actually glad to see him. "What is going on with the Protectorate? StarGazer told me they weren't deploying."
His face twisted, what I could see of it.
"I don't know. They suddenly said we needed to stop. Something about the Think Tank returning a bunch of red flags."
Bullshit. Why not tell Veda that when she asked? No, no the fact Ramius didn't tell Veda that was a message. That wasn't the real reason. Something else was going on.
"Someone even said the Chief Director called Piggot and ordered her to wait."
"The Chief Director?"
Kid Win nodded.
I shook my head. "We don't have time for this. We need to figure out what those kids are doing and rescue Vista, Labyrinth and Aisha."
I continued forward. What could be bad enough that the PRT would give up pursing a kidnapped Ward?
Kid Win followed me. "The Undersiders are still looking, right?"
"Yeah."
"Where are they?"
I stopped. "I'm guessing you were told to go back to the Ward base."
"My com is broken."
There are worse liars than me in the world. But, "I'm waiting for a Haro to meet me. One of them is with the Undersiders tracking Grue's sister with Hellhound's dogs."
Kid Win fell into step behind me. I'd make no comment. As far as I knew he was telling the truth. I wouldn't stop him.
"Does anyone know you're here?" I asked.
"Mockshow is covering for me," he said. "It won't last long."
"I have a feeling this isn't going to take long."
It didn't make any sense.
"Newtype, Newtype."
Third time was the charm. A Haro came out of the sky next, Green. He popped one of his ears and waved a phone at me. I took it and gave him my broken one.
"Lead the way, Green."
"Roger, roger!"
He flew ahead. I started running. Kid Win ran behind me. I pulled up my city map on the phone, and checked on the layout. Yellow was already in the sewers, no doubt following the Undersiders. They were to our southeast.
There was a clinic near there. I kept track of their positions, but I wasn't going to bust up a medical facility, even a black market one. The Undersider's must have stashed Aisha there to keep her monitored.
The sewers stank, and the humidity made the smell cling in my throat. I thought Brockton Bay smelled bad most of the time. You got used to it, but it was nothing compared to the stink of the sewers.
I sent instructions to Veda as we went.
Stun grenades didn't work very well last time, but I didn't have many other options. The van would need another ten minutes to reach Queen and retrieve Astraea's wreck.
Fucking shit choices and shit options.
The ground began to shake, and I slowed as something moved in the tunnel ahead. Kid Win pulled a pistol out of the air and took aim, board at his side.
I pushed his hand down as the form of Hellhound's dog became clear.
"Get on," Sovereign said.
"How kind of you to come." I looked at the dog-thing questioningly.
"Tattletale said so." She turned her makeshift mask toward Kid Win. "We bringing junior?"
He stared at her for a moment, and I took the step of grabbing one of the dog's spikes. The beast was large enough for the three of us, barely.
"I'll follow on my board," Kid Win said as I figured out how to get on the animal's back.
It was weird. The spikes and plates were like bone with bulging muscle underneath. I managed to swing my leg over the top and find some balance.
"Ready?" Sovereign asked.
I looked back at Green and waved him forward. "Let's go."
Kid Win threw his board forward and jumped on. The dog struggled to get itself turned around. The sewers were tall enough for it, but not quite wide enough. It snarled and clawed, guided by some kicks to its side Sovereign gave it.
Was Hellhound not a master? In the sense that she controlled the animals, I meant. That's the impression I'd been under but from the way Sovereign poked at the monster with one leg and tapped at its bony ear, I'd say it was more trained than controlled.
Once the animal got turned around, its body lurched forward. My hair swept back, and I grabbed hold of two spikes on either side of me. I nearly hit Sovereign in the back trying to get a good hold and not fall off.
"You okay back there?" Sovereign asked.
"Fine," I grumbled, as I hung on for dear life.
The beast bucked beneath me, legs carrying it forward at speed down the tunnel. It took a turn at a T intersection, and then another at a junction. Kid Win kept pace with us on his board.
"The dogs have the scent?" I asked, tasting the sewer air more than ever. I already knew, but I wanted to confirm. And distract myself from the master sitting a few inches in front of me. Not comfortable.
"Yeah," Sovereign answered.
The dog kept going, moving with a grace that surprised me. In the tunnels ahead I saw two more figures. They were moving slower, waiting for us to catch up.
Tattletale leaned back as we caught up, calling out, "Bakuda?"
"Sensors," I said.
She nodded and turned to say something to Grue. Hellhound held the lead position, her dog keeping its head low. Not waiting for us? Maybe the dogs couldn't go as fast as they could and track the scent.
Still, we were moving a good thirty miles an hour.
"Where's your suit?" Grue called.
"Bakuda," I said.
"Why's Kid Win here?" Tattletale asked.
"Vista," he answered, his board keeping pace between the two dogs following Hellhound's. Yellow and Green flanked him.
"What about the—" Tattletale stopped and stared. "Okay, that's weird."
"I know. Later."
And fuck this is surreal.
In thirty minutes I'd gone to rescue the Undersiders, made a truce with the Undersiders, fought Bakuda, let Bakuda go, grouped back up with the Undersiders and stop thinking about it this is a waste of time.
I cautiously let go of one spike. With the dogs going slower, I found it easier to maintain balance. Taking my phone from my pocket, I looked at the screen as we moved.
"Forecast saw the kids in a warehouse," I explained. "We're nearing the edge of the Docks."
"There's a couple areas with warehouses in Captain's Hill," Grue pointed out.
"Only a few that aren't controlled by the Empire."
I removed those I knew the Empire had used in the past, which only left a few. If the kids wanted to avoid notice, they'd use one of those. And one with sewer access.
I picked out one set of three warehouses.
"I've got it." I gave the Undersiders the address. "There's a drainage pipe three blocks away. The dogs can get out there."
"We'll use that route too," Tattletale said. "The kids are smart. They'll have eyes on the sewer exits they use."
"Right up here," I called. "Go right."
I sent the information to Veda. Queen was still pinned guarding Astraea, but we could get the Haros to me in time. Maybe Lafter.
"Do we have a plan?" Sovereign asked.
"Rescue the kidnapped capes?" Kid Win proposed.
"That's a goal, not a plan." Sovereign glanced back at me. "Don't get me wrong. Grue's sister is an obnoxious brat, but she's alright. I assume Vista is well liked and Labyrinth is fucked in the head. But do we actually have a plan?"
Tattletale said something to Grue. He didn't like it from the look on his face.
The dogs picked up their pace, turning one after the other as we broke out of the sewers and into the air. The sheer taste of slightly fresher air was a real refresher after having the sewers blow in my face.
The dogs barked and snapped, their claws digging into the concrete of a steeply sloped embankment. They climbed up quickly, while Yellow and Green flew to the top with Kid Win.
"Stop here!" Tattletale shouted.
"Heel!" Hellhound snapped.
And like that all three dogs stopped. So they are trained. Which is a weird thing to wrap my head around. I'd been given the impression Hellhound was wild and violent. She liked dogs sure, but training dogs took a lot of work and discipline.
I climbed off the dog when Sovereign did. Tattletale and Grue did the same. Only Hellhound remained mounted, and she didn't seem to care as we all gathered together.
I got that surreal feeling again, especially because the Undersiders and Kid Win were here, while the Protectorate wasn't.
"Where is the Protectorate?" Grue asked.
"I don't know," Kid Win said.
"He's not supposed to be here," Tattletale noted. "Something's up in the PRT but we don't have time to wonder what it is."
"What about your other suit?" Grue asked.
"Guarding my first suit's wreck," I noted. "Leaving my tech around for anyone to grab improves nothing. StarGazer will get here as soon as she can." I heard the engine in the distance. In the meantime…
The van pulled up, and the passenger side door opened.
Lafter stepped out with a big grin, followed by Dinah. They walked toward us, the Haros coming out of the air and hovering.
"This will have to do," I said.
"What did we miss?" Lafter called as she approached. Her eyes moved, from me to the Undersiders, to the dogs, to Kid Win, to the dogs again. "Where's Astraea?"
"Bakuda blew it up," Tattletale said.
"Oh. That sucks."
"Deal with it later." I turned to Dinah. "How many questions."
"Five," she answered.
We could get away with three more, tops.
Tattletale stepped forward.
"All we really need is to know if they have any booby traps, where their defenses are, and where we'll find the missing."
Dinah nodded and took a seat. She pulled some paper from a bag on her back, the sheets the radio station printed off. Lafter stood between her and the Undersiders, hands on her sabers.
Good.
"As soon as she's done, get her out of here." I glanced up at the Haros. "Navy. Yellow. Pink. You three keep an eye on her." I wasn't trusting the Undersiders that much. "Green. Orange. Purple. Go high, sweep the surrounding buildings."
They took off, and I turned to Tattletale.
"How are we doing this?"
"Grue is in no position to lead," she said. Grue glowered at her, but he didn't argue the point. "And I don't think we trust each other at all."
"Agreed," I said.
"Then keep it simple," Kid Win said. "We want Vista, Labyrinth and Grue's sister. We go in, grab them back, and get out. If we get them we can run a lot faster than the kids can catch up."
Thinking back, I remembered, "They have a van…But that's not good for a chase. If we run enough, we'll either reach the PRT or Queen will meet us."
Grue nodded at that, and honestly it might be that simple. We weren't going to set up any complicated chain of command. We didn't have time to hash that out.
"The kids no sell Sovereign," Tattletale noted. "There isn't much she can do."
"I can tell you I feel three people nearby," she offered. "Ones who aren't a mess like those kids are." She turned her head. "That way."
Wait. "You feel emotions?"
"Yeah."
"What are they feeling?"
"Two are unconscious," she described after a moment. "One is alert and calm."
"They knocked out Vista," Kid Win said. "And she'd be fighting tooth and nail if she were awake."
"Labyrinth then," Tattletale determined. "She's pretty pliable most of the time. They wouldn't need much to keep her docile."
"They're alive," Grue said in relief.
"The one I talked to said Labyrinth would be released," I revealed. "I have the feeling hurting them isn't the plan."
"What is the plan?" Lafter asked. "There's thirty or something of them, right? That's a lot of laser guns for no Gundam."
"Could they see you in your cloud?" I inquired, glancing at Grue.
"No," he answered. "Not me, but they moved strange. Like they had some idea of where to go."
"Coordination perhaps," Tattletale suggested. "They have good team work. Really good team work. We probably wouldn't win a drawn out fight even if we were a strong team. Best we find who we're looking for, grab the capes we want and then throw up smoke and run."
"Use the dogs to smash our way in," I proposed. "I doubt we have time for subtlety."
Tattletale glanced to Hellhound. "You okay with that, Bitch?"
Okay, really. What am I missing here?
The girl grunted. "Let's get on with it already."
It was a fairly simple plan.
We started climbing back onto the dogs, Lafter taking Sovereign's place with me. The master stood back, about fifteen feet off from Dinah. I glanced to the Haro and nodded her way. The three I'd assigned to watch Dinah pulled closer to her.
Dinah got up and handed me some papers.
I took them and stared.
"Forecast?" I asked.
"I don't know," she said. "There's more, but I can't see it. I know they're there. Other possibilities, but they're hiding from me."
Her wording sent a shiver up my spine. Like they're hiding from her? I'd experienced that. Designs and ideas that I could almost put together but clung to the edges of my mind out of sight.
"It's okay," I promised. "We'll make do. Get going. You don't need to be here anymore. Get back to the factory."
I watched her walk back to the van.
"What's up?" Lafter asked.
I turned the papers toward her.
She only wrote down a few things, far fewer possibilities than I'd ever seen her get. Just three and four for the three questions she asked. Simple ones. What happens if Cranial's children are attacked in their warehouse. Good enough for how rushed all this was.
Weirdest of all, she underlined one note.
Don't fight.
Don't fight the kids?
"What does that mean?" Lafter asked.
I didn't know. Dinah walked back to the van. I had a feeling she didn't plan to say anything else.
The last time Dinah kept something secret from me, it was to save Tattletale's life. She'd not done it since then. What would be so important she'd give me incomplete information and a cryptic warning?
"What is it?" Tattletale asked.
"The kids are doing whatever they're doing right now," I said. I looked over the other possibilities. "We catch them by surprise eight out of twelve times. There's a few guards, but they're all inside watching the doorways."
If Tattletale noticed my inflated fractions, she didn't say anything. We were going, and I was done talking. No time for a debate over what Dinah's bizarre results meant.
"We'll go through a wall," Tattletale said. "Lets go!"
The dogs started forward. I confirmed that the surrounding areas appeared clear with the Haros, and narrowed the warehouses down to one. There was some kind of device on the roof, small but clearly tinker-tech.
The dogs picked up speed, and I grabbed hold of the bones.
"On the right," I pointed. "Zero four."
The numbers marked the side of the building.
"Grue!" Tattletale called.
"I know."
His power started leaking off his skin and billowed around us. It didn't block our vision, staying low to the ground. Good. We could run out the way we ran in.
"Laughter," I called.
"This is fun! How do we get one of these!?"
The dogs didn't stop, building up speed right up to the point Hellhound shouted, "Break!"
They slammed into the metal sides of the warehouses, biting and clawing through the sheet like tissue. The Haros flew through the openings after the dogs got through and spread out.
I took in the interior quickly.
Tinker-tech everywhere. Cords and wires ran across the floor to large cylindrical towers pulsing with light. Generators lined the far wall, and computers were arranged in a corner. The generators were huge. Big pylons pulsing with energy. A lot of energy.
And they looked a lot like that reactor Squealer built for her tank.
The kids gathered close to the center of the room. They didn't look at us for more than a second. I watched them for a moment, trying to figure why they were reacting to our entry so impassively.
"There!" Tattletale pointed.
Vista lay on the ground, some kind of device attached to her head. Her mask was lying beside her. Labyrinth…Labyrinth was just sitting there. I didn't see Aisha at first. Which, of course I didn't. She was invisible to me.
Right. Forgot about that.
I switched my visor to thermal.
"Aisha's beside, Vista!" I called. "On her right!"
Three kids stood over them, for once looking surprised as the dogs barreled through the room.
Grue's power exploded.
The black mist swelled and covered everything, bisecting the room in half with most of the kids on one side.
"That was almost all of them." I counted near thirty. A few might be running about. "Get past those three and we're clear!"
The three guards started to step back calmly.
"Heel!" Hellhound shouted.
The dogs came to a halt, snarling toward the mist and the kids. I leapt off the dog-thing and scrambled across the floor.
"Vista!" Kid Win called. He stepped off his board and pulled a cloth mask from somewhere on his costume. I went past him, taking a cursory glance at the device stuck to her head.
It didn't look invasive, but it didn't look harmless either. Needle points pressed to her temples, not breaking the skin. Under closed lids I could see her eyes moving rapidly. What the hell?
Labyrinth stood, her lips moving like she was speaking to herself.
"Labyrinth," I called. Laughter went ahead of me, both her sabers out as she moved towards the three kids. I grabbed Labyrinth's shoulder, but she ignored me. "Hey, Labyrinth? Elle!"
At the sound of her real name she blinked and turned her head. Her eyes seemed to look past me. Kid Win called for me, asking how to remove the device on Vista's head. Tattletale and Grue went past Elle, apparently able to find Aisha on their own. The dogs and Laughter stood between us and the three kids.
They didn't make any move to stop us.
"You shouldn't be here," Elle said. She stared impassively. "It's too late now."
"Too late?" My stomach began to turn. "Too late for what?"
She tilted her head. "You have many friends."
What? "What does—"
I looked down as a black abyss swallowed me. Everything went black, but I felt perfectly lucid. Things blurred. I couldn't tell if I fell or if I'd been swallowed. I heard Lafter shout, and Tattletale and Kid Win too. At one point I think I saw two Grues.
Which was weird.
At one point I heard Labyrinth's voice.
"Alice goes down the rabbit hole. The twister forces it wider. The sleeper points the way."
Almost as weird as the overwhelming sense of deja vu.
I've seen this before.
Mirrors reflecting mirrors.
This is different
I remembered it being more distant. Further away. Pieces fell from the mass and scattered. But here, it all seemed quiet.
I sat up. The ground around me was black and red crystal, pulsing with energy. I pressed my hand against it, at first convinced I was dreaming or something. But I wasn't. I felt it. The ground was solid and smooth, but a little pliant despite its appearance.
I looked left. "Laughter? Kid Win?" I looked right.
I didn't see them. Any of them. How? I'd been standing right next to Labyrinth. Kid Win and Vista were only a few steps back and Grue and Tattletale crouching in the sand.
I pulled myself to my feet.
A platform of the stuff surrounded me, with a few brighter crystal structures jutting out as high as fifty feet. Behind me was a ledge, and I stepped close enough to see the sheer void beyond. I did not want to think about the possibility that Kid Win and Vista fell.
Turning my attention back to the crystals, the shapes weren't right. I couldn't make them out. It was like they shifted the more I looked at them.
I stopped looking at them.
Turning my chin up, I saw other platforms, floating or suspended in the air. Long cords of red connected them—A few connected to the platform I stood on. Could I use those to cross to the others?
A crawling sensation traveled up my spine.
I was being watched.
I didn't see it at first. The color of the body matched the crystal it perched on. My first thought was centipede, but I wasn't sure. Its body shifted like the crystals, like it was rejecting my perception.
That faded as its own gaze set on me. Nine eyes mounted on a broad head.
The body was long with hundreds of legs of different lengths. The thing was huge, its flesh clearly not flesh. It felt so familiar to something I'd seen before despite its completely different appearance. I couldn't stop the thought, or the fear that came with it.
Endbringer.
My hand went to my belt as it began to move.
Don't fight.
