- Location
- Germany
Urban Wizard with one obvious high fantasy item works pretty well, but it can really only be one
Brockton Bay's Marvelous Mage
- Thread starter MetaBettaOmega
- Start date
Chapter Sixty Five
New
Crow and I continued our patrol for another two hours before I finally had to go fulfill my other duties. We passed the patrol baton on to Manpower and Laserdream while Crow found a nice tall building from which to keep watch. From there, she could see and hear a lot of what was happening in the area, including keeping an eye on our teammates. Both Manpower and Laserdream were warned that we felt something was happening, most likely soon, and they both agreed to signal for help from Crow if they needed it.
I teleported to the hospital, where I was greeted by a relatively busy day, only made more busy when a car accident brought several people in need of emergency healing. Thankfully, no one was killed, but there was a young boy who got awfully close to changing that. The Doctors did a wonderful job stabilizing him until I could get to him, and I put him back together again. I pointed out that, in the future, that was exactly the kind of emergency they should call me in on, especially now that I was only a single teleport away.
When I finished with the hospital, I teleported to the PRT. As usual, I was promptly escorted to the small hospital inside the building, where I was met with the usual group of PRT agents as well as Kid Win, who was in costume. The young tinker perked up a bit as I walked in, but any attention I got was quickly swept to my golems as they followed in behind me.
"Are those your golems?" He asked as I approached his bed, focusing on the injured kid first. He winced after he realized what he just asked, mumbling self-deprecatingly until I cut in.
"They are my golems, my newest version in fact," I answered with a smile. "What do you think?"
"I think they confuse me and Armsmaster," He admitted, watching as one of them stepped to the side to let a nurse through. "We couldn't make heads or tales of the one you gave to us."
"Yeah, unfortunately, I don't think our styles of tinkering line up very well," I responded with a smile. "I bet I have all sorts of people scratching their heads."
"Uh... no comment?"
"Good answer," I said with a chuckle before looking the Ward over. "Alright, so what's got you here instead of school?"
Kid Win winced and rubbed the back of his head before pulling his other hand out from under the blanket, revealing a pretty significant amount of bandaging on it. I could see a minor amount of swelling and some redness peeking out from around the bandages.
"Well… I went into a tinker fugue last night working on a new power source for my- well, for some of my gear," he explained. "An alarm went off for a security check and startled me out of it when I was heating something up. I ended up splashing some of it onto my hand."
"Hmm, okay, shouldn't be an issue, as long as the material wasn't anything exotic?" I asked, smiling when he shook his head. "Great. I'm gonna start by numbing your hand, then we can remove your bandages, then I'll do a scan. Once that's done, I can most likely heal you up. If not, I can at least keep you numb so you aren't in any pain, much better than popping pills, and I can be a lot more specific about what is being numbed."
After he nodded in confirmation, I got to work, following the exact outline I had just given the kid, starting numbing his hand and taking off the bandages. One of the nurses stopped by to help me with that, which helped speed things up. His hand looked more than a little rough, with some significant damage done to his palm and fingers. Without Panacea or me getting involved, he was looking at at least a three-week recovery time, with some not-so-fun physical therapy to keep the scar tissue pliable. Thankfully, I was able to heal the kid completely, casting a couple of spells to wipe the damage away like it never existed. I finished off with a general healing spell to make sure everything was cleared up before nodding.
"Alright, you are fully healed," I said with a smile and a nod. "Just let me remove the numbing effect. It would have faded on its own in about an hour, but there's no reason to make you wait...
I snapped my fingers, mostly for dramatic effect, and the numbing spell fell away a golden sparkle. Noticing the sparkle, Kid Win looked down at his hand, the feeling slowly returning to it, now with absolutely no pain.
"Thank you, Arcanum... that was interesting to watch. Your powers really picked a theme, didn't they?" He pointed out, squeezing and making a fist with his hands, testing his newly healed limbs.
"They very much did, but I'm having fun with them, so I can hardly complain," I admitted with a smirk. "It was good to meet you, Kid Win. Stay safe, and maybe consider some safety procedures that will prevent this from happening next time."
He snorted and nodded, still experimenting with his hand, before I continued on, moving to my next patient, a trooper with a concussion from a training exercise. It was a pretty mild concussion, my scan barely picking up on anything. Still, concussions were no joke, and repeat concussions, even minor ones, were dangerous.
I was just finishing up my scanning spell when my cell rang, and my stomach dropped out just a bit. Very few people had my number, and I had just left one of them by herself to keep an eye on a potentially violent situation. I cursed and picked up the phone, Crow's anxious voice instantly coming through.
"Arc, it's happening," She shouted, catching the attention of a few nurses. Manpower and Laserdream just found a good-sized group of Merchant thugs, but I'm seeing a couple of groups in total. There's a whole moving through the streets."
"Sit tight. I'm coming to you," I responded, wordlessly casting a general healing spell that should be more than enough to fix the PRT agent's minor concussion.
"Take it easy for a few days. You should be fine," I warned the agent before pulling my coiled staff out from under my overcoat. "I'll be back to finish healing eventually. Looks like Merchants are making their move on ABB territory."
I stepped away from the PRT agent's bed, mentally pulling my spellbook from my hip and unwrapping my coiled staff to its fully extended form. I took a deep breath and began chanting, knowing fully well this was the closest look the PRT had gotten to my high-level magic. In a flash, I was once again standing on the building I had left Crow on, the cloaked cape peering over the edge of the roof to watch.
"Okay, so Laserdream and Manpower are still working on their group still, but they seem to have that handled. "But there is a group to the north that is significantly bigger. I say we focus there and clean up later."
"Done and done. PRT should know what's going on soon anyway," I added. "We might get an assist from them… but don't hold your breath."
As we talked, Crow pointed out the large group she was talking about. It took me a moment to spot them, but sure enough, as they crossed an intersection, I caught a flash of several large vehicles and a flash of yellow.
The constant horn honking and gunfire was also a dead giveaway.
"Okay, take my hand, I'll get us close."
She nodded, stood, and grabbed my hand while my golems reached out and gripped my shoulders and forearms. Again I teleported, this time ahead of the caravan of vehicles that I had spotted and Crow had been tracking. Looking down from the building I had landed us on, I could see the vehicles clearly now, heading directly towards us.
Four armored trucks drove in formation with what could only be called the school bus from hell. Half of the trucks were armed with machine guns and plated with scrap, but the bus was something special. Its wheels were replaced with tank treads, with rusty metal spikes running along the sides. I could see two turrets on it, as well as plenty of slots to shoot out from in the armor. Its paint job was crude, and it somehow managed to look ramshackle and sturdy at the same time.
"Alpha, Beta, go stop the forward trucks, Gamma, Delta, disable the bus," I ordered, and all four of my golems moved, vaulting off of the building and running forward.
"I'll head down to pick off any runners and keep them contained," Crow said, pulling out a crowbar and following after the golems, though she dropped into the alleyway and out of sight, probably looking for shadows to blend into.
"I'll give you some cover," I called out after her, the pages of my spellbook flipping over, quickly settling on a spell.
"Fumus et umbra caelum colligant, colligant et praebeant operculum, terram a luce tueantur, terram tenebrarum inferna contegant. Tenebras, umbram tene, donec te ab hoc loco depellam."
As I chanted, I raised my staff, slowly swirling it in the air in a circular motion. After a few rounds, a glowing black circle appeared, following the line I drew, before four arcane sigils appeared inside. As I finished the last words, I thrust the staff through the circle, and like a punctured balloon, thick, black smoke poured through the hole. It shot up into the air and quickly formed a swirling and billowing barrier between the sun's light and the ground, almost drinking it in and spreading heavy shadows along the ground. I could hear Crow's laughter as she faded away, disappearing into the ample cover.
Meanwhile, as I cast my spell, I watched as my golems intercepted the vehicles, following my orders. Alpha and Beta ran straight towards their targets, bullets pinging off their metal bodies, barely leaving scratches as the Merchants tried to take them down, right up until the shiny golems slammed into the front end of the trucks. They were thrown back, of course, but not before absolutely decimating the vehicles. When they landed from the collision, Alpha and Beta just stood up and dusted themselves off. The trucks, however, looked like they had slammed into telephone poles.
Perhaps it was my difference in wording, but Gamma and Delta took a very different approach, instead running down along the sidewalks, passing by Alpha and Beta. They then cut in after the trucks before undercutting the bus, systematically tearing the treads off completely. It skidded and sparked to a stop, just pushing one of the totaled trucks to the side as it did.
I clipped my staff along the ground, quick cast a spell, and brought the gold-imbued amethyst crystal of my staff to my mouth, a pale yellow circle growing just above the pointed tip. As I spoke, a wavelength bounced up and down inside the circle as a pair of arcane symbols slowly spun around it.
"Merchants! Surrender now before we are forced to pacify you forcefully," I ordered, my voice amplified to reverberate over the street. "If you surrender, you will not be harmed. Again, this-"
Before I could repeat myself, I spotted movement on the top of the bus. The emergency escape hatch opened, and rather than a person, a large object was pushed out and locked forward. My brain barely recognized it as vaguely cannon-shaped when Alya shouted in my ear.
"GET DOWN"
I flung myself forward, off of the roof, just in time for a spherical object, a fucking bowling ball, to whistle through the air just where I had just been standing. It continued on to slam into the building behind me, punching through at least the first layer of brickwork before I was too far down to see it anymore.
I continued to fall before managing to get my feet under me and conjure a platform using my boots, burning off my momentum and leaping forward, away from the building. I conjured a second and third, jumping forward with each one until I was only about twenty or thirty feet from trashed trucks.
"Golems, disable weapons on the trucks and focus on apprehending any Merchants who fight back!" I called out, and all four of the golems were moving immediately. "Leave the capes to me!"
The golems ignored the few Merchants climbing out of the ruined trucks, as they were stumbling and clearly not in the fight. Instead, they began smashing and tearing at the truck, disabling the weapons before running back to the other trucks, which had stopped behind the bus as the caravan came to an abrupt stop.
As they were disabling the truck weapons and Merchants, more of the gangsters poured out of the bus, armed with pistols, cheap hunting rifles, and shotguns. I saw two military-esque rifles, and neither of them looked to be in good condition. Half of the gangers seemed to have the shakes, and two of them were facing the wrong direction.
Finally, someone else came out of the bus, shoving and pushing to get in front of the crowd, knocking a few people over in the process. A cape, presumedly Skidmark, with a blue mask covering the top half of his head and a blue shirt and black jeans, all of it covered in stains and tears, started immediately cursing at me.
"Who the fuck are you, shit licker!? You mother fucker, shouting at us an-"
He didn't get to finish, as while he wanted to run his mouth, my golems had no such desire. Screams and gunshots echoed from behind him as the goons in the trucks tried and failed to fight my support off. Hearing his men getting pummeled while he was trying to monologue did not sit well with the drug-addled cape, his face going dark.
"You fucking jizz sucking shit pusher!" He shouted. "Squealer! Paste this piece of shit!"
I could hear the internals of the bus shifting and clunking before the bowling ball cannon raised up slightly and aimed down at me. Not willing to wait and see if I could dodge the next shot now that I was closer. I aimed my staff at the turret and quickly chanted.
"Fulgura meum!"
The powerful blast of electricity, at one point my most powerful lightning spell, now ridiculously easier to cast with two levels in quick cast, fired off from my staff. The beam was even more powerful than usual, focused and fired from a proper arcane focus. The sparking bolt of electricity slammed into the turret with enough force to wrench it off target. The energy sparked and cracked between the weapon and the rest of the vehicle, sending out showers of pyrotechnics as the electricity did its damage.
Then the cannon exploded upward, its ammo or charge cooking off and rending a considerable portion of the weapon off and tossing it to the sidewalk. When the final piece of the cannon scattered across the ground, I lowered my staff, aiming it directly at the large crowd that had pulled in around Skidmark.
The two facing the wrong direction had even managed to get spun around and were now facing the right direction, though neither of them were focused on me.
"Right. Anyone willing to surrender now?" I asked my staff, who was at the ready, watching the stunned Merchants closely.
"No, you shit stain! Ain't no one surrendering to you, sissy ass mother-"
I jab my staff out, a spark of electricity zapping out from the tip of my staff and lancing out across the distance, slapping into Skidmark's shoulder. He was flung back against his gangster subordinates, barreling over a few before slumping to the ground, smoke rising from where I hit him. I slowly stood up straight, the iron cap at the bottom of my staff clicking on the asphalt as I pulled my staff back, staring down the rest of the crowd.
"How about now?"
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I teleported to the hospital, where I was greeted by a relatively busy day, only made more busy when a car accident brought several people in need of emergency healing. Thankfully, no one was killed, but there was a young boy who got awfully close to changing that. The Doctors did a wonderful job stabilizing him until I could get to him, and I put him back together again. I pointed out that, in the future, that was exactly the kind of emergency they should call me in on, especially now that I was only a single teleport away.
When I finished with the hospital, I teleported to the PRT. As usual, I was promptly escorted to the small hospital inside the building, where I was met with the usual group of PRT agents as well as Kid Win, who was in costume. The young tinker perked up a bit as I walked in, but any attention I got was quickly swept to my golems as they followed in behind me.
"Are those your golems?" He asked as I approached his bed, focusing on the injured kid first. He winced after he realized what he just asked, mumbling self-deprecatingly until I cut in.
"They are my golems, my newest version in fact," I answered with a smile. "What do you think?"
"I think they confuse me and Armsmaster," He admitted, watching as one of them stepped to the side to let a nurse through. "We couldn't make heads or tales of the one you gave to us."
"Yeah, unfortunately, I don't think our styles of tinkering line up very well," I responded with a smile. "I bet I have all sorts of people scratching their heads."
"Uh... no comment?"
"Good answer," I said with a chuckle before looking the Ward over. "Alright, so what's got you here instead of school?"
Kid Win winced and rubbed the back of his head before pulling his other hand out from under the blanket, revealing a pretty significant amount of bandaging on it. I could see a minor amount of swelling and some redness peeking out from around the bandages.
"Well… I went into a tinker fugue last night working on a new power source for my- well, for some of my gear," he explained. "An alarm went off for a security check and startled me out of it when I was heating something up. I ended up splashing some of it onto my hand."
"Hmm, okay, shouldn't be an issue, as long as the material wasn't anything exotic?" I asked, smiling when he shook his head. "Great. I'm gonna start by numbing your hand, then we can remove your bandages, then I'll do a scan. Once that's done, I can most likely heal you up. If not, I can at least keep you numb so you aren't in any pain, much better than popping pills, and I can be a lot more specific about what is being numbed."
After he nodded in confirmation, I got to work, following the exact outline I had just given the kid, starting numbing his hand and taking off the bandages. One of the nurses stopped by to help me with that, which helped speed things up. His hand looked more than a little rough, with some significant damage done to his palm and fingers. Without Panacea or me getting involved, he was looking at at least a three-week recovery time, with some not-so-fun physical therapy to keep the scar tissue pliable. Thankfully, I was able to heal the kid completely, casting a couple of spells to wipe the damage away like it never existed. I finished off with a general healing spell to make sure everything was cleared up before nodding.
"Alright, you are fully healed," I said with a smile and a nod. "Just let me remove the numbing effect. It would have faded on its own in about an hour, but there's no reason to make you wait...
I snapped my fingers, mostly for dramatic effect, and the numbing spell fell away a golden sparkle. Noticing the sparkle, Kid Win looked down at his hand, the feeling slowly returning to it, now with absolutely no pain.
"Thank you, Arcanum... that was interesting to watch. Your powers really picked a theme, didn't they?" He pointed out, squeezing and making a fist with his hands, testing his newly healed limbs.
"They very much did, but I'm having fun with them, so I can hardly complain," I admitted with a smirk. "It was good to meet you, Kid Win. Stay safe, and maybe consider some safety procedures that will prevent this from happening next time."
He snorted and nodded, still experimenting with his hand, before I continued on, moving to my next patient, a trooper with a concussion from a training exercise. It was a pretty mild concussion, my scan barely picking up on anything. Still, concussions were no joke, and repeat concussions, even minor ones, were dangerous.
I was just finishing up my scanning spell when my cell rang, and my stomach dropped out just a bit. Very few people had my number, and I had just left one of them by herself to keep an eye on a potentially violent situation. I cursed and picked up the phone, Crow's anxious voice instantly coming through.
"Arc, it's happening," She shouted, catching the attention of a few nurses. Manpower and Laserdream just found a good-sized group of Merchant thugs, but I'm seeing a couple of groups in total. There's a whole moving through the streets."
"Sit tight. I'm coming to you," I responded, wordlessly casting a general healing spell that should be more than enough to fix the PRT agent's minor concussion.
"Take it easy for a few days. You should be fine," I warned the agent before pulling my coiled staff out from under my overcoat. "I'll be back to finish healing eventually. Looks like Merchants are making their move on ABB territory."
I stepped away from the PRT agent's bed, mentally pulling my spellbook from my hip and unwrapping my coiled staff to its fully extended form. I took a deep breath and began chanting, knowing fully well this was the closest look the PRT had gotten to my high-level magic. In a flash, I was once again standing on the building I had left Crow on, the cloaked cape peering over the edge of the roof to watch.
"Okay, so Laserdream and Manpower are still working on their group still, but they seem to have that handled. "But there is a group to the north that is significantly bigger. I say we focus there and clean up later."
"Done and done. PRT should know what's going on soon anyway," I added. "We might get an assist from them… but don't hold your breath."
As we talked, Crow pointed out the large group she was talking about. It took me a moment to spot them, but sure enough, as they crossed an intersection, I caught a flash of several large vehicles and a flash of yellow.
The constant horn honking and gunfire was also a dead giveaway.
"Okay, take my hand, I'll get us close."
She nodded, stood, and grabbed my hand while my golems reached out and gripped my shoulders and forearms. Again I teleported, this time ahead of the caravan of vehicles that I had spotted and Crow had been tracking. Looking down from the building I had landed us on, I could see the vehicles clearly now, heading directly towards us.
Four armored trucks drove in formation with what could only be called the school bus from hell. Half of the trucks were armed with machine guns and plated with scrap, but the bus was something special. Its wheels were replaced with tank treads, with rusty metal spikes running along the sides. I could see two turrets on it, as well as plenty of slots to shoot out from in the armor. Its paint job was crude, and it somehow managed to look ramshackle and sturdy at the same time.
"Alpha, Beta, go stop the forward trucks, Gamma, Delta, disable the bus," I ordered, and all four of my golems moved, vaulting off of the building and running forward.
"I'll head down to pick off any runners and keep them contained," Crow said, pulling out a crowbar and following after the golems, though she dropped into the alleyway and out of sight, probably looking for shadows to blend into.
"I'll give you some cover," I called out after her, the pages of my spellbook flipping over, quickly settling on a spell.
"Fumus et umbra caelum colligant, colligant et praebeant operculum, terram a luce tueantur, terram tenebrarum inferna contegant. Tenebras, umbram tene, donec te ab hoc loco depellam."
As I chanted, I raised my staff, slowly swirling it in the air in a circular motion. After a few rounds, a glowing black circle appeared, following the line I drew, before four arcane sigils appeared inside. As I finished the last words, I thrust the staff through the circle, and like a punctured balloon, thick, black smoke poured through the hole. It shot up into the air and quickly formed a swirling and billowing barrier between the sun's light and the ground, almost drinking it in and spreading heavy shadows along the ground. I could hear Crow's laughter as she faded away, disappearing into the ample cover.
Meanwhile, as I cast my spell, I watched as my golems intercepted the vehicles, following my orders. Alpha and Beta ran straight towards their targets, bullets pinging off their metal bodies, barely leaving scratches as the Merchants tried to take them down, right up until the shiny golems slammed into the front end of the trucks. They were thrown back, of course, but not before absolutely decimating the vehicles. When they landed from the collision, Alpha and Beta just stood up and dusted themselves off. The trucks, however, looked like they had slammed into telephone poles.
Perhaps it was my difference in wording, but Gamma and Delta took a very different approach, instead running down along the sidewalks, passing by Alpha and Beta. They then cut in after the trucks before undercutting the bus, systematically tearing the treads off completely. It skidded and sparked to a stop, just pushing one of the totaled trucks to the side as it did.
I clipped my staff along the ground, quick cast a spell, and brought the gold-imbued amethyst crystal of my staff to my mouth, a pale yellow circle growing just above the pointed tip. As I spoke, a wavelength bounced up and down inside the circle as a pair of arcane symbols slowly spun around it.
"Merchants! Surrender now before we are forced to pacify you forcefully," I ordered, my voice amplified to reverberate over the street. "If you surrender, you will not be harmed. Again, this-"
Before I could repeat myself, I spotted movement on the top of the bus. The emergency escape hatch opened, and rather than a person, a large object was pushed out and locked forward. My brain barely recognized it as vaguely cannon-shaped when Alya shouted in my ear.
"GET DOWN"
I flung myself forward, off of the roof, just in time for a spherical object, a fucking bowling ball, to whistle through the air just where I had just been standing. It continued on to slam into the building behind me, punching through at least the first layer of brickwork before I was too far down to see it anymore.
I continued to fall before managing to get my feet under me and conjure a platform using my boots, burning off my momentum and leaping forward, away from the building. I conjured a second and third, jumping forward with each one until I was only about twenty or thirty feet from trashed trucks.
"Golems, disable weapons on the trucks and focus on apprehending any Merchants who fight back!" I called out, and all four of the golems were moving immediately. "Leave the capes to me!"
The golems ignored the few Merchants climbing out of the ruined trucks, as they were stumbling and clearly not in the fight. Instead, they began smashing and tearing at the truck, disabling the weapons before running back to the other trucks, which had stopped behind the bus as the caravan came to an abrupt stop.
As they were disabling the truck weapons and Merchants, more of the gangsters poured out of the bus, armed with pistols, cheap hunting rifles, and shotguns. I saw two military-esque rifles, and neither of them looked to be in good condition. Half of the gangers seemed to have the shakes, and two of them were facing the wrong direction.
Finally, someone else came out of the bus, shoving and pushing to get in front of the crowd, knocking a few people over in the process. A cape, presumedly Skidmark, with a blue mask covering the top half of his head and a blue shirt and black jeans, all of it covered in stains and tears, started immediately cursing at me.
"Who the fuck are you, shit licker!? You mother fucker, shouting at us an-"
He didn't get to finish, as while he wanted to run his mouth, my golems had no such desire. Screams and gunshots echoed from behind him as the goons in the trucks tried and failed to fight my support off. Hearing his men getting pummeled while he was trying to monologue did not sit well with the drug-addled cape, his face going dark.
"You fucking jizz sucking shit pusher!" He shouted. "Squealer! Paste this piece of shit!"
I could hear the internals of the bus shifting and clunking before the bowling ball cannon raised up slightly and aimed down at me. Not willing to wait and see if I could dodge the next shot now that I was closer. I aimed my staff at the turret and quickly chanted.
"Fulgura meum!"
The powerful blast of electricity, at one point my most powerful lightning spell, now ridiculously easier to cast with two levels in quick cast, fired off from my staff. The beam was even more powerful than usual, focused and fired from a proper arcane focus. The sparking bolt of electricity slammed into the turret with enough force to wrench it off target. The energy sparked and cracked between the weapon and the rest of the vehicle, sending out showers of pyrotechnics as the electricity did its damage.
Then the cannon exploded upward, its ammo or charge cooking off and rending a considerable portion of the weapon off and tossing it to the sidewalk. When the final piece of the cannon scattered across the ground, I lowered my staff, aiming it directly at the large crowd that had pulled in around Skidmark.
The two facing the wrong direction had even managed to get spun around and were now facing the right direction, though neither of them were focused on me.
"Right. Anyone willing to surrender now?" I asked my staff, who was at the ready, watching the stunned Merchants closely.
"No, you shit stain! Ain't no one surrendering to you, sissy ass mother-"
I jab my staff out, a spark of electricity zapping out from the tip of my staff and lancing out across the distance, slapping into Skidmark's shoulder. He was flung back against his gangster subordinates, barreling over a few before slumping to the ground, smoke rising from where I hit him. I slowly stood up straight, the iron cap at the bottom of my staff clicking on the asphalt as I pulled my staff back, staring down the rest of the crowd.
"How about now?"
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And then there were two left, for brockten bay it seems.
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ScreamyBirb
Here is Screaming
I'm just staring at Coil. This... is the perfect moment for a bunch of electric-flavoured tinker bombs to frame Arcanum for excessive force and/or mass murder.
Chapter Sixty Six
New
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Between my hanging threat and the approaching promise of violence from my golems, the majority of the Merchants surrendered almost immediately. A few tried to make a run for it, only for Crow to phase out of the shadows and take them down pretty quickly, smacking them around with her crowbar.
The gangers that didn't run or surrender immediately focused their ire on me, firing whatever guns they had. It was only after I stood there, bullets slapping against my overcoat's armor and deforming, before falling to the ground uselessly, that even they surrendered.
Weapons were gathered, and the police were called, as were the PRT, since we had both capes and regular civilians on our hands. I stabilized Skidmark, just making sure he wasn't dead or my electric attack didn't upset his heart, before sinking a knockout spark into his chest to confirm he would be out for several more hours.
Once we had everyone on their knees, with the golems and Crow watching over them, I went inside the bus to make sure it was clear. I half expected Squealer to be waiting inside, setting up some sort of tinker ambush or last-ditch escape attempt. Instead, I found her with a shard of shrapnel in her stomach and a cut along her head from when I zapped the bowling ball cannon. In all likelihood, she also had deeper trauma as well, so I quickly patched her up enough to be safe to move. When my scan came back at an acceptable level, I dragged her outside and laid her next to Skidmark before slapping her with a knockout zap as well.
It wasn't long after that that the Protectorate showed up. Assault and Battery arrived first on foot, using their powers to quickly traverse the city. Not long after they showed up, Armsmaster arrived on his overly loud Motorcycle.
I hadn't had the pleasure of meeting the highly regarded tinker yet, but I had done enough research to recognize him on sight. While Assault and Battery focused on first scanning and clearing the perimeter, the blue-armored hero immediately made his way to me. I was standing beside the two unconscious Merchant capes, keeping an eye on them in case they needed another knockout dose. I was pretty sure neither of them had a regeneration or brute rating, so it was doubtful they would wake up early. Still, better safe than sorry.
"Arcanum, Crow," The bearded cape greeted confidently, nodding to each of us with his halberd affixed to his back. "Are the suspects stabilized?"
"Yes, they are safe to be moved," I assured him. "Skidmark has some exterior bruises and a few hairline fractures on his left arm, and Squealer has some internal bruising and at least a few fractured bones in her hands."
As far as I could tell, Squealer had been manning the bowling ball turret when I energetically disabled it, putting her in the blast zone for when its charge cooked off. The kickback did the damage to her hands and threw her across the interior of the modified bus.
"Very well."
I looked at Crow when he said nothing beyond that, simply bending over to run a scanner over the capes before nodding and turning to the bus. Immediately, he began to examine and scan it, carefully cracking open a hatch I hadn't even noticed to look inside. I cocked my head to the side and opened my mouth, only for Assault to pat my shoulder.
"Don't mind him, he has a bit of a one-track mind when it comes to… well, everything," He explained with a wince. "The standard procedure for any Protectorate tinker is, after the criminals are reasonably secure, to confirm that no tinker tech is unstable or potentially threatening."
"Gotcha. Well, As far as we know, it's just Squealer and Skidmark for capes," I said with a frown. "Unless you know of anyone joining up with them?"
"Nope, no news there," He confirmed. "Our wagon will be here shortly, and the BBPD shouldn't be far behind."
"Good. We should do this fast. I don't know how long the ABB is gonna stay quiet with all of us grouped up like this," I pointed out, getting a sympathetic wince from the red-themed cape. "We also saw at least one other group of Merchants beyond the one Manpower and Laserdream were dealing with."
"Yeah…Okay, good point… I'm gonna go see if I can't get Halbeard to speed things up."
Assault walked away, waving to his partner Battery as she kept an eye on the perimeter. I made my way to Crow, who was still keeping an eye on everyone we had captured.
"Crow, do me a favor and go up somewhere and keep an eye on the area," I requested. "And get in contact with Manpower and Laserdream, see how they are doing."
"That third group I saw could be anywhere by now, Arc," She pointed out.
"I know, and I'm worried what sort of shit they are going to start," I said with a frown. "If Laserdream is free, ask her to fly straight up and see if she can spot any issues."
Crow nodded and faded into a nearby shadow, heading towards a fire escape not too far away. Barely a second passed before Assault and Armsmaster returned, the blue and red armor clashing quite a bit as they approached.
"Arcanum, are you aware of the intent behind this attack?" Armsmaster asked, standing rigidly beside his compatriot.
"Beyond pushing into new, more profitable territory?" I suggested. "No, I don't. Why?"
"Simply attempting to establish motive and investigate the scene," Armsmaster responded.
"Oh, that's easy," I responded, looking around the crowd and picking out one of the gangers who still looked very confused. "Let's just ask."
I waded through the gangers, who had been behaving so far, all of them warily watching the golems who stood around them. I grabbed one of the clearly high Merchants, trying my best to ignore the smell, guiding him around the other side of the school bus.
"Arcanum, what are you doing?" Armsmaster asked. "We cannot interrogate before we read them their rights, and we cannot-"
"The PRT or Protectorate can't," I pointed out in response before shaking my head. "Besides, I'm just asking some questions."
I got the guy to sit on some of the ruined track systems attached to the bus before flashing the man with my palm light, casting it wordlessly and flickering it on and off quickly. It took a second, but the man came around enough to focus on me, his yellow, bloodshot eyes heavily dilated.
"What do you want?" he asked, his body jittering as he looked at the two heroes behind me. "I'm not talking."
"Of course you aren't," I agreed easily, nodding along as I reached forward to brush off the dust and dirt off his shoulder. "That would make sense. Both of your gang's capes are lying in a puddle of drool, cuffed and blindfolded. No one is coming to break you out, and you don't strike me as someone who can afford bail. Face it, buddy, your team lost, and now you are screwed. However… If you tell me what is going on, I can put in a good word for you."
"You… really?" he asked, his addled mind latching on to even the hint of coming out of this unscathed.
"Of course! That's how it works, right? Criminal helps the good guys catch a bigger criminal, everything works out," I assured him. "Haven't you ever seen a movie?"
"I… I don't know…"
"Look, if you can't help me, that's okay," I said, patting his shoulder. "I'll just bring you back and grab the next guy. I'm sure someone is willing to speak up and take what I'm offering. I mean, everyone else will be screwed, but that guy will be fine."
"Well…No, I want it, I'll tell you," he said, looking over his shoulder at the rest of his gang. "See, Skidmark said it would be easy. The ABB doesn't have anyone to protect them, so they are easy pickings."
"That's… an opinion," I stated, shaking my head. "So this whole caravan was on its way to rob an ABB drughouse?"
"And to hurt em before they can fight back!" The man declared a bit more fire in his voice. "They always look down on us, everyone does, so we were gonna show them they aren't no better than us without their big bad dragon fucker."
"Well, congrats, you proved nothing, and now you're going to jail," I said, shaking my head before turning to Assault and Armsmaster. "See, now we know what's going on."
"And potentially damaged the case that the police will bring against him," Armsmaster pointed out with a frown.
"The worst they could do is throw out the info we just learned since it was under questionable circumstances," I pointed out with a raised eyebrow. "He is already at the scene of a crime, is clearly high, was armed with a gun which I'm sure isn't registered to him, and whatever else the cops can get on him."
"You don't plan on putting in a good word for him?" Assault asked, a frown forming. "That's not good for your reputation."
"No, I'll let the BBPD know," I assured him. "Not eager to make myself out to be a liar, not over this."
In truth, how much my "word" would do was questionable at best. I wasn't planning on saying anything beyond telling them he had been helpful in figuring out what was going on before passing on what he had told me.
It took another eight minutes for the PRT and Police wagons to show up and start loading people up. First was Skidmark and Squealer, both of them blessedly still unconscious as they were loaded up and driven away. After that, the police started loading up unpowered gang members, throwing them in the back of police cars and driving away. It took about forty minutes in total for everyone to be cleared off the scene, during which Crow and I both gave our statements.
By the time we finally left to meet up with Manpower and Laserdream, the PRT was beginning to load up and tow away Squealer's bus and the four armored trucks. Armsmaster was on the scene the whole time, shaking his head and watching the process. The man was incredibly stoic. The only emotion I had seen clearly on the exposed parts of his face was annoyance as he examined the scrap vehicles Squealer had made.
As we met up with our New Wave allies, I quickly made sure to give them a quick check-up, healing bruises, scrapes, and one minor laceration. Once they were healed, we had an impromptu meeting on a rooftop near where they had intercepted their group of Merchants.
"I'm glad we managed to take down two groups, as well as the Merchant capes… But I'm concerned about what happened to the third," I admitted, shaking my head. "They just up and vanished."
"They must have been spooked when you ransacked the main group," Laserdream suggested. "Sounds like you handled them pretty well. You started after us and finished before us."
"To be fair, having four bulletproof brutes on hand to coordinate with gave us a pretty big advantage," I pointed out. "Plus, with Crow stopping anyone looking to cut their losses and run for it… I mean, how much time did you guys spend running down people?"
"Not as much as you think, but we appreciate the kind words," Manpower responded with a smile. "But I agree with Laserdream. It's likely they folded and retreated when they realized their leader was down. Unorganized gangs like the Merchants don't last very long when their primary leaders are torn out."
"Okay, so hope for the best, but plan as if the other merchants aren't giving up," Crow said, getting a nod from the older hero. "Sounds like a plan."
We continued on patrol for another two hours before Manpower and Laserdream switched off with Glory Girl, Shielder, and Lady Photon. After sitting down and giving them the short version of our intercepted attack, Crow and I left the rest to the Manpower and Laserdream. We had been patrolling for several hours by that point, and we were both ready for a break. After a quick jump to the PRT to finish healing, I took Olivia out for the promised lunch, though it was actually getting a bit late for it.
Once we were both out of costume, we walked around the city for a bit before ending up at a pizza place that she was familiar with. We ended up getting a pizza to go and taking it to a nearby park to eat.
"So… you and your guys did well today," Olivia said vaguely. "I was just kind of sitting and waiting on the sidelines."
"Maybe, but today was pretty straightforward. Who knows what might happen next time. I mean, think of it this way. We would have been useless if we were trying to keep a low profile," I pointed out. "Different strengths and weaknesses. Besides, just because you got less done doesn't mean what you got done wasn't important. You stopped the… stragglers, I couldn't have done that without you."
"Sure, sure, alright," She responded, taking a big bite of her pizza and chewing it for a moment in silence before talking out the side of her mouth. "So what's next?'
"I'm going home, getting Troy, and then going back to ABB territory," I explained quietly. "I'm going to ride back and forth and scour every inch of their territory for the Farm. This fight taught me I've been underestimating my tools and my allies. We are capable of doing this, and I want the Farm gone. I don't care if I have to spend the rest of the week awake looking for it."
"Okay… I'll ask around, see if I can't narrow down your search area," She offered. "But you better not be planning on attacking it yourself. I know it's horrific, but even with your golems and your powers, you can be overwhelmed with just numbers if they are insistent enough. Not to mention the fact that even if they can't hurt you, they may start taking hostages instead. Find them, then bring me and New Wave in. We can take them down quickly before they have a chance to start getting stupid.
"Yeah, yeah, alright. I'll find it, and we can make a plan together," I agreed, nodding my head.
"Promise me," She said, looking at me sternly. "Not 'cause I think you're stupid, but because I think your noble ass is going to push you to go in immediately, and you'll end up hating yourself for rushing in and not waiting for backup."
"That… Yeah, okay, fine, I promise," I agreed, leaning back on the bench. "Pretty sure I'm going to hate it either way, but yes, I promise to leave it until I have adequate backup and a plan."
"Good. Now eat before it gets cold," She finished, both of us going silent for a while before she finally spoke up again.
"I'm with you on this one, Will. The Farm is an abomination, and if you can find it, we can shut it down."
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Between my hanging threat and the approaching promise of violence from my golems, the majority of the Merchants surrendered almost immediately. A few tried to make a run for it, only for Crow to phase out of the shadows and take them down pretty quickly, smacking them around with her crowbar.
The gangers that didn't run or surrender immediately focused their ire on me, firing whatever guns they had. It was only after I stood there, bullets slapping against my overcoat's armor and deforming, before falling to the ground uselessly, that even they surrendered.
Weapons were gathered, and the police were called, as were the PRT, since we had both capes and regular civilians on our hands. I stabilized Skidmark, just making sure he wasn't dead or my electric attack didn't upset his heart, before sinking a knockout spark into his chest to confirm he would be out for several more hours.
Once we had everyone on their knees, with the golems and Crow watching over them, I went inside the bus to make sure it was clear. I half expected Squealer to be waiting inside, setting up some sort of tinker ambush or last-ditch escape attempt. Instead, I found her with a shard of shrapnel in her stomach and a cut along her head from when I zapped the bowling ball cannon. In all likelihood, she also had deeper trauma as well, so I quickly patched her up enough to be safe to move. When my scan came back at an acceptable level, I dragged her outside and laid her next to Skidmark before slapping her with a knockout zap as well.
It wasn't long after that that the Protectorate showed up. Assault and Battery arrived first on foot, using their powers to quickly traverse the city. Not long after they showed up, Armsmaster arrived on his overly loud Motorcycle.
I hadn't had the pleasure of meeting the highly regarded tinker yet, but I had done enough research to recognize him on sight. While Assault and Battery focused on first scanning and clearing the perimeter, the blue-armored hero immediately made his way to me. I was standing beside the two unconscious Merchant capes, keeping an eye on them in case they needed another knockout dose. I was pretty sure neither of them had a regeneration or brute rating, so it was doubtful they would wake up early. Still, better safe than sorry.
"Arcanum, Crow," The bearded cape greeted confidently, nodding to each of us with his halberd affixed to his back. "Are the suspects stabilized?"
"Yes, they are safe to be moved," I assured him. "Skidmark has some exterior bruises and a few hairline fractures on his left arm, and Squealer has some internal bruising and at least a few fractured bones in her hands."
As far as I could tell, Squealer had been manning the bowling ball turret when I energetically disabled it, putting her in the blast zone for when its charge cooked off. The kickback did the damage to her hands and threw her across the interior of the modified bus.
"Very well."
I looked at Crow when he said nothing beyond that, simply bending over to run a scanner over the capes before nodding and turning to the bus. Immediately, he began to examine and scan it, carefully cracking open a hatch I hadn't even noticed to look inside. I cocked my head to the side and opened my mouth, only for Assault to pat my shoulder.
"Don't mind him, he has a bit of a one-track mind when it comes to… well, everything," He explained with a wince. "The standard procedure for any Protectorate tinker is, after the criminals are reasonably secure, to confirm that no tinker tech is unstable or potentially threatening."
"Gotcha. Well, As far as we know, it's just Squealer and Skidmark for capes," I said with a frown. "Unless you know of anyone joining up with them?"
"Nope, no news there," He confirmed. "Our wagon will be here shortly, and the BBPD shouldn't be far behind."
"Good. We should do this fast. I don't know how long the ABB is gonna stay quiet with all of us grouped up like this," I pointed out, getting a sympathetic wince from the red-themed cape. "We also saw at least one other group of Merchants beyond the one Manpower and Laserdream were dealing with."
"Yeah…Okay, good point… I'm gonna go see if I can't get Halbeard to speed things up."
Assault walked away, waving to his partner Battery as she kept an eye on the perimeter. I made my way to Crow, who was still keeping an eye on everyone we had captured.
"Crow, do me a favor and go up somewhere and keep an eye on the area," I requested. "And get in contact with Manpower and Laserdream, see how they are doing."
"That third group I saw could be anywhere by now, Arc," She pointed out.
"I know, and I'm worried what sort of shit they are going to start," I said with a frown. "If Laserdream is free, ask her to fly straight up and see if she can spot any issues."
Crow nodded and faded into a nearby shadow, heading towards a fire escape not too far away. Barely a second passed before Assault and Armsmaster returned, the blue and red armor clashing quite a bit as they approached.
"Arcanum, are you aware of the intent behind this attack?" Armsmaster asked, standing rigidly beside his compatriot.
"Beyond pushing into new, more profitable territory?" I suggested. "No, I don't. Why?"
"Simply attempting to establish motive and investigate the scene," Armsmaster responded.
"Oh, that's easy," I responded, looking around the crowd and picking out one of the gangers who still looked very confused. "Let's just ask."
I waded through the gangers, who had been behaving so far, all of them warily watching the golems who stood around them. I grabbed one of the clearly high Merchants, trying my best to ignore the smell, guiding him around the other side of the school bus.
"Arcanum, what are you doing?" Armsmaster asked. "We cannot interrogate before we read them their rights, and we cannot-"
"The PRT or Protectorate can't," I pointed out in response before shaking my head. "Besides, I'm just asking some questions."
I got the guy to sit on some of the ruined track systems attached to the bus before flashing the man with my palm light, casting it wordlessly and flickering it on and off quickly. It took a second, but the man came around enough to focus on me, his yellow, bloodshot eyes heavily dilated.
"What do you want?" he asked, his body jittering as he looked at the two heroes behind me. "I'm not talking."
"Of course you aren't," I agreed easily, nodding along as I reached forward to brush off the dust and dirt off his shoulder. "That would make sense. Both of your gang's capes are lying in a puddle of drool, cuffed and blindfolded. No one is coming to break you out, and you don't strike me as someone who can afford bail. Face it, buddy, your team lost, and now you are screwed. However… If you tell me what is going on, I can put in a good word for you."
"You… really?" he asked, his addled mind latching on to even the hint of coming out of this unscathed.
"Of course! That's how it works, right? Criminal helps the good guys catch a bigger criminal, everything works out," I assured him. "Haven't you ever seen a movie?"
"I… I don't know…"
"Look, if you can't help me, that's okay," I said, patting his shoulder. "I'll just bring you back and grab the next guy. I'm sure someone is willing to speak up and take what I'm offering. I mean, everyone else will be screwed, but that guy will be fine."
"Well…No, I want it, I'll tell you," he said, looking over his shoulder at the rest of his gang. "See, Skidmark said it would be easy. The ABB doesn't have anyone to protect them, so they are easy pickings."
"That's… an opinion," I stated, shaking my head. "So this whole caravan was on its way to rob an ABB drughouse?"
"And to hurt em before they can fight back!" The man declared a bit more fire in his voice. "They always look down on us, everyone does, so we were gonna show them they aren't no better than us without their big bad dragon fucker."
"Well, congrats, you proved nothing, and now you're going to jail," I said, shaking my head before turning to Assault and Armsmaster. "See, now we know what's going on."
"And potentially damaged the case that the police will bring against him," Armsmaster pointed out with a frown.
"The worst they could do is throw out the info we just learned since it was under questionable circumstances," I pointed out with a raised eyebrow. "He is already at the scene of a crime, is clearly high, was armed with a gun which I'm sure isn't registered to him, and whatever else the cops can get on him."
"You don't plan on putting in a good word for him?" Assault asked, a frown forming. "That's not good for your reputation."
"No, I'll let the BBPD know," I assured him. "Not eager to make myself out to be a liar, not over this."
In truth, how much my "word" would do was questionable at best. I wasn't planning on saying anything beyond telling them he had been helpful in figuring out what was going on before passing on what he had told me.
It took another eight minutes for the PRT and Police wagons to show up and start loading people up. First was Skidmark and Squealer, both of them blessedly still unconscious as they were loaded up and driven away. After that, the police started loading up unpowered gang members, throwing them in the back of police cars and driving away. It took about forty minutes in total for everyone to be cleared off the scene, during which Crow and I both gave our statements.
By the time we finally left to meet up with Manpower and Laserdream, the PRT was beginning to load up and tow away Squealer's bus and the four armored trucks. Armsmaster was on the scene the whole time, shaking his head and watching the process. The man was incredibly stoic. The only emotion I had seen clearly on the exposed parts of his face was annoyance as he examined the scrap vehicles Squealer had made.
As we met up with our New Wave allies, I quickly made sure to give them a quick check-up, healing bruises, scrapes, and one minor laceration. Once they were healed, we had an impromptu meeting on a rooftop near where they had intercepted their group of Merchants.
"I'm glad we managed to take down two groups, as well as the Merchant capes… But I'm concerned about what happened to the third," I admitted, shaking my head. "They just up and vanished."
"They must have been spooked when you ransacked the main group," Laserdream suggested. "Sounds like you handled them pretty well. You started after us and finished before us."
"To be fair, having four bulletproof brutes on hand to coordinate with gave us a pretty big advantage," I pointed out. "Plus, with Crow stopping anyone looking to cut their losses and run for it… I mean, how much time did you guys spend running down people?"
"Not as much as you think, but we appreciate the kind words," Manpower responded with a smile. "But I agree with Laserdream. It's likely they folded and retreated when they realized their leader was down. Unorganized gangs like the Merchants don't last very long when their primary leaders are torn out."
"Okay, so hope for the best, but plan as if the other merchants aren't giving up," Crow said, getting a nod from the older hero. "Sounds like a plan."
We continued on patrol for another two hours before Manpower and Laserdream switched off with Glory Girl, Shielder, and Lady Photon. After sitting down and giving them the short version of our intercepted attack, Crow and I left the rest to the Manpower and Laserdream. We had been patrolling for several hours by that point, and we were both ready for a break. After a quick jump to the PRT to finish healing, I took Olivia out for the promised lunch, though it was actually getting a bit late for it.
Once we were both out of costume, we walked around the city for a bit before ending up at a pizza place that she was familiar with. We ended up getting a pizza to go and taking it to a nearby park to eat.
"So… you and your guys did well today," Olivia said vaguely. "I was just kind of sitting and waiting on the sidelines."
"Maybe, but today was pretty straightforward. Who knows what might happen next time. I mean, think of it this way. We would have been useless if we were trying to keep a low profile," I pointed out. "Different strengths and weaknesses. Besides, just because you got less done doesn't mean what you got done wasn't important. You stopped the… stragglers, I couldn't have done that without you."
"Sure, sure, alright," She responded, taking a big bite of her pizza and chewing it for a moment in silence before talking out the side of her mouth. "So what's next?'
"I'm going home, getting Troy, and then going back to ABB territory," I explained quietly. "I'm going to ride back and forth and scour every inch of their territory for the Farm. This fight taught me I've been underestimating my tools and my allies. We are capable of doing this, and I want the Farm gone. I don't care if I have to spend the rest of the week awake looking for it."
"Okay… I'll ask around, see if I can't narrow down your search area," She offered. "But you better not be planning on attacking it yourself. I know it's horrific, but even with your golems and your powers, you can be overwhelmed with just numbers if they are insistent enough. Not to mention the fact that even if they can't hurt you, they may start taking hostages instead. Find them, then bring me and New Wave in. We can take them down quickly before they have a chance to start getting stupid.
"Yeah, yeah, alright. I'll find it, and we can make a plan together," I agreed, nodding my head.
"Promise me," She said, looking at me sternly. "Not 'cause I think you're stupid, but because I think your noble ass is going to push you to go in immediately, and you'll end up hating yourself for rushing in and not waiting for backup."
"That… Yeah, okay, fine, I promise," I agreed, leaning back on the bench. "Pretty sure I'm going to hate it either way, but yes, I promise to leave it until I have adequate backup and a plan."
"Good. Now eat before it gets cold," She finished, both of us going silent for a while before she finally spoke up again.
"I'm with you on this one, Will. The Farm is an abomination, and if you can find it, we can shut it down."
Chapter Sixty Seven
New
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It didn't take long for us to finish our meal since we were both hungry from a day of hard work and patrolling. Once we finished, I brought Crow back to the community so she could start doing her own investigations before finally teleporting back home. It wasn't absolutely necessary, but I wanted to let Kali know what was going on and grab Troy.
I was prepared to spend all night patrolling the city, letting Alya peek and search every nook and hidey-hole she could find in order to locate the Farm. That didn't mean I wanted to spend the whole time walking around aimlessly, twiddling my thumbs as Alya did her work. I would if it came down to that, obviously, but luckily, that wasn't necessary. Troy was more or less capable of following simple pathing instructions, which meant I could ride him without paying attention. This meant that I could just ride on Troy's back, letting Alya scan around while I worked on new spells or rituals. Most likely spells for now since I was finally feeling pretty secure in my current gear.
Once I was ready, I spent ten minutes looking at the map that Miss Militia had given me of Brockton Bay, trying to figure out where I had left to scan. Alya had already scanned a significant portion of ABB territory while Crow and I were on patrol, but there were still some sections we needed to go over. After a few minutes of planning, I had a loose path I had planned on taking, a looping circle around the territory I hadn't been quite yet.
After saying goodbye to Kali, I teleported Troy, my golems, and myself to a familiar spot in AB territory, immediately hopping on Troy's back. I easily used a spell to turn his back into a flat table for my notebook before giving him a mental command to walk forward. As we moved, I could feel Alya pull back, diffusing herself over an entire area, poking and prodding to try and find the abominable gang spot. As we began to move, my golems walked around me, their heads turning and scanning for any threats. With Alya and the golems keeping an eye out for anything strange, I felt pretty safe focusing primarily on my own work.
We patrolled for a while, circling along and passing by a few questionable areas, but Alya found nothing related to the Farm. I had gotten about halfway through creating a long-range healing spell, which I was hoping to get down to a three or four-word spell eventually, when Alya pulled in around me again, tugging at me to my right.
"There is a mugging on a street down and to the right," She explained. "Three in ABB colors and two civilians. The ABB are armed."
"Alright, let's go," I said, casting a quick cast spell to have Troy absorb all my papers, calculators, and pencils before mentally urging the golem to pick.
Following Alya's tugging directions, I arrived at a long alley about ten seconds later, just in time to watch some poor man's head meet the stock end of a shotgun. He dropped to the ground like his strings were cut, leaving the three ABB with a single woman who was screaming and sobbing. With a whistle, I sent out three of my brass golems, all of them moving in an incredible burst of speed. They leaped across the ground, one of them vaulting over a series of trash cans like a trained Olympic athlete.
The first one to arrive slammed into the woman a bit roughly, pulling her out of the ganger's line of fire and covering her with his thick metal body. The second and third golems plowed into the gangers, knocking them over like a pair of bowling balls getting a strike. They quickly disarmed and had the ABB ganger pinned to the ground, hands on their shoulders.
The woman was panicking, managing to pull herself free of the golem, mostly cause it wasn't trying to hold her. She fell back onto her backside before scrambling away from me and my golems. Thankfully, once I healed and woke up her partner, she calmed down significantly, wrapping the man in a tight hug. Once they recovered enough, they both apologized and thanked me, sticking around just long enough to give their statement to the police before hurrying off.
Before long, I was back on the path, Alya once again scanning the area as I worked on my magic. I managed to complete my healing ray, which wasn't exactly the most potent healing spell in my repertoire, but even just being able to barely stabilize someone from across the room, maybe even further, was still well worth it.
By then, though, the sun was starting to set, and I could feel the air growing colder. Alya and I had scanned a good chunk of the area that was designated ABB territory, and now we were starting to push further and further away from the city center.
Slowly but surely, the warehouses and large buildings were replaced, generally speaking, by smaller homes and the occasional apartment building. The further we pushed out, the less and less likely it became that we would find the Farm in the direction we were going since not only were there fewer buildings capable of holding a lot of people but there was too much room for people to notice. It was a lot harder to hide a large-scale operation in a small town or the suburbs of a city, if for no other reason than the people living in those areas tended to be a bit nosier.
I pushed as far into the suburbs of Brockton Bay as I felt I could before turning around and making my way back, stopping before I entered what was considered ABB turf. I found a place in an alley for Alya to pull back close to me so I could bounce ideas off of her.
"The likelihood that the farm is in E88 or Protectorate territory is pretty damn small," I said, shaking my head. "I just can't imagine they wouldn't stumble on it eventually. They keep a close watch over that area, there is no way they wouldn't notice."
"I agree, and we've already patrolled a good chunk of that space, and I never saw anything," Alya pointed out, solidifying my statement. "Which leaves Undersiders territory and Merchant territory."
"I've learned a bit about the Undersiders since we first met them," I said with a frown. "Supposedly, their thinker is pretty flexible… And it feels unlikely they would let that slide if they knew about it… if for no other reason than they seemed determined to stay small time."
"So that leaves merchant territory."
"Yeah… and it does make a certain amount of sense, if you think about it. What better way to keep attention off of something than by putting it in someone else's territory?" I pointed out with a frown. "Not only that but according to what we heard from Lady Photon, the Merchants only hold that territory because Lung never bothered to push them back any further. What if that was on purpose, to keep the heat off of the Farm?"
"Maybe?" Alya responded, sounding unsure. "It's a bit loose."
"I know. It's not much to go on, but it's more likely than it being somewhere in Empire territory," I pointed out, a feeling of begrudging agreement coming through our connection. "Plus, we can work through it in a night, cross it off, and start working on new theories."
We discussed a path to follow before I climbed back on top of Troy, setting him to walk along the border of ABB and Merchant territory. We had patrolled a portion of this strip before, but we had been more focused on the ABB territory, so we stopped when the lines diverged. This time, we followed the outskirts of Merchant territory as it ran along the Undersiders. When we didn't find anything, we continued to push into Merchant territory, which was primarily the trainyard and parts of the Docks that the ABB didn't have an interest in.
The area was mostly abandoned, save for the homeless who couldn't find more hospitable places to stay. They huddled by barrel fires, burning tires and trash for warmth, fighting each other to get closer. I had to break up more than one fight over drugs, booze, or food as Alya and I made our way along our pre-planned route. I couldn't help but wonder if there was a way I could help these people, but Alya helped keep me focused.
"These aren't the same kind of people as you help at the docks, Will," She whispered into my ear. "I'm not saying they don't deserve or need help, but you can't just start planting trees and handing out healing and expect it to all workout. There's nobody in charge, and there's no hierarchy or common decency. You saw them fighting over barrels and food. They would be lording over the trees by the end of the first day, selling or trading the fruit. One thing at a time, okay?"
"I just wish I knew they were here like this," I said with a frown. "The community never mentioned them, it always seemed like it was just Merchants up here."
"I think to them, these guys are Merchants," Alya explained. "Drugs run free here, and judging by the looks we are getting, not many of them would say no to the chance of earning a few hits by running with a gang.
I frowned, letting out a long breath. I would try, at some point, to find a way to help these people, but for now, I was hunting down something even darker. I needed to focus. After a moment to gather my thoughts, I continued my patrol across the territory until, finally, Alya told me to stop and head into an alleyway.
"I think… I found something worrying, like a group of people keeping watch," She explained. "It's just on the outskirts of where I can reach. Can you get closer, but while hiding away?"
"Yeah, just let me hide stash Troy first."
I guided the living wood golem further back into the alleyway, encouraging him to lie down behind a dumpster. I covered him in a ratty tarp before stepping back and confirming no one could see him from the street. When I was sure he was hidden, I had Alya guide me in the direction she wanted to see in, all while carefully staying out of sight, creeping through alleys, and hiding in the dark shadows.
First, she confirmed an unmarked group that was absolutely keeping watch, hiding in an abandoned building. All of them were at least some shade of Asian, which was unfortunately telling in this scenario. With Alya's help, I managed to make it past the lookout, discovering a second lookout base in the process but still managing to get further into Merchant territory. Then, after another ten minutes of sneaking around. Alya told me to stop.
"I found it," She said simply, a hollowness in her voice that immediately caught my attention. "There is a warehouse that is run by what looks like a legitimate business, but under it is some sort of large-scale facility, completely sealed off from the surface."
"Could I see it from the roof?" I asked, looking up, already looking for handholds.
"Just barely, it's two roads away, but it's not worth it," She responded. "You… you're going to do something about this soon, right?"
For a moment, Alya sounded more human than she ever had, her voice filled with disgust and horror that made me clench my fists. I could only imagine how bad it must be if it was making her sound like this.
"Yes. As soon as I can convince the others to join us," I said.
"Good. And Olivia was right. Attacking this place alone would have been a mistake," She admitted, pulling in tight around me. "We should go before someone spots us or Troy. Surprise is going to be a big deal clearing this place out with victims getting hurt."
It took a moment and a gentle pull from Alya for me to nod and walk away, heading back the way I had come. Part of me was glad I hadn't climbed up on the roof or that I couldn't get closer. I was pretty sure that if I had, I wouldn't have left, no matter what Alya could say or what I promised Olivia.
I managed to get back to Troy without issue, quickly teleporting home directly from where he had been hidden away. The second I was home, I contacted Olivia and New Wave, explaining that I had found the Farm and that we needed to set up a meeting as soon as possible. Thankfully Sarah Pelham agreed that speed was of the essence, so she agreed to call an emergency meeting, superseded school, work, and all other responsibilities. I also agreed to bring Olivia to the meeting, after getting permission from her, of course. We would be meeting early the next morning, with plans to hopefully bust the Farm before the day was done.
When we were done organizing the meeting, I was about ready to head in for the night. I wanted to try and get as much natural rest as possible, but Alya caught my attention before I could actually lay down.
"William… Perhaps tomorrow we should reveal my existence to New Wave and Crow," She suggested.
"What? Why?" I asked before quickly continuing. "I mean, I don't have a problem if that's what you want. I told you before that I don't want to force you to do anything."
"Will, relax, it's nothing like that," She responded reassuringly. "I feel no difference between only talking to you, talking to no one, or talking to many people at once. I may hold a sliver of your soul, but I am not human. Elementals are not social creatures. But, while I remain bound to you, my task is to help you to the best of my ability."
"Right, which is why I thought you were staying as a trump card."
"I very well could. However, I also think this assault on the Farm has a much greater chance of going well if I am able to assist directly," She explained. "And I know how devastated you would be if it went wrong."
"I… Okay, yeah, I can definitely see how having you guide everyone through would be a lot of help," I admitted, nodding along. "Can you handle that without collapsing like you did with the Nazis?"
"As long as I stay away from using electricity, yes," She responded confidently. "Whispering words into people's ears is simple, and if that's too hard, I can just blow cold or warm breezes around to direct them."
"Right… then yes, if it is okay with you, we should," I said with a nod. "How should we introduce you?"
"As a case fifty-three," She responded simply. "I am a nebulous air creature with a slight changer form and a strong thinker field that allows me to keep track of a large space around me. I've been helping you secretly, mostly because my nature means I would prefer people not to know about me."
"And why is that changing now?"
"Because the Farm is too much for me to ignore," She responded. "And if getting the victims out safely means more people need to know that I exist, then so be it."
"And why we can't separate?" I asked, sitting down on the edge of my bed.
"I… I need a focus point to keep my mind clear, and you are my focus point," She explained. "Maybe even imply a linking process, or that your power is allowing me to think and speak in a more human frame of mind. It's true, after all."
"...Alright, fine. That should work, but we can go over it tomorrow morning to make sure we didn't miss anything," I said, shaking my head before running my hand through my hair. "In the meantime, I need some sleep. I'll see you in the morning."
I could feel her agreement, the bound elemental pulling away to keep watch over the compound. I let out a long sigh before finally laying back on my head, putting my head down on my pillow, and closing my eyes.
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It didn't take long for us to finish our meal since we were both hungry from a day of hard work and patrolling. Once we finished, I brought Crow back to the community so she could start doing her own investigations before finally teleporting back home. It wasn't absolutely necessary, but I wanted to let Kali know what was going on and grab Troy.
I was prepared to spend all night patrolling the city, letting Alya peek and search every nook and hidey-hole she could find in order to locate the Farm. That didn't mean I wanted to spend the whole time walking around aimlessly, twiddling my thumbs as Alya did her work. I would if it came down to that, obviously, but luckily, that wasn't necessary. Troy was more or less capable of following simple pathing instructions, which meant I could ride him without paying attention. This meant that I could just ride on Troy's back, letting Alya scan around while I worked on new spells or rituals. Most likely spells for now since I was finally feeling pretty secure in my current gear.
Once I was ready, I spent ten minutes looking at the map that Miss Militia had given me of Brockton Bay, trying to figure out where I had left to scan. Alya had already scanned a significant portion of ABB territory while Crow and I were on patrol, but there were still some sections we needed to go over. After a few minutes of planning, I had a loose path I had planned on taking, a looping circle around the territory I hadn't been quite yet.
After saying goodbye to Kali, I teleported Troy, my golems, and myself to a familiar spot in AB territory, immediately hopping on Troy's back. I easily used a spell to turn his back into a flat table for my notebook before giving him a mental command to walk forward. As we moved, I could feel Alya pull back, diffusing herself over an entire area, poking and prodding to try and find the abominable gang spot. As we began to move, my golems walked around me, their heads turning and scanning for any threats. With Alya and the golems keeping an eye out for anything strange, I felt pretty safe focusing primarily on my own work.
We patrolled for a while, circling along and passing by a few questionable areas, but Alya found nothing related to the Farm. I had gotten about halfway through creating a long-range healing spell, which I was hoping to get down to a three or four-word spell eventually, when Alya pulled in around me again, tugging at me to my right.
"There is a mugging on a street down and to the right," She explained. "Three in ABB colors and two civilians. The ABB are armed."
"Alright, let's go," I said, casting a quick cast spell to have Troy absorb all my papers, calculators, and pencils before mentally urging the golem to pick.
Following Alya's tugging directions, I arrived at a long alley about ten seconds later, just in time to watch some poor man's head meet the stock end of a shotgun. He dropped to the ground like his strings were cut, leaving the three ABB with a single woman who was screaming and sobbing. With a whistle, I sent out three of my brass golems, all of them moving in an incredible burst of speed. They leaped across the ground, one of them vaulting over a series of trash cans like a trained Olympic athlete.
The first one to arrive slammed into the woman a bit roughly, pulling her out of the ganger's line of fire and covering her with his thick metal body. The second and third golems plowed into the gangers, knocking them over like a pair of bowling balls getting a strike. They quickly disarmed and had the ABB ganger pinned to the ground, hands on their shoulders.
The woman was panicking, managing to pull herself free of the golem, mostly cause it wasn't trying to hold her. She fell back onto her backside before scrambling away from me and my golems. Thankfully, once I healed and woke up her partner, she calmed down significantly, wrapping the man in a tight hug. Once they recovered enough, they both apologized and thanked me, sticking around just long enough to give their statement to the police before hurrying off.
Before long, I was back on the path, Alya once again scanning the area as I worked on my magic. I managed to complete my healing ray, which wasn't exactly the most potent healing spell in my repertoire, but even just being able to barely stabilize someone from across the room, maybe even further, was still well worth it.
By then, though, the sun was starting to set, and I could feel the air growing colder. Alya and I had scanned a good chunk of the area that was designated ABB territory, and now we were starting to push further and further away from the city center.
Slowly but surely, the warehouses and large buildings were replaced, generally speaking, by smaller homes and the occasional apartment building. The further we pushed out, the less and less likely it became that we would find the Farm in the direction we were going since not only were there fewer buildings capable of holding a lot of people but there was too much room for people to notice. It was a lot harder to hide a large-scale operation in a small town or the suburbs of a city, if for no other reason than the people living in those areas tended to be a bit nosier.
I pushed as far into the suburbs of Brockton Bay as I felt I could before turning around and making my way back, stopping before I entered what was considered ABB turf. I found a place in an alley for Alya to pull back close to me so I could bounce ideas off of her.
"The likelihood that the farm is in E88 or Protectorate territory is pretty damn small," I said, shaking my head. "I just can't imagine they wouldn't stumble on it eventually. They keep a close watch over that area, there is no way they wouldn't notice."
"I agree, and we've already patrolled a good chunk of that space, and I never saw anything," Alya pointed out, solidifying my statement. "Which leaves Undersiders territory and Merchant territory."
"I've learned a bit about the Undersiders since we first met them," I said with a frown. "Supposedly, their thinker is pretty flexible… And it feels unlikely they would let that slide if they knew about it… if for no other reason than they seemed determined to stay small time."
"So that leaves merchant territory."
"Yeah… and it does make a certain amount of sense, if you think about it. What better way to keep attention off of something than by putting it in someone else's territory?" I pointed out with a frown. "Not only that but according to what we heard from Lady Photon, the Merchants only hold that territory because Lung never bothered to push them back any further. What if that was on purpose, to keep the heat off of the Farm?"
"Maybe?" Alya responded, sounding unsure. "It's a bit loose."
"I know. It's not much to go on, but it's more likely than it being somewhere in Empire territory," I pointed out, a feeling of begrudging agreement coming through our connection. "Plus, we can work through it in a night, cross it off, and start working on new theories."
We discussed a path to follow before I climbed back on top of Troy, setting him to walk along the border of ABB and Merchant territory. We had patrolled a portion of this strip before, but we had been more focused on the ABB territory, so we stopped when the lines diverged. This time, we followed the outskirts of Merchant territory as it ran along the Undersiders. When we didn't find anything, we continued to push into Merchant territory, which was primarily the trainyard and parts of the Docks that the ABB didn't have an interest in.
The area was mostly abandoned, save for the homeless who couldn't find more hospitable places to stay. They huddled by barrel fires, burning tires and trash for warmth, fighting each other to get closer. I had to break up more than one fight over drugs, booze, or food as Alya and I made our way along our pre-planned route. I couldn't help but wonder if there was a way I could help these people, but Alya helped keep me focused.
"These aren't the same kind of people as you help at the docks, Will," She whispered into my ear. "I'm not saying they don't deserve or need help, but you can't just start planting trees and handing out healing and expect it to all workout. There's nobody in charge, and there's no hierarchy or common decency. You saw them fighting over barrels and food. They would be lording over the trees by the end of the first day, selling or trading the fruit. One thing at a time, okay?"
"I just wish I knew they were here like this," I said with a frown. "The community never mentioned them, it always seemed like it was just Merchants up here."
"I think to them, these guys are Merchants," Alya explained. "Drugs run free here, and judging by the looks we are getting, not many of them would say no to the chance of earning a few hits by running with a gang.
I frowned, letting out a long breath. I would try, at some point, to find a way to help these people, but for now, I was hunting down something even darker. I needed to focus. After a moment to gather my thoughts, I continued my patrol across the territory until, finally, Alya told me to stop and head into an alleyway.
"I think… I found something worrying, like a group of people keeping watch," She explained. "It's just on the outskirts of where I can reach. Can you get closer, but while hiding away?"
"Yeah, just let me hide stash Troy first."
I guided the living wood golem further back into the alleyway, encouraging him to lie down behind a dumpster. I covered him in a ratty tarp before stepping back and confirming no one could see him from the street. When I was sure he was hidden, I had Alya guide me in the direction she wanted to see in, all while carefully staying out of sight, creeping through alleys, and hiding in the dark shadows.
First, she confirmed an unmarked group that was absolutely keeping watch, hiding in an abandoned building. All of them were at least some shade of Asian, which was unfortunately telling in this scenario. With Alya's help, I managed to make it past the lookout, discovering a second lookout base in the process but still managing to get further into Merchant territory. Then, after another ten minutes of sneaking around. Alya told me to stop.
"I found it," She said simply, a hollowness in her voice that immediately caught my attention. "There is a warehouse that is run by what looks like a legitimate business, but under it is some sort of large-scale facility, completely sealed off from the surface."
"Could I see it from the roof?" I asked, looking up, already looking for handholds.
"Just barely, it's two roads away, but it's not worth it," She responded. "You… you're going to do something about this soon, right?"
For a moment, Alya sounded more human than she ever had, her voice filled with disgust and horror that made me clench my fists. I could only imagine how bad it must be if it was making her sound like this.
"Yes. As soon as I can convince the others to join us," I said.
"Good. And Olivia was right. Attacking this place alone would have been a mistake," She admitted, pulling in tight around me. "We should go before someone spots us or Troy. Surprise is going to be a big deal clearing this place out with victims getting hurt."
It took a moment and a gentle pull from Alya for me to nod and walk away, heading back the way I had come. Part of me was glad I hadn't climbed up on the roof or that I couldn't get closer. I was pretty sure that if I had, I wouldn't have left, no matter what Alya could say or what I promised Olivia.
I managed to get back to Troy without issue, quickly teleporting home directly from where he had been hidden away. The second I was home, I contacted Olivia and New Wave, explaining that I had found the Farm and that we needed to set up a meeting as soon as possible. Thankfully Sarah Pelham agreed that speed was of the essence, so she agreed to call an emergency meeting, superseded school, work, and all other responsibilities. I also agreed to bring Olivia to the meeting, after getting permission from her, of course. We would be meeting early the next morning, with plans to hopefully bust the Farm before the day was done.
When we were done organizing the meeting, I was about ready to head in for the night. I wanted to try and get as much natural rest as possible, but Alya caught my attention before I could actually lay down.
"William… Perhaps tomorrow we should reveal my existence to New Wave and Crow," She suggested.
"What? Why?" I asked before quickly continuing. "I mean, I don't have a problem if that's what you want. I told you before that I don't want to force you to do anything."
"Will, relax, it's nothing like that," She responded reassuringly. "I feel no difference between only talking to you, talking to no one, or talking to many people at once. I may hold a sliver of your soul, but I am not human. Elementals are not social creatures. But, while I remain bound to you, my task is to help you to the best of my ability."
"Right, which is why I thought you were staying as a trump card."
"I very well could. However, I also think this assault on the Farm has a much greater chance of going well if I am able to assist directly," She explained. "And I know how devastated you would be if it went wrong."
"I… Okay, yeah, I can definitely see how having you guide everyone through would be a lot of help," I admitted, nodding along. "Can you handle that without collapsing like you did with the Nazis?"
"As long as I stay away from using electricity, yes," She responded confidently. "Whispering words into people's ears is simple, and if that's too hard, I can just blow cold or warm breezes around to direct them."
"Right… then yes, if it is okay with you, we should," I said with a nod. "How should we introduce you?"
"As a case fifty-three," She responded simply. "I am a nebulous air creature with a slight changer form and a strong thinker field that allows me to keep track of a large space around me. I've been helping you secretly, mostly because my nature means I would prefer people not to know about me."
"And why is that changing now?"
"Because the Farm is too much for me to ignore," She responded. "And if getting the victims out safely means more people need to know that I exist, then so be it."
"And why we can't separate?" I asked, sitting down on the edge of my bed.
"I… I need a focus point to keep my mind clear, and you are my focus point," She explained. "Maybe even imply a linking process, or that your power is allowing me to think and speak in a more human frame of mind. It's true, after all."
"...Alright, fine. That should work, but we can go over it tomorrow morning to make sure we didn't miss anything," I said, shaking my head before running my hand through my hair. "In the meantime, I need some sleep. I'll see you in the morning."
I could feel her agreement, the bound elemental pulling away to keep watch over the compound. I let out a long sigh before finally laying back on my head, putting my head down on my pillow, and closing my eyes.
You forgot about his bodyguard Golems from this point in the chapter forward.
The Stormbringer
Worm Fanfic & Crack Connoisseur
- Location
- Spaaaaace~!
Nice! Ayla coming out of hiding is definitely something I've been hoping for.
Cauldron gonna think the custodian had a secret child
- Location
- United States
I've been reading quite a few of these type of fics (Celestial Forge, Grimoire, etc) and I think your character is one of the if not the best. Genuinely Heroic, Intelligent, Modest, and just overall a good person. This is the kind of story that is good for a culture by giving something good to look up to.
Chapter Sixty Eight
New
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I don't know why I expected to be able to sleep well, not with what I now knew and had walked away from. Every time I closed my eyes, my mind couldn't help but flick over to a litany of imagined horrors and suffering. As a result, I spent the night tossing and turning, eventually giving up and spending the rest of the night working on magic.
It was at least something that could distract my mind and keep me from just staring at the ceiling, questioning myself over and over.
Now that I was working with a team, coming up with ways to make them more effective was something I was consistently considering. The shadow cloud spell that I created was designed explicitly with Crow in mind, specifically to give her the advantage she had at night but during the day.
But why not go deeper than that? My physical movement enhancement spells clearly showed buffing someone with magic was possible, so why create a more advanced version, something I could distribute to everyone?
I ended up spending the night designing two spells, the first of which was a body buff that enhanced the target's reflexes and speed. It was nowhere near the level of enhancement I enjoyed, but it was a good handful of percentage points, which was definitely noticeable. The second one enhanced the target's durability. Where I was okay with multitasking the first spell, since I needed the speed and reflexes together to keep them balanced, I focused entirely on durability for the second one. It wasn't quite at bulletproof levels, but it was definitely stabproof. With any luck, it would mitigate any severe damage should anyone get particularly unlucky.
Both of these spells could be focused on multiple people and were as tight chant-wise as I could make them. Unfortunately, they were complicated bits of magic, so quick casting was unfortunately ineffective.
Once the sun had risen and my phone's alarm went off, it was time to start getting ready. I quickly perked myself up a bit with magic, took a nice long hot shower, and got dressed. After having a quick breakfast, as much as I could stomach, I whistled my golems over, standing on my ritual platform.
"You ready for your first appearance, Alya?" I asked as my golems gathered around me, grabbing shoulders and biceps.
"I am, but I would prefer to appear once inside," She said. "I would like to remain an unknown for as long as possible."
"Not exactly polite, but given the circumstances, I think they would understand," I agreed. "Alright, stay nebulous until I introduce you then."
I could feel her acceptance as I started to chant the teleportation spell, closing my eyes as we vanished from the compound and reappeared at the usual meeting spot. Crow was waiting for us, standing with her arms crossed.
"Hey, you ready?" I asked. "Need some help waking up? I know I couldn't sleep."
"Yeah, that would help."
I nodded and quickly cast the spell, the silver magic playing over both of us before it faded. After that, she took my hand, and I teleported us to the Dallon front lawn. It was still relatively early, but Lady Photon was waiting for us on the front porch. Her usual friendliness was hard drawn against a spark of determination.
"Arcanum, Crow, welcome. Please, come in," She said, gesturing for us to follow her as she entered the home. "The others are waiting downstairs."
I nodded and ordered my golems to stand on the porch before following after her. The slightly older hero guided us down to the familiar, to me at least, set of stairs to the basement. Crow silently followed behind me, taking in the home and then the basement meeting room. Once we had gathered around the table, I spoke up.
"Thank you, everyone, for coming together on such short notice. First off, yes, I found the location of the Farm," I explained, confirming what I had told them already. "It's in Merchant territory, not too far from the line between them and the ABB."
"Are you sure it is the Farm, then?" Flashbang asked. "not something, Merchant?"
"The members were all Asian, and internally, they were wearing ABB colors," I confirmed. "But, honestly, I didn't see that first hand. Before I started work officially as a hero, I happened to meet Case Fifty Three. Her name is Alya, and she… well, she exists usually as a nebulous, invisible form. Alya? If you could?"
With a flourishing breeze, Alya took her solid form. I had long since grown used to her almost elven features and her long cobalt and white hair, but her suddenly coalescing into existence among people, for the first time ever, brought home her more alien appearance.
"Greetings, as Arcanum said, I am Alya."
I could see everyone, including Crow, tense up as a sudden new person appeared among us. Before anyone could freak out, Alya spoke up again.
"I apologize for hiding from you, and I apologize for suddenly appearing rudely in your home, but my nature makes me… very vulnerable," She explained. "I am very weak, unable to lift or move anything beyond around ten pounds, and could be forced to disincorporated with a single weak blow. My weakness and nature…I was happy with no one knowing I existed save Arcanum."
Manpower seemed to be the first to recover, unclenching slowly as the surprise and shock slowly dissipated.
"Then why reveal yourself now?" He asked with a frown. "If you would have preferred to stay hidden?"
"My power, when I spread out, lets me search a large area," She explained. "Usually, I just keep Arcanum from being ambushed, but we worked together to find the Farm. If there is anything worth putting myself in danger, it is shutting down that horrible place."
It took a moment for everyone to gather their thoughts before Lady Photon eventually cleared her throat and nodded.
"While I would have preferred a different method of introduction, I do understand options were limited," She said with a nod. "If Arcanum trusts you, I believe we can give you the benefit of the doubt."
"I appreciate that," She said, giving the woman a small bow.
"Wait… has she always been with you?" Crow asked, sounding a bit concerned. "Just floating around and spying on us?"
"Yes," I answered simply. "I know that it's a breach of privacy, but… Her condition changed how she exists. She needs an anchor of sorts, someone to focus on, or she will just drift around almost mindlessly. She literally cannot disconnect from me without losing her humanity. I know it's not fair to you, Crow, but I trust her with my life, and we really didn't have any other options."
Crow seemed to chew on my response, even with her face and body covered, I could see she was upset. I had a feeling that in any other circumstance, she would have been long gone, but the fact we were targeting the Farm was keeping her here.
"Wait, she is connected to you?" Panacea asked from her spot beside her father. "How so?"
"We aren't sure how it works," I admitted, mostly truthfully since I had no idea how the soul magic required actually worked. "It's a symbiotic relationship. She gets most of her humanity back, and I get someone watching over me to keep me from being ambushed."
"Most of her humanity?"
"I still struggle with my sense of time," Alya explained. "To me, there is very little difference in the feeling between a minute, an hour, or even a day. I am happy to float around and watch for hours without talking or becoming corporeal. I actually prefer my more natural state, I wouldn't be able to do this at all without Arcanum."
As Alya explained, I looked over at Crow, who was still standing stiff, like she wanted to bolt but was forcing herself not to. After Alya was done, I looked back at the group.
"Alya, could you maybe describe what you can do while I have a word with Crow?"
"Of course," She said. "Well, my most important ability we already mentioned when…"
As Alya started to talk, Crow nearly dragged me up the stairs. I stopped to close the door behind us, only to turn into Crow's fist as she punched me in the jaw. Despite her enhanced strength and durability, my overcoat's barrier absorbed the blow, and I heard a worrying cracking sound come from her knuckles.
"God dammit, mother fucker!" She hissed out, clutching her hand. "You fucking asshole, you broke my hand."
Ignoring the backward logic she was using, I reached out and gently took her injured hand. I healed out quickly, focusing intently on fixing only the cracked knuckle and busted skin. She had refused to let me heal her scars before, except for her eye, and I was not about to find out if she had changed her mind. As healing magic glowed around our hands, I looked up at her.
"Crow, I apologize for not telling you about Alya," I said, trying to sound as genuine as I could. "When I first started, I was a lot weaker than I am now. During that time, she was essentially my trump card. She could keep me safe and warn me when something dangerous was coming my way. I swear, in the early days, she was the only reason I managed to get any sleep. She was the only reason I felt safe doing all the work I've done, and that includes meeting you. I should have told you eventually, maybe around the time you showed me you were a cape, but… it's hard to let go of an advantage like that, even with someone you trust."
My spell cut out, but I didn't release her hand, in no small part because I was worried she would take another swing if I did. After a moment, her stress and frustration seemed to sag a bit.
"I… I can understand not wanting to let go of an advantage like that," She admitted. "I… I can understand. Just… she knows who I am."
For a moment, I considered pointing out that she had revealed her powers without warning. If she had warned me, I would have done something to at least mitigate the whole issue. Then I realized I would likely have to heal her hand again if I did, so instead, I just nodded.
"She does," I confirmed. "And I am sorry that happened. But I swear she will never tell anyone."
"I'll hold you to that Arcanum," She said, pulling her hand away and stepping back towards the stairs.
I watched her walk away, unable to hide my unhappy frown. I had a gut feeling that things wouldn't end well, and it turned out I was right. The tone of her voice, the way she left... I could practically sense her disdain for the situation. I realized I had just damaged our friendship, and I had no idea how to fix it.
I cursed under my breath and shook my head. I had much more important things to worry about at the moment. I could focus on repairing the damage with Crow when we had taken down the Farm.
I quickly made my way down the stairs, where it seemed as though Alya was giving another short explanation for some of her powers. I waited for her to finish her brief overview before rejoining the table.
"As you can imagine, having someone with such a power would really help make our way through the compound," I pointed out. "She will be key to coordinating between everyone and avoiding hostages being taken by warning us before things become an issue."
"I also know what the compound looks like and how it is divided," She explained. "I will be your map, making sure we clear the entire building efficiently and quickly."
"Perhaps, before we begin talking about plans, you describe the building itself," Lady Photon suggested. "Then we can discuss what our plan of attack is."
With a marker and a whiteboard, Alya gave us a rough idea of how the place was set up. There were three floors to the facility below the warehouse. The first floor was one part office, one part delivery area. A tunnel led down from ground level into a large drop-off point, where vans and other vehicles could drive down, take care of their horrific business, and leave.
The second floor was, unfortunately, called the training and recording area. It was just as horrific as the image you might imagine such a room might entail for the unwilling participants and occupants. The third and final floor was the living space. According to Alya, there were around forty women stuffed into enough living space for around twenty. These "quarters" were divided into two spaces, with a "Staff" living area in between.
By the time Alya was done describing the horrific facility, I could see the frustration and anger, as well as nausea, welling up through many of my new allies' faces. Alya also seemed to be struggling not just with what she had seen but also being the focus of everyone's attention. Once we had drawn up a basic outline of what she had described, and New Wave had a chance to ask her questions, she looked at me beseechingly, a rising uncomfortable feeling coming through our connection. Seeing her struggle, I quickly nodded, and she vanished in a swirl of cloudy air before even that vanished. I could feel her stretch out around the home, engulfing much of the neighborhood.
"Is she okay?" Laserdream asked. "She seemed more than just upset about what she was describing."
"I think she underestimated how difficult being in front of everyone would be," I said, putting together what I was feeling from our connection. "She is watching the whole neighborhood now, keeping an eye open for trouble."
"Oh… that's a bit invasive…"
"It is, but she doesn't actually see everything," I explained. "From what she described, it's like watching a whole crowd of people at once. She can technically "see" everything, but that doesn't mean she is taking everything in. It's kinda like how you aren't invading the privacy of the people sitting next to you in a restaurant, even if, technically, you can hear everything they say. She isn't consciously observing someone until they catch her attention by doing something that would bring them to focus. Plus, she doesn't share things that aren't relevant."
"Well, that explains how you always led us to nearby crimes," Crow said, shaking her head. "Should have put that together better."
"I'm sure the PRT has noticed and has given me some sort of thinker rating for it," I said with a smirk, though the expression quickly fell from my face. "Should we focus on the task ahead? I know this is a lot, but..."
"Yes. We need to come up with a plan, something we can execute quickly and precisely," Manpower said, shaking his head as he looked down at our maps. "You are right, by the way. The most dangerous thing that could happen here, outside some crazier possibilities, is that they decide to take hostages. We need to prevent that at all costs."
We all nodded in agreement, and together, we began assembling a plan. We went step by step, slowly putting together something that, we hoped, would lead to the best results. In the end, we were done at just around lunchtime, and while none of us had any real appetites, we broke to eat.
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I don't know why I expected to be able to sleep well, not with what I now knew and had walked away from. Every time I closed my eyes, my mind couldn't help but flick over to a litany of imagined horrors and suffering. As a result, I spent the night tossing and turning, eventually giving up and spending the rest of the night working on magic.
It was at least something that could distract my mind and keep me from just staring at the ceiling, questioning myself over and over.
Now that I was working with a team, coming up with ways to make them more effective was something I was consistently considering. The shadow cloud spell that I created was designed explicitly with Crow in mind, specifically to give her the advantage she had at night but during the day.
But why not go deeper than that? My physical movement enhancement spells clearly showed buffing someone with magic was possible, so why create a more advanced version, something I could distribute to everyone?
I ended up spending the night designing two spells, the first of which was a body buff that enhanced the target's reflexes and speed. It was nowhere near the level of enhancement I enjoyed, but it was a good handful of percentage points, which was definitely noticeable. The second one enhanced the target's durability. Where I was okay with multitasking the first spell, since I needed the speed and reflexes together to keep them balanced, I focused entirely on durability for the second one. It wasn't quite at bulletproof levels, but it was definitely stabproof. With any luck, it would mitigate any severe damage should anyone get particularly unlucky.
Both of these spells could be focused on multiple people and were as tight chant-wise as I could make them. Unfortunately, they were complicated bits of magic, so quick casting was unfortunately ineffective.
Once the sun had risen and my phone's alarm went off, it was time to start getting ready. I quickly perked myself up a bit with magic, took a nice long hot shower, and got dressed. After having a quick breakfast, as much as I could stomach, I whistled my golems over, standing on my ritual platform.
"You ready for your first appearance, Alya?" I asked as my golems gathered around me, grabbing shoulders and biceps.
"I am, but I would prefer to appear once inside," She said. "I would like to remain an unknown for as long as possible."
"Not exactly polite, but given the circumstances, I think they would understand," I agreed. "Alright, stay nebulous until I introduce you then."
I could feel her acceptance as I started to chant the teleportation spell, closing my eyes as we vanished from the compound and reappeared at the usual meeting spot. Crow was waiting for us, standing with her arms crossed.
"Hey, you ready?" I asked. "Need some help waking up? I know I couldn't sleep."
"Yeah, that would help."
I nodded and quickly cast the spell, the silver magic playing over both of us before it faded. After that, she took my hand, and I teleported us to the Dallon front lawn. It was still relatively early, but Lady Photon was waiting for us on the front porch. Her usual friendliness was hard drawn against a spark of determination.
"Arcanum, Crow, welcome. Please, come in," She said, gesturing for us to follow her as she entered the home. "The others are waiting downstairs."
I nodded and ordered my golems to stand on the porch before following after her. The slightly older hero guided us down to the familiar, to me at least, set of stairs to the basement. Crow silently followed behind me, taking in the home and then the basement meeting room. Once we had gathered around the table, I spoke up.
"Thank you, everyone, for coming together on such short notice. First off, yes, I found the location of the Farm," I explained, confirming what I had told them already. "It's in Merchant territory, not too far from the line between them and the ABB."
"Are you sure it is the Farm, then?" Flashbang asked. "not something, Merchant?"
"The members were all Asian, and internally, they were wearing ABB colors," I confirmed. "But, honestly, I didn't see that first hand. Before I started work officially as a hero, I happened to meet Case Fifty Three. Her name is Alya, and she… well, she exists usually as a nebulous, invisible form. Alya? If you could?"
With a flourishing breeze, Alya took her solid form. I had long since grown used to her almost elven features and her long cobalt and white hair, but her suddenly coalescing into existence among people, for the first time ever, brought home her more alien appearance.
"Greetings, as Arcanum said, I am Alya."
I could see everyone, including Crow, tense up as a sudden new person appeared among us. Before anyone could freak out, Alya spoke up again.
"I apologize for hiding from you, and I apologize for suddenly appearing rudely in your home, but my nature makes me… very vulnerable," She explained. "I am very weak, unable to lift or move anything beyond around ten pounds, and could be forced to disincorporated with a single weak blow. My weakness and nature…I was happy with no one knowing I existed save Arcanum."
Manpower seemed to be the first to recover, unclenching slowly as the surprise and shock slowly dissipated.
"Then why reveal yourself now?" He asked with a frown. "If you would have preferred to stay hidden?"
"My power, when I spread out, lets me search a large area," She explained. "Usually, I just keep Arcanum from being ambushed, but we worked together to find the Farm. If there is anything worth putting myself in danger, it is shutting down that horrible place."
It took a moment for everyone to gather their thoughts before Lady Photon eventually cleared her throat and nodded.
"While I would have preferred a different method of introduction, I do understand options were limited," She said with a nod. "If Arcanum trusts you, I believe we can give you the benefit of the doubt."
"I appreciate that," She said, giving the woman a small bow.
"Wait… has she always been with you?" Crow asked, sounding a bit concerned. "Just floating around and spying on us?"
"Yes," I answered simply. "I know that it's a breach of privacy, but… Her condition changed how she exists. She needs an anchor of sorts, someone to focus on, or she will just drift around almost mindlessly. She literally cannot disconnect from me without losing her humanity. I know it's not fair to you, Crow, but I trust her with my life, and we really didn't have any other options."
Crow seemed to chew on my response, even with her face and body covered, I could see she was upset. I had a feeling that in any other circumstance, she would have been long gone, but the fact we were targeting the Farm was keeping her here.
"Wait, she is connected to you?" Panacea asked from her spot beside her father. "How so?"
"We aren't sure how it works," I admitted, mostly truthfully since I had no idea how the soul magic required actually worked. "It's a symbiotic relationship. She gets most of her humanity back, and I get someone watching over me to keep me from being ambushed."
"Most of her humanity?"
"I still struggle with my sense of time," Alya explained. "To me, there is very little difference in the feeling between a minute, an hour, or even a day. I am happy to float around and watch for hours without talking or becoming corporeal. I actually prefer my more natural state, I wouldn't be able to do this at all without Arcanum."
As Alya explained, I looked over at Crow, who was still standing stiff, like she wanted to bolt but was forcing herself not to. After Alya was done, I looked back at the group.
"Alya, could you maybe describe what you can do while I have a word with Crow?"
"Of course," She said. "Well, my most important ability we already mentioned when…"
As Alya started to talk, Crow nearly dragged me up the stairs. I stopped to close the door behind us, only to turn into Crow's fist as she punched me in the jaw. Despite her enhanced strength and durability, my overcoat's barrier absorbed the blow, and I heard a worrying cracking sound come from her knuckles.
"God dammit, mother fucker!" She hissed out, clutching her hand. "You fucking asshole, you broke my hand."
Ignoring the backward logic she was using, I reached out and gently took her injured hand. I healed out quickly, focusing intently on fixing only the cracked knuckle and busted skin. She had refused to let me heal her scars before, except for her eye, and I was not about to find out if she had changed her mind. As healing magic glowed around our hands, I looked up at her.
"Crow, I apologize for not telling you about Alya," I said, trying to sound as genuine as I could. "When I first started, I was a lot weaker than I am now. During that time, she was essentially my trump card. She could keep me safe and warn me when something dangerous was coming my way. I swear, in the early days, she was the only reason I managed to get any sleep. She was the only reason I felt safe doing all the work I've done, and that includes meeting you. I should have told you eventually, maybe around the time you showed me you were a cape, but… it's hard to let go of an advantage like that, even with someone you trust."
My spell cut out, but I didn't release her hand, in no small part because I was worried she would take another swing if I did. After a moment, her stress and frustration seemed to sag a bit.
"I… I can understand not wanting to let go of an advantage like that," She admitted. "I… I can understand. Just… she knows who I am."
For a moment, I considered pointing out that she had revealed her powers without warning. If she had warned me, I would have done something to at least mitigate the whole issue. Then I realized I would likely have to heal her hand again if I did, so instead, I just nodded.
"She does," I confirmed. "And I am sorry that happened. But I swear she will never tell anyone."
"I'll hold you to that Arcanum," She said, pulling her hand away and stepping back towards the stairs.
I watched her walk away, unable to hide my unhappy frown. I had a gut feeling that things wouldn't end well, and it turned out I was right. The tone of her voice, the way she left... I could practically sense her disdain for the situation. I realized I had just damaged our friendship, and I had no idea how to fix it.
I cursed under my breath and shook my head. I had much more important things to worry about at the moment. I could focus on repairing the damage with Crow when we had taken down the Farm.
I quickly made my way down the stairs, where it seemed as though Alya was giving another short explanation for some of her powers. I waited for her to finish her brief overview before rejoining the table.
"As you can imagine, having someone with such a power would really help make our way through the compound," I pointed out. "She will be key to coordinating between everyone and avoiding hostages being taken by warning us before things become an issue."
"I also know what the compound looks like and how it is divided," She explained. "I will be your map, making sure we clear the entire building efficiently and quickly."
"Perhaps, before we begin talking about plans, you describe the building itself," Lady Photon suggested. "Then we can discuss what our plan of attack is."
With a marker and a whiteboard, Alya gave us a rough idea of how the place was set up. There were three floors to the facility below the warehouse. The first floor was one part office, one part delivery area. A tunnel led down from ground level into a large drop-off point, where vans and other vehicles could drive down, take care of their horrific business, and leave.
The second floor was, unfortunately, called the training and recording area. It was just as horrific as the image you might imagine such a room might entail for the unwilling participants and occupants. The third and final floor was the living space. According to Alya, there were around forty women stuffed into enough living space for around twenty. These "quarters" were divided into two spaces, with a "Staff" living area in between.
By the time Alya was done describing the horrific facility, I could see the frustration and anger, as well as nausea, welling up through many of my new allies' faces. Alya also seemed to be struggling not just with what she had seen but also being the focus of everyone's attention. Once we had drawn up a basic outline of what she had described, and New Wave had a chance to ask her questions, she looked at me beseechingly, a rising uncomfortable feeling coming through our connection. Seeing her struggle, I quickly nodded, and she vanished in a swirl of cloudy air before even that vanished. I could feel her stretch out around the home, engulfing much of the neighborhood.
"Is she okay?" Laserdream asked. "She seemed more than just upset about what she was describing."
"I think she underestimated how difficult being in front of everyone would be," I said, putting together what I was feeling from our connection. "She is watching the whole neighborhood now, keeping an eye open for trouble."
"Oh… that's a bit invasive…"
"It is, but she doesn't actually see everything," I explained. "From what she described, it's like watching a whole crowd of people at once. She can technically "see" everything, but that doesn't mean she is taking everything in. It's kinda like how you aren't invading the privacy of the people sitting next to you in a restaurant, even if, technically, you can hear everything they say. She isn't consciously observing someone until they catch her attention by doing something that would bring them to focus. Plus, she doesn't share things that aren't relevant."
"Well, that explains how you always led us to nearby crimes," Crow said, shaking her head. "Should have put that together better."
"I'm sure the PRT has noticed and has given me some sort of thinker rating for it," I said with a smirk, though the expression quickly fell from my face. "Should we focus on the task ahead? I know this is a lot, but..."
"Yes. We need to come up with a plan, something we can execute quickly and precisely," Manpower said, shaking his head as he looked down at our maps. "You are right, by the way. The most dangerous thing that could happen here, outside some crazier possibilities, is that they decide to take hostages. We need to prevent that at all costs."
We all nodded in agreement, and together, we began assembling a plan. We went step by step, slowly putting together something that, we hoped, would lead to the best results. In the end, we were done at just around lunchtime, and while none of us had any real appetites, we broke to eat.
This does kind of prove that Crow doesn't trust the MC and their friendship as much as she thought she did, because if she did trust in him to a high enough degree (couldn't even give him the benefit of the doubt, after all he's done?) she wouldn't have reacted so bad (but to be fair, she does have issues, so maybe she was triggered and not in the Worm way).
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We Just Write
Blatantly Plural
- Location
- New England
- Pronouns
- Plural
O: That situation with Crow is a Big Oof.
And there is extenuating circumstances, specificlly, alya isn't and has never been human and she is actually "just" a power projection.
Of course, the best way to prove that would be to have another convenient power projection... of which he does have. At that point he might as well come clean about the fact he's not a cape at all and is in fact a real wizard but how well that'll hit is questionable.
Got that backwards, if anything it proves to Crow the MC didn't trust her much. He kept an entire teammate secret from her the whole time. I'd be extremely pissed in her shoes as well.
I can kind of see that, but you can easily make the argument that Alya was the one who wanted to stay secret, and he was just honoring that desire. I also feel Crow's reaction feels a bit extreme. However I have to admit it's hard for me to get into the headspace for a person with a hidden identity. Part of it for me is simply that I find it unlikely that people on a team wouldn't eventually figure out each others identity. At least without significant efforts to keep it hidden, efforts that would require a fairly high level of distrust. Especially with someone like Alya who is basically a thinker.
So basically from what I can see Alya has some legitimate reasons for keeping hidden, and they likely would have told Crow eventually. That plus not telling Crow changed very little. While the situation shows that the MC didn't completely trust Crow, to be honest, I don't see why he should have. She was very shifty and tenative for a long while, and only recently becoming something I would consider a teammate for the MC. Especially considering what she has gotten out of it. I mean while she has helped with some fights recetnly, the relationship was pretty one sided for a while, and most of the fights were something she was already involved in.
Edit: I do have to note, that this is just her very initial suprised reaction. It feels a bit extreme, but what matters is how she acts/reactions in long term.
Chapter Sixty Nine
New
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After a quiet and rather somber lunch, in which most of us just nibbled on something light to keep us going and not much more, we returned to the basement. We were finished planning as much as we could with what information Alya had provided. After concluding that we couldn't trust the sieve that was PRT security to keep this a secret, the only remaining decision to make was when we would engage in our raid.
"I can't vote for anything beyond as soon as possible," I admitted with a deep frown, almost a scowl. "We've already left the victims in that hell overnight. We need to act now, no more waiting. We can handle any extra difficulties that might arise from not being patient and waiting for the opportune moment."
"I agree," Manpower said with a nod. "Not only do we owe it to those who are trapped there, but operations like this often run on inverted schedules anyway, to avoid business happening in the light of day. Now may be the better time to attack, even if we didn't have victims suffering."
That made a lot of sense, and the rest of New Wave clearly agreed with him. None of us wanted to stretch this out any longer than we needed to, and we were all prepared to do what was necessary to help the poor people trapped inside the facility.
With everyone on the same page, it was finally time to get the ball rolling. We quickly moved from the basement to the front lawn, where Crow, Lady Photon, Laserdream, Glory Girl, and one of my golems gathered around me. I pulled my staff off of my hip, morphed it out straight from its coiled form, and pulled out my spellbook.
"Is everyone ready?" I asked, waiting for everyone to nod. "Once we teleport in, the chances of getting discovered start to rise quickly. So we need to move fast. Everyone who is coming on the second trip, get ready to grab on when I return."
Another round of confirmations later, and I began chanting, the teleportation chant flowing easily with how often I use it, the spell book keeping me from messing anything up, since I could read along with the incantation. When the spell was complete, we vanished from the Dallon front lawn, reappearing in the same alley Alya had stopped me in the night before, when she had positively confirmed the location of the Farm. We were now only a few streets, less than a hundred meters, from our target and well within their monitoring circle.
"I can see it again, Alya whispered, making the others jump a bit as she talked to them too. "It does seem to be slower, I believe Manpower was correct. There are fewer non-victims."
"Good, then this is our perfect chance," I said, before nodding to the group I had just teleported in with. "I'll be back, just hang tight."
I began to chant again, once again teleporting to the Dallon's house. As soon as I arrived, my remaining golems latched on, followed by Shielder, Flashbang, and Manpower. Panacea remained behind, sitting on the porch with her arms crossed, as we flashed away from the home, back to the alleyway, where everyone else was waiting. The fact that I could and could defend myself better made bringing her into the situation pointless.
We had considered bringing her in closer in case something happened to me, but ultimately decided that if we ran into something heavy enough to hurt me, be it a cape or a weapon, we didn't want the squishy healer close enough to get hurt. Panacea did not exactly agree with that conclusion, but ultimately promised to stay behind.
"Right, next up is buffs," I said, my spell book flicking through its pages as everyone gathered around. "Stay close, it should only take a few seconds."
"Hi sunt socii mei, qui pugnant extra me. Per meam voluntatem et magicam velociter se moveant, clara intentione congruunt. Motus eorum velociores motus eorumque velociores."
As I chanted, flickers of blue energy sparked out from my staff, searching out each member of New Wave and Crow. Once a flicker found someone, it would spin around them, weaving a complicated pattern that soon solidified into a line of mana. Arcane symbols followed the original spark. The energy sank into each of them when I was done.
"Just one more," I assured them, now slowly sliding my staff back and forth in front of me, starting to chant the second my spellbook flicked to the right page. "Circumstant me amici, fortitudinem petunt. Magia mea super eos abluat, corpora sua confirmet ad resistendum aliis nocumentum inferre."
This time, the spell was a deep orange that flared out from my staff in a wave that washed over New Wave and Crow. Three arcane symbols spun around my staff rapidly, as several more waves of magic flowed out over everyone, sinking into them until their bodies pulsed once, the magic settling into them.
"Right, That's it," I said, nodding to Lady Photon. "Ready when you are."
Lady Photon nodded and deftly took control of the situation, giving orders with clean, practiced precision. Thankfully, we didn't have to talk much since we all already knew the plan. Glory Girl grabbed Manpower and Flashbang's hands while my golems and I climbed onto hovering shields created by Lady Photon and Shielder. The two stronger shield-generating heroes could handle our weight, while Crow climbed onto Laserdream alone. Slowly, we then rose up into the air, with Glory Girl carrying the men and the shields carrying everyone else. My golems and I took a knee for stability as we sped out of the alleyway, all of the fliers moving as fast as they could, directly down the road. Soon, the warehouse was in sight, and we all made a beeline for it.
In a tight formation, we smashed through the various windows of the warehouse. Immediately, ignoring everyone around us, my golems, and the adults from New Wave all made a beeline to the two stairways that lead downward into the facility. Behind us, as we moved, Glory Girl, Laserdream, and Shielder started rounding up the people "working" in the warehouse, guiding them to a side room and keeping watch.
Their jobs were simple: intercept any reinforcements and keep anyone from escaping. None of the parents wanted their kids exposed to the absolute horrors that were being committed on the lower floors, so the kids would stay on top. None of them were very happy about that, but we were able to convince them of the importance of keeping watch and holding off reinforcements.
Honestly, Glory Girl was the only one who needed real convincing. I got the sense that Laserdream and Shielder were secretly happy to stay up top and not venture into the facility. Either way, we managed to convince all of them to keep out of the lower levels, leaving it to us.
While the younger members got to work, my golems and I rushed to the closest door, two of them working together to rush and bodily slam through the heavy, probably reinforced metal barrier. Just before they made contact, I raised my staff.
"Frigus trabem virtutis!" I shouted, two symbols spinning around and lining up to the end of my staff, a dual triangle of bright blue spinning as a beam of frozen energy fired out and slammed into the door.
Between firing it from my staff and using the full incantation, the lower-end ice spell was maximized, flash-freezing the door enough that the thick glass that was built into the top left corner cracked. Then my golems slammed into it, and the whole door crumpled and shattered, flying from the door frame, slamming into the opposite wall, all the way across the stairwell.
Time was of the essence, so I didn't slow, following two of my golems as they jumped over the railing, falling down into the gap at the center of the stairwell. I reached out for the railing as well, jumping up and over, grabbing the rail to direct myself down, following all the way to the bottom floor with enough force to crack the concrete, which was already damaged from my first golems.
My remaining two golems stayed behind, now under Alya's direction, and began making their way to the first hidden floor. According to Alya, the first floor was a sort of office space and did not contain any victims, only ABB members. With our primary goal to protect the victims and the younger members of New Wave keeping anyone from escaping, we were happy to send in the golems to take down or flush out ABB gang members on the second floor since we didn't need to worry about any of them taking hostages.
As I recovered from the three-story fall onto concrete, I looked up and barked out orders to the golems who had landed before me.
"Open it!" I commanded needlessly, since the first two golems were already slamming their fists into the door, prying it open slowly. "Move!"
My second order overrode my first, both golems pulling away as I once again thrust my staff at the door, this time focusing the tip on the already damaged lock.
"Momentum vis exploding!" I shouted, a single flicker of arcane symbols appearing, almost invisible, as the air itself seemed to ripple and explode forward.
The door bent around the lock, slamming open, pulling partially from the frame. The explosion of pure force cracked the door frame by the lock, freeing the door to slam open.
"Three directly to your left, two to your right in a separate room, five straight ahead in the central guard area," Alya said in my ear, even as I rushed forward through the now open door.
Sure enough, I stepped into a hallway running on either side of me, with an open doorway into a room ahead of me. There were several doors along the wall on each side of me, and to my left, three ABB gangers stood, their eyes wide.
"Alya, guide golems, prioritize the victims," I shouted, rushing forward, swinging my staff up, the gem pulsing as I quick cast a blast of air, which caught the closest ABB ganger in the chest, launching him up and back hard enough that he tumbled backward against the ceiling.
The gangers, broken free from their surprise, both pulled out guns, one a simple pistol, the other a MAC-10. The ganger with the submachine gun pulled his finger back and held it, dumping his entire magazine down the hall. With no idea what was going on behind me, I swiped my staff down, creating a green barrier. Several bullets still hit me, my ablative shield taking the damage and cracking before the green barrier appeared and absorbed the rest, the useless bullets flattening against it and falling to the ground, their energy spent. By the end of the barrage, the green, conjured shield was cracked and struggling to hold its form.
With a shout of force, I jabbed my staff through the shield, which collapsed once I did before I cast a barrage of low-energy sparks. The skittering lances of electricity zapped and shocked both of the gangers, the closer one with the submachine gun getting a face-full of sparks before seizing up and dropping to the ground.
The third ganger cursed and turned to run, only for me to zap his leg and then slam a knockout spell into his back as I ran forward. I literally kicked a healing spell into him, then into his two buddies, before knocking them out with my lightning spell as well.
I turned, just in time to watch my two golems, directed by Alya, drag the pair of gangers who had been in the side room. Behind them, I could see a dark, sparse room, with a bed frame in one corner, the other hidden by darkness.
"The five in the middle are splitting up," Alya shouted, prompting me to rush forward. "Three coming this way."
"Take the golems around!" I ordered, watching as the golems immediately shifted and ran, disappearing down another hallway.
I sprinted forward, arriving at the entrance to the center space just as the three ABB members walked out. Two of them had shotguns shouldered and ready, while the third had what looked like a flavor of Russian assault rifle. I moved quick, reaching them as they turned to fire at me, my staff slamming into one of the shotgun-wielding goons' stomach, lifting him off his feet. I quick cast a knockout ball into him before he hit the ground, before spinning around to slap the rifle from the other ganger's hand, bending the barrel and breaking his hands in the process. The third and final gang member managed to actually pull the trigger of his weapon, a barrage of buckshot making my ablative barrier glow before most of it failed. Any pellet with any kinetic energy left bounced off of me, their energy too drained to even penetrate my enhanced clothes.
The ABB member didn't get a chance to fire again as I clocked him in the chin with my fist, which I followed up with a knockout spell before he hit the ground.
"I've gotten the other two. The golems are dragging them back," Alya said quietly as I double-checked that all of the bastards were out cold. "The other teams are almost done, we- Arc, turn around."
I followed her voice as it moved, turning quickly, ready for a fight, only to find a battered-looking woman, bruised and with a cracked lip, limping out of the room Alya had dragged two ABB members out of. She looked around, shaking like a rabbit. What little clothes she had on were torn and bloody.
"Ma'am, everything is alright," I assured her, talking softly as I curled up my staff and clipped it to my belt, holding my hands out, palms out to show I was unarmed. "My name is Arcanum, I'm a hero, we are here to get you all out."
She backed up as I stepped forward, so I stopped, not wanting to traumatize her any more than she already was. As I watched, she scrambled back into her room, hiding back in the corner of the bed, eyes locked on me, gripping her bedframe with white knuckles.
"Alya, drag all of the ABB to the center room and watch over them with the golems," I said, my voice cold as I took a slow step back. "Then tell the others that I cleared out my floor and that we need the police here as fast as possible."
I could feel her pull away for a moment, passing on my words and whispering orders to the golems, who returned a moment later, carrying gangers. I added my own knockout spells to each of them, assuring that they would be out for several hours. It might make things a bit more difficult for the police, but I wasn't taking any chances.
As I felt Alya pull back in, I asked about the victims.
"Are there any who look particularly hurt?" I asked. "Anyone being actively in danger or in exorbitant amounts of pain?"
"No, most of them seem to be sleeping," she responded. "Or at least pretending to be. There are bruises and cuts all around, but… nothing life-threatening. Are you going to release them?"
"Are there still forty of them?"
"Twenty-seven down here," She responded softly. "The rest are upstairs."
"Then no, we can't," I said, shaking my head. "We can't handle forty traumatized, panicking people at once. The cops will have the personnel and training to handle this. We just need to keep them safe until they can. How are the women upstairs?"
"Scared, but Lady Photon is keeping them calm enough."
I nodded before settling in to wait for the police to arrive. I might not be able to truly help these poor victims, but I could at least stand watch for them.
Soon, they would be free.
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After a quiet and rather somber lunch, in which most of us just nibbled on something light to keep us going and not much more, we returned to the basement. We were finished planning as much as we could with what information Alya had provided. After concluding that we couldn't trust the sieve that was PRT security to keep this a secret, the only remaining decision to make was when we would engage in our raid.
"I can't vote for anything beyond as soon as possible," I admitted with a deep frown, almost a scowl. "We've already left the victims in that hell overnight. We need to act now, no more waiting. We can handle any extra difficulties that might arise from not being patient and waiting for the opportune moment."
"I agree," Manpower said with a nod. "Not only do we owe it to those who are trapped there, but operations like this often run on inverted schedules anyway, to avoid business happening in the light of day. Now may be the better time to attack, even if we didn't have victims suffering."
That made a lot of sense, and the rest of New Wave clearly agreed with him. None of us wanted to stretch this out any longer than we needed to, and we were all prepared to do what was necessary to help the poor people trapped inside the facility.
With everyone on the same page, it was finally time to get the ball rolling. We quickly moved from the basement to the front lawn, where Crow, Lady Photon, Laserdream, Glory Girl, and one of my golems gathered around me. I pulled my staff off of my hip, morphed it out straight from its coiled form, and pulled out my spellbook.
"Is everyone ready?" I asked, waiting for everyone to nod. "Once we teleport in, the chances of getting discovered start to rise quickly. So we need to move fast. Everyone who is coming on the second trip, get ready to grab on when I return."
Another round of confirmations later, and I began chanting, the teleportation chant flowing easily with how often I use it, the spell book keeping me from messing anything up, since I could read along with the incantation. When the spell was complete, we vanished from the Dallon front lawn, reappearing in the same alley Alya had stopped me in the night before, when she had positively confirmed the location of the Farm. We were now only a few streets, less than a hundred meters, from our target and well within their monitoring circle.
"I can see it again, Alya whispered, making the others jump a bit as she talked to them too. "It does seem to be slower, I believe Manpower was correct. There are fewer non-victims."
"Good, then this is our perfect chance," I said, before nodding to the group I had just teleported in with. "I'll be back, just hang tight."
I began to chant again, once again teleporting to the Dallon's house. As soon as I arrived, my remaining golems latched on, followed by Shielder, Flashbang, and Manpower. Panacea remained behind, sitting on the porch with her arms crossed, as we flashed away from the home, back to the alleyway, where everyone else was waiting. The fact that I could and could defend myself better made bringing her into the situation pointless.
We had considered bringing her in closer in case something happened to me, but ultimately decided that if we ran into something heavy enough to hurt me, be it a cape or a weapon, we didn't want the squishy healer close enough to get hurt. Panacea did not exactly agree with that conclusion, but ultimately promised to stay behind.
"Right, next up is buffs," I said, my spell book flicking through its pages as everyone gathered around. "Stay close, it should only take a few seconds."
"Hi sunt socii mei, qui pugnant extra me. Per meam voluntatem et magicam velociter se moveant, clara intentione congruunt. Motus eorum velociores motus eorumque velociores."
As I chanted, flickers of blue energy sparked out from my staff, searching out each member of New Wave and Crow. Once a flicker found someone, it would spin around them, weaving a complicated pattern that soon solidified into a line of mana. Arcane symbols followed the original spark. The energy sank into each of them when I was done.
"Just one more," I assured them, now slowly sliding my staff back and forth in front of me, starting to chant the second my spellbook flicked to the right page. "Circumstant me amici, fortitudinem petunt. Magia mea super eos abluat, corpora sua confirmet ad resistendum aliis nocumentum inferre."
This time, the spell was a deep orange that flared out from my staff in a wave that washed over New Wave and Crow. Three arcane symbols spun around my staff rapidly, as several more waves of magic flowed out over everyone, sinking into them until their bodies pulsed once, the magic settling into them.
"Right, That's it," I said, nodding to Lady Photon. "Ready when you are."
Lady Photon nodded and deftly took control of the situation, giving orders with clean, practiced precision. Thankfully, we didn't have to talk much since we all already knew the plan. Glory Girl grabbed Manpower and Flashbang's hands while my golems and I climbed onto hovering shields created by Lady Photon and Shielder. The two stronger shield-generating heroes could handle our weight, while Crow climbed onto Laserdream alone. Slowly, we then rose up into the air, with Glory Girl carrying the men and the shields carrying everyone else. My golems and I took a knee for stability as we sped out of the alleyway, all of the fliers moving as fast as they could, directly down the road. Soon, the warehouse was in sight, and we all made a beeline for it.
In a tight formation, we smashed through the various windows of the warehouse. Immediately, ignoring everyone around us, my golems, and the adults from New Wave all made a beeline to the two stairways that lead downward into the facility. Behind us, as we moved, Glory Girl, Laserdream, and Shielder started rounding up the people "working" in the warehouse, guiding them to a side room and keeping watch.
Their jobs were simple: intercept any reinforcements and keep anyone from escaping. None of the parents wanted their kids exposed to the absolute horrors that were being committed on the lower floors, so the kids would stay on top. None of them were very happy about that, but we were able to convince them of the importance of keeping watch and holding off reinforcements.
Honestly, Glory Girl was the only one who needed real convincing. I got the sense that Laserdream and Shielder were secretly happy to stay up top and not venture into the facility. Either way, we managed to convince all of them to keep out of the lower levels, leaving it to us.
While the younger members got to work, my golems and I rushed to the closest door, two of them working together to rush and bodily slam through the heavy, probably reinforced metal barrier. Just before they made contact, I raised my staff.
"Frigus trabem virtutis!" I shouted, two symbols spinning around and lining up to the end of my staff, a dual triangle of bright blue spinning as a beam of frozen energy fired out and slammed into the door.
Between firing it from my staff and using the full incantation, the lower-end ice spell was maximized, flash-freezing the door enough that the thick glass that was built into the top left corner cracked. Then my golems slammed into it, and the whole door crumpled and shattered, flying from the door frame, slamming into the opposite wall, all the way across the stairwell.
Time was of the essence, so I didn't slow, following two of my golems as they jumped over the railing, falling down into the gap at the center of the stairwell. I reached out for the railing as well, jumping up and over, grabbing the rail to direct myself down, following all the way to the bottom floor with enough force to crack the concrete, which was already damaged from my first golems.
My remaining two golems stayed behind, now under Alya's direction, and began making their way to the first hidden floor. According to Alya, the first floor was a sort of office space and did not contain any victims, only ABB members. With our primary goal to protect the victims and the younger members of New Wave keeping anyone from escaping, we were happy to send in the golems to take down or flush out ABB gang members on the second floor since we didn't need to worry about any of them taking hostages.
As I recovered from the three-story fall onto concrete, I looked up and barked out orders to the golems who had landed before me.
"Open it!" I commanded needlessly, since the first two golems were already slamming their fists into the door, prying it open slowly. "Move!"
My second order overrode my first, both golems pulling away as I once again thrust my staff at the door, this time focusing the tip on the already damaