"We're coming Kai, just hang on…"
"That was kind of the plan, Aswon! It's just I appear to be sweating a bit, and it's getting kind of tough!"
"Tads, here!" Marius gestured to a set of goggles, tossing them in the air for her to catch so he could grab the cable that was attached to them. She grabbed at them, fumbling in surprise and nearly dropping them. Her confusion was dispelled as she saw Marius feeding the other end of the fibre-optic cable out, attaching the fisheye lens to it and then working on the door, pushing the bulbous lens through the fire-stop material at the bottom of the door sill. She donned the goggles and blinked, trying to get used to the image. The fibre cable concentrated the light through purely optical lenses, but the prisms affected the view, distorting it and cutting down on the light that made it through the system. But, with a purely optical path, it was 'pure' and 'real', rather than a representation on an electronic system, and just like the viewing prism on the tilt-wing, it gave her the vital astral connection with whatever was in sight that made spellcasting possible.
"Ok, I have a view of the room, can see the lift. Just rotate to the left a little, please. Marius. I can't see all the guards in the second squad – hold it! There, just roll it clockwise a few degrees. Perfect…" She fell silent, focussing all of her attention on the guards in the room, who were fanning out and searching the room. She didn't have long before someone moved out of line of sight – and she poured everything she had into the spell. They were likely well-trained and disciplined, not the average street yahoos, and that mental fortitude would make them quite resistant to her efforts. More importantly, she'd probably only get one shot at this, as any attempt to stun them would certainly be detected and if they didn't go down then they were very likely to react with extreme hostility.
The stunball went off in the room, a silent explosion of power with no physical presence – which made the collapse of all eight guards to the floor look all the more surreal to anyone watching. Kai saw them crumple to the ground in a ragged pile, their armour and weapons landing with thuds as they tumbled heavily to the thick carpet. Breathing a sigh of relief, he pulled open the lift door and clawed his way back into the lobby, trying not to think about the multi-story drop behind him.
"Nice work, Tads! All down!" He moved to the south, grabbing the first guard and straightening his limbs out, then relieving him of the large and bulky tangle grenade attached to his belt.
"Hunter! Take this! Loaded with hots!" Aswon passed over the assault rifle he'd taken from the guard downstairs to the large ork, then hefted his shotgun. Hunter grunted at him, and moved a few paces to the east, and turned to look southwards, watching towards the corridor leading towards the magical quarters, ready to take out any reinforcements that might show up.
"Someone's coming!" Shimazu hissed. "Tads… TADS!" He grabbed the unmoving shaman and propelled her into the lobby and out of his way as he strode forwards, sword raised and watching the faint shadow moving on the floor ahead of him. He didn't know what she was doing, but he didn't have time to deal with that now. As Garik turned around the corner, he gave a small grunt and gestured with his sword, sending a psychic bolt of energy across the intervening distance. To his mind, it appeared as a pulsing blade of energy, as if the actual blade of his sword was flying across the corridor but made up of a blue-purple bolt of light. The enemy mage flinched, throwing himself backwards and around the corner, disappearing out of sight with a surprised cry. "Contact, enemy mage, no vision!" he called out, updating the rest of the team.
As the radio call came in, Hunter saw the corridor ahead of him burst into flame as a large fireball impacted onto the sticky material that had been exuded from the grenade that Aswon had thrown. Whatever the material was, it was definitely flammable, and the web-like material spread the flames to both walls and the ceiling in a heartbeat, burning merrily as the fireball itself started to dissipate. With no warning, a large figure stomped around the corner, ignoring the flames that lapped at them, their matt-black armour seeming to drink in the light from the fiery material.
The figure was easily two metres high, bulky and imposing, but moving with a grace and precision that spoke of significant cyber-enhancement and cutting-edge armour design. Part of Hunter's mind ogled at the heavy armour, taking in the sculpting of the pieces, admiring the interlocking plates and clever design. The other half of his mind was far too busy moving his arm up just over two centimetres, bringing the aiming point for his smartlink up to rest on the throat of the figure, tracking slightly to the right as it moved.
Rounds spat out of the rifle, the armour piercing tungsten-tipped projectiles driving through even the toughened material of the heavy battle-suit. Even the best material science could only provide so much armour to a target like a neck piece, where flexibility was key and the weight had to be kept to a manageable level. Hunter's muscles tensed and he fought against the tendency of the rifle to climb upwards and pan left, holding it on target as the extended stream of fire drilled through the armour and into the neck of the soldier, chewing through his body and then severing his spinal column. The body flailed a little, the gun rising and pointing at Hunter for a split-second before falling to one side as the body collapsed, trapped now in the burning mass of the tangle-web. Hunter kept his aim steady, hoping that the enemy mage – or whatever it was that had thrown that fireball – was going to dare to stick their nose out of the side passage.
Marius dived into the room, moving Tads further out of the line of sight, just in case the mage decided to risk his neck against Shimazu – Tads was trembling slightly and had a far-away expression on her face as she struggled to contain and dissipate the magical backlash from the massive stunball she'd cast, the energies wanting to tear at her mind and give her a monster headache, or worse. She fought against it, slowly tapping off the chaotic energies, smoothing out the vortex of power safely back into the world. With a quick glance to make sure she wasn't bleeding or about to collapse, Marius started to lay out the bodies on the north side of the lobby, mirroring Kai to the south – but he also pulled out some of the speedcuffs the guards had on their belts and quickly started securing them in place as well, just in case.
Outside the room on the north-side of the lobby, Aswon looked up from where he'd been checking over his shotgun and stared down the now-empty corridor.
"Mage? Where?"
"Just around that corner. I thought I had a good shot, but he managed to dodge back out of the way." Shimazu seemed annoyed about this, his gaze fixed on the corner and his sword raised, ready to lash out again. Aswon moved up next to him and fished out one of the large tangle grenades, and then weighed it carefully in his hand, before flipping it up into the air and catching it, testing the balance. Depressing the button on the side, he counted to two, then carefully pitched the grenade underarm, sending it arcing down the corridor.
It landed just at the corner, tipped slightly to one side and started to bounce, actually making it halfway around the edge of the wall before it started to spew sticky material out of the vents at the top, prompting it to spin even more wildly. They heard a cry of surprise that was quickly muted, and shared a momentary grin as they imagined the foul chemicals spraying directly into the mage's mouth.
"Huh… I got an idea." Aswon fished in his pocket, and pulled out another shotgun shell, this one a fiery red, with a large and ornate symbol on the side, proclaiming "Big-D" in gothic writing. He worked the action on the shotgun, catching the unused shell as it ejected but then stopping the breach from closing and racking a replacement round, instead manually inserting the new shell, and then slowly and carefully letting the action complete. He raised the shotgun, holding it out at arms-length, and tipped his head back slightly, wincing as his finger took up the slack in the trigger.
"What exactly do they do?" Shimazu asked, then took a step away from Aswon, just in case. He'd seen the Nigerian crawl on his belly through a landmine field to clear a path for them, working with a knife and risking explosives going off in his face… yet here he was flinching away from his shotgun. That didn't bode well…
Shimazu's eyes opened wide as the trigger finally broke, when Aswon applied the two kilograms of force necessary – and a cone of flame exploded out of the front of the gun. The fiery mass reached at least three metres out, spreading to be a metre wide at the end, a rolling dirty mass of yellow and red flames. Beyond that, a shower of sparks continued to spread out in a cone, growing wider and wider as they span through the air. The sound was concussive almost, a bang that sounded more like a car crash than a gunshot, booming down the corridor – this was definitely not a weapon intended for a stealth mission! A couple of the magnesium sparks impacted on the edge of the tangle-web, and a moment later the residual heat sparked a flame, quickly climbing up the sticky material and sparking another fire. A scream quickly followed as the trapped mage was engulfed in burning material, still trapped in place but now surrounded by fire on all sides.
Around the corner to the south, out of their sightlines, the fire continued to burn where the first tangle-grenade had been fireballed. The crumpled form of the heavily armoured trooper lay in the heart of the flames, fallen where Hunter had shot him. The body collapsed to the floor, twisted unnaturally, the armour surrounded by flames that licked and engulfed the strange material. It appeared to be fireproof – or at the very least very fire-retardant.
Unfortunately, the equipment strapped onto the mid-section, where a utility belt would normally be, wasn't.
As the flames continued to burn, the carpet providing an ample fuel supply, something reached a critical temperature or had its case burned through, or was directly ignited by a random flame. The body twisted and heaved, convulsing mightily as whatever random equipment attached cooked off violently, sending a plume of black smoke shooting outwards.
A piercing tone undulated from the smoke alarm on the ceiling as its threshold was exceeded, sounding for a few seconds. Down the corridor a second unit joined it, forming a discordant warbling cry that echoed over the crackling flames, and a moment later, sprinklers across the entire floor activated, sending a fine mist shooting out in all directions.
The spreading flames were quickly damped down, containing the spread of the conflaguration, but the cores continued to burn, the fires continuing to consume whatever the sticky material was – whatever chemicals were the main constituent of the tangle-grenades seemed to work like a metal fire, scoffing at the waters' puny attempts to extinguish them.
Aswon headed into the lobby, and saw the bodies being laid out and cuffed, and immediately headed over to them and started to strip the guards of their tangle-grenades, recovering one from each of them.
"What are you doing?" Shimazu asked, following him into the room after a quick check of the corridor to ensure nobody else was coming.
"Three doors into here. One grenade each, simple booby trap. That's gonna slow down whoever is chasing us. And if they try to get through, there's a chance someone's gonna try another fireaball, and that's REALLY going to slow them down." Aswon responded breathily, as he scampered over the bodies, working as fast as he could to relieve them of their booty. "Another one on the lift door as we go up, to cover the shaft and doors – that's going to be a drekker to get past too. And a couple to come with us, for trouble on the roof."
Shimazu moved over and scooped up the grenades that Aswon had already freed, clutching them carefully to his chest and then following along with Aswon, collecting them as he moved, making his task easier. To the south side of the room, Kai started to collect the grenades there, nodding his head at Aswon's plan.
"Hunter, with me, please. We need to start getting out of here. You up for holding people and passing them over the lift shaft to the ladder?"
"Sure, Tads." He headed over to the lift doors and then hung inside the lift shaft, his hands hanging onto the frame and his body leaning out over the shaft itself. Tads squeezed through the side of the opening, making sure she was through the ward and wouldn't set off the alarm. It probably didn't matter – but she wanted to make sure the ward wouldn't interfere with her spell more than she was worried about the alarm. Hunter braced himself for the strange sensation, grimacing slightly as he lifted into the air and hovered there, his feet dangling. His toes pointed downwards subconsciously, questing for the floor as his brain felt like he should end his 'jump' at any moment and should land on the floor again. Instead though at a quick flick of Tad's fingers, he felt pressure on his hands and let go of the door frame, floating half a metre out into the dark lift-shaft.
Marius appeared in the doorway and stepped out at Hunter's beckon, placing a foot on top of Hunter's own. The ork gave a grunt of effort as his calf muscles tensed, but then he had a hand around Marius's waist, taking some of the pressure off, and helping to swing him around, onto the left foot and then over towards the ladder. Tads glanced back into the room and saw Aswon setting up the charge on the north door, priming the tangle-grenade to go off and cover both doors and the frame, blocking the entrance completely.
He, Shimazu and Kai all flinched as a fireball impacted on the doors to the east, aimed from outside. Whoever the mage was, they'd clearly made it past the remains of the first burning tangle-grenade and had decided they needed to act. The doors held for a moment but then burst inwards, hinges screeching as the blast distorted them and sheared the locks open. The blast was powerful enough that some of the wall to either side cracked and split, the multiple layers of interior boarding blowing apart and sending jets of flame into the lobby as well. Aswon raised his shotgun and fired off a couple of blasts blindly through the flames, trusting the spread of the shotgun rounds to at least catch someone's attention on the other side.
The response was immediate. A blast of magical energy exploded around them, not disturbing the flames at all. Around Aswon, Shimazu, Kai and Tads, mana exploded in a glittering riot, deflecting off them as Tad's spell shielding repelled the incoming power.
"Powerball!" Aswon called out, jamming another of the Big-D shells into his shotgun. He dropped into astral himself, knowing that the mage on the outside must have done the same. Unlike a fireball which could be thrown blind and created a physical ball of fire in the real world, the powerball spell required the mage to actually see the target – which meant they could definitely be seen in return!
The fire still raged, but it was just possible to see past the flames now, and he spotted the brightly glowing form of the enemy mage getting ready to cast again. He'd probably worked out that powerful as he was, Tad's protective magic made any direct assault spells extremely unlikely to land – but he almost certainly had other options available to him and a few tricks up his sleeve. Aswon extended out the shotgun once more, winced and pulled the trigger. Unlike the powerball, the flames lapping around the doorway did respond to this, as his cone of fire blasted the flames back into the corridor. He grunted in satisfaction as he heard some cries of pain – the shrapnel and flechettes from the round must have hit at least somewhere on the mage and done some damage, and that was probably going to slow him down somewhat.
"Incoming!" Aswon shouted, as he watched the east entrance, looking for the mage. It appeared as though he'd dodged around the corner, fearing another shotgun blast to the face, and had instead sent in a couple of his elementals to deal with them. Unfortunately for the lead elemental, Shimazu was ready and waiting for it, and he battered the first one with a strike from his sword, sending another astral blade bolt slicing through the air, leaving a multi-coloured hue behind it. The second elemental made it across the intervening distance while Shimazu was dealing with the first, but that only bought it into easy range for the sword-master.
A third elemental appeared next to Aswon and caught him by surprise, starting to engulf him in its grip, and Aswon felt a racking cough spring from his mouth as the air elemental started to crush his lungs. He grabbed for his staff, letting the shotgun drop and tried to fend off the elemental – but it definitely had him at a disadvantage, and he felt his vision starting to tunnel in as the magical creature squeezed him and drove the air from his lungs, drawing the oxygen out of him. Then Shimazu was there, swinging his blade downwards just past Aswon's face, slicing into the elemental and sending it back to their home plane, joining the first two elementals already on the way.
"Thanks, man!" He took in a deep breath, replenishing the oxygen in his system and steadied himself, controlling his heart rate and checking himself over. There was still no sign of the mage to the east, but that didn't mean he wasn't planning on making a new appearance any time soon. Looking around, he did a quick mental count and saw that he did have enough grenades for what he was planning, and then threw one through the burning mass to the east, bouncing the grenade off the wall and around the corner, out of sight. It exploded, sending a trail of sticky webs out in all directions, and soon caught fire itself, spreading the burning mass out to the south – and he was rewarded with the sounds of more struggling and screaming. Hopefully that would keep the mage tied up for a few moments at least!
Kai meanwhile had seen what Aswon was doing and grabbed another grenade, popped the pin, counted to two and then dropped it down the lift shaft, seeing it burst open about two floors down and fill the concrete box with a mass of webs, that was sure to cause the lift some severe problems if someone tried to push through.
Tads hung by the lift door, guiding Hunter back and forth, glancing up to see Marius nearly at the top of the ladder now. A few more quick movements, and Shimazu and Kai were behind him, moving upwards too. She followed on, grabbing hold of Hunter and then checking behind her, making sure Aswon was ok. He'd set another grenade by the southern door, and was now running for the lift doors.
"Go! I'll climb up the walls!" He shouted, and she sent Hunter rocketing up the lift shaft to the top floor, so he could start helping people back across the lift shaft and to the door onto the roof. As she glanced down, she could see Aswon setting the last of his grenades on the door way, trailing a piece of line from the pin out behind him as he clambered up the concrete shaft, his hands and feet sticking to the walls, using the magical gecko tattoo that his tribal shaman had given him to good use. As he got a floor up, he yanked on the cord, then resumed climbing, and behind him another mass of sticky webs exploded over the inside of the lift doors, blocking them thoroughly.
Up at the top, Hunter had lifted Marius out at roof height, trying his best to stay away from the moss on the roof. Getting Marius out and up onto the roof was tricky, and for a moment he thought the pilot was going to fall, but he managed to splay his hands over the waterproof surface on the roof, getting just enough friction to hold himself in place while Hunter pushed from below, giving his legs something to climb up. Once he had his hips over the lip of the roof he could roll to the side and flip himself over, then turn and kneel, getting ready to help the next person up, making it a lot easier for Kai to climb up and over the lip of the roof.
Shimazu was about to clamber over, when two more elementals phased into existence in the shaft, their earthen forms seeming to mould themselves out of the concrete. With one hand clutching at the ladder, the other slashed at them with his sword, engaging in combat in the tight confines.
"Go, I've got this!" he urged the others to continue onwards, and saw Aswon padding up the wall past him trusting utterly in his lethality in close-combat. It was well-founded too, as despite the inherent power in the elementals, and them outnumbering him two-to-one, he managed to dispatch them quickly and efficiently, sending rubble and dust down to land in the tangle-web that Kai had dropped a few moments ago.
"Team, we have an inbound chopper!" Marius suddenly perked up as the sounds of the rotors made it over the drizzle that filled the air. "Coming from the north-east, I think that will be from the airbase that was providing cover to the mountain."
A high-pitched wail sounded from below him, and he turned his head in surprise, to see Aswon and Shimazu emerging from the doorway. As they had stepped out, the magical energies of the spirits had apparently triggered the moss, and it now gave off a quiet shriek. A quick zoom of the eyes and he got a close up of the leaves, quivering and shaking back and forth, rubbing against their neighbours and resonating as if a bow was being drawn across a violin string. He filtered out the noise – there was nothing he could do about it, and he resumed his search for the chopper, finally spotting the dark shape out in the night sky. It was a good kilometre away, but closing on their position quickly. While he could see the chopper shape in general, it was too dark and obscured to get much in the way of detail, and he had no idea if it was a gunship, troop carrier or some other variant.
The rest of the team burst out of the doorway and climbed up onto the roof to join him, moss singing away all around the doorway now. Hunter wormed his way into the middle of the group and started to check his harness, feeding out the slings and ropes to each of the others to allow them to all strap together once more, providing a single target for Tads to cast her spell upon.
"We need to go. NOW! That chopper is closing fast!" Marius warned them, and Tads took a deep breath, summoning power to her and casting her spell on Hunter. They all felt the big ork lift up, taking in the slack on the harnesses until they too were lifted into the air, spinning back and forth as they dangled around him. Tads looked around and spotted the direction Marius was watching, then started to move them in the opposite direction, heading towards the edge of the building.
"Still closing, five hundred metres!" They could all hear the beat of the chopper blades now and see the outline of the aircraft against the night sky. It looked sleek and angular, with two stubby wings jutting out of the fuselage, ominous shapes hanging underneath. Tads tried to go faster, but the spell was limited in power – they were still travelling at a good pace, equal to what the average man might run at – but it felt way too slow in the face of the oncoming assault.
With a mental command, Tads sent a 'spare' spirit over towards the chopper with instructions to distract it. She had no expectation that it could really harm the chopper – even its spirit powers were unlikely to bring it down or do more than a mild inconvenience, but anything she could do to help was better than nothing. On the other side of Hunter to her, Kai suddenly grinned and called his own spirit, asking it to materialise in the physical world for him. The spirit grudgingly obliged, then took the proffered splat-grenade from Kai's hands and nodded as Kai asked it to head over to above the chopper, and drop the grenade downwards… It soared up into the air, visible in the physical world, but still not that obvious against the darkness, clutching the large grenade to its chest.
"Two hundred and fifty metres!" Marius gritted his teeth, pulling out his pistol and aiming towards the chopper. He hated this – he felt utterly powerless, swinging on the end of a rope as they floated through the night sky. His pistol wasn't going to do more than scratch the paint, and his drones were too far away to help. The aircraft was in the hanger, sealed behind the doors, and even if he'd called it a few minutes ago, without him being onboard, it wasn't going to do them much good – or be able to defend itself against any attacks. He twisted his head around to keep the chopper in his sightline, and saw movement under the wings. A mental command altered his cyber-ears, filtering out the sounds of the chopper's engine and rotor noise, and he heard the distinctive whine of spinning barrels, accelerating as their motors were fed power. "Miniguns! We have to go, FASTER!"
The spirit that Tads had sent suddenly manifested, appearing on the windscreen and frothing like a lunatic, pressing it's 'face' up against the armoured glass and scratching at it, gyrating wildly and scrabbling at the nosecone with its feet. No doubt it was making an awful noise too, though if so it was lost over the noise of the engines. They saw the chopper twist slightly as the pilot no doubt recoiled in surprise at the sudden apparition clutching onto his aircraft.
"Tads, hold us steady!" Hunter called out, and pulled his rifle up, holding it over the top of their heads. Fortunately, his smartlink meant he didn't have to sight down the barrel, and he tried to compensate for their relative movement before firing off a long burst. Much like Marius, he knew he wasn't going to do any meaningful damage to an armoured chopper – not without a lot more precision than he was capable of at the moment or significantly bigger and more specialised rounds. But he'd managed to hit the windscreen, and he figured that it would give the pilot something else to worry about – they might even think it was the spirit managing the claw and scrape away at the glass!
"We've got more company. Elementals, coming out of the roof and fanning out." Shimazu called out. "Drek! That's a lot of elementals!" He did a quick count as the figures rose up out of the roof, fanning out to cover all directions and casting their gaze around them. Some of them spotted the concealing spirit and gave chase, closing even faster than the chopper could as they zipped through astral space. "We've got three fire elementals and two air elementals closing in on us fast. More of those and some earth and water on the roof, but they were looking the other way!" He tried to move his sword into a guard position, having to push Kai and Aswon to the side to free himself up and let him swing the weapon. It couldn't have been comfortable, but both of them reached around to try and grab the person on the other side and haul themselves further apart – Shimazu was clearly the person that needed to face this threat, and though both of them could fight the elementals in astral space, if they could bring a weapon to a combat position, neither of them had the same level of skill as Shimazu did.
"I can see a bunch of buildings on the north side on fire?" Aswon exclaimed, going to point and then hastily putting his hand back on his neighbour, not wanting to swing back in an cramp Shimazu. "Right by… oh – I think Phoss and Ury have gotten a little creative. I think I can see people moving around down there… but there's several buildings well alight. That's going to keep some of the ground troops busy, I'm sure!"
"Look! Up at the chopper!" Kai exclaimed with glee, seeing the spirit hovering over the top of it, now dropping the grenade. It tumbled through the air and then exploded, sending out a mass of sticky webs in a disc, spreading outwards through the air. The web impacted the chopper blades, the sticky chemicals splattering all over the blades, and the team – at least those of them that were facing the right way – stared in fascination, wondering what would happen.
The white gloop was flung outwards by the centrifugal forces, even the chemically-engineered sticky mush having a hard time overcoming the energy imparted by the rotor blades spinning at six hundred revolutions per minute. The material spread out, a small amount managing to stick to the blades while the rest was drawn out in a streamer, stretching out into the night and flowing with the air towards the outer edge of the rotors, but also 'backwards' from the direction of travel. More and more of the gloop fanned out, thinning and splitting into questing tendrils, forming a white disk that expanded and spread, becoming more and more solid as each of the branches grew longer and eventually hit the rotor blade 'behind' them. It was a strange sight, and now looked like someone had dropped an enormous piece of white lace over the blades, with random threads spewing outwards from the disk.
There was no way that Phoss and Ury could have known how flammable it was – at least they didn't think so. But they'd clearly worked out that the chopper was hunting the team, and had decided to add a further distraction. A fireball rose up from the compound, lancing through the sky towards the chopper. It didn't look quite as big and powerful as the mage in the lobby – it wouldn't be smashing through any walls or blowing doors open – but it wasn't insignificant either. Flames impacted and wrapped around the chopper's fuselage, washing over the windscreen and no doubt further distracting the pilot and gunners. But ultimately it didn't cause any damage at all against the armoured vehicle.
What it did do, though, was set fire to the tangle-webs, forming a spectacular fiery disk above the pilot's head, sending gobbets of flaming material outwards into the night sky. The fiery mass reached out more than ten metres in all directions, burning voraciously. It wouldn't last long, they knew – but it had to be terrifying for the people in the chopper, who had no idea why their rotors had apparently burst into flame!
Tads continued to move them to the south, dropping them over the parapet and finally getting enough distance to use the building to break line of sight to the chopper. The concealing spirit protecting the group managed to prevent the sensors from locking onto them, keeping them safe second by second, at least as long as the spirit was there – which the closing elementals were making look considerably less certain.
They swooped down the building a little, before Tads eased them out and made a break once more to the south – but moments later the elementals appeared over the parapet and started to close on them rapidly. She threw a stunball at them, but between their large size and power, and having to concentrate on keeping them flying, it didn't appear to have any noticeable effect. The same could not be said for Shimazu though, who flicked his weapon their way and with a shout sent another multi-hued blade of force spearing out, slicing one of the fire-elementals in half. The rest closed, not apparently heeding the risk or danger to themselves as they followed their summoner's commands.
As they closed to point blank range, Tads called on the rest of her spirits, all but the one concealing them, and directed them to join the melee, aiding Shimazu as best they could. Then she deliberately turned her head away, ignoring the combat and concentrating on their escape route, trusting in the rest of the team to deal with the danger behind them, while she tried to avoid whatever lay ahead.
The combat was short and brutal, with spirits tying up the attackers for brief seconds before they were overwhelmed by the stronger elementals – but that gave Shimazu time to strike and recover with his sword, the magical blade slicing through them and banishing them back to their home planes. Again and again he struck, quickly dispatching the foes one after another, while Kai and Aswon continued to try and support him as best they could on either side.
They were halfway to the wall as the last of the elementals fell, floating through the air about ten metres up. Below them they could see guards near the main road, looking up into the night sky, rifles raised as they looked for a target – and their hearts raced when anyone looked their way. But the concealment held, and they floated on silently through the sky, edging closer and closer to safety.
Finally one of the mages in the tower must have made it up to the roof, past the booby traps and devastation they had left behind. Another massive powerball erupted around them, but once more Tad's powerful shield kept them safe, the astral energies wrapping around them, questing fingers of death seeking to encircle them and find a way past the barrier, but discovering the team encircled in a globe of force.
Hunter raised his rifle, and took aim as best he could – they were nearly two hundred metres away now, and Tads had them swooping through the air to throw off the aim of anyone who might spot them, making the target very difficult. Fortunately, he was very good… timing the fire just right, he drilled a burst towards the mage, feeling the rifle stock hammering into his shoulder from the recoil. A moment later, a green wall of force sprang up in front of the tiny figure on the roof, deflecting and absorbing bullets – or at least most of them. It looked like one had gotten through, punching through the barrier and maybe winging the mage a little.
Finally they were at the wall, and once more they dropped like a stone as Tads sent them ground-wards, interposing the massive perimeter structure between them and the tower, cutting them off from line of sight.
They were out of the compound, and away from immediate pursuit.
Now they just had to make it back across the city to the airport and escape undetected…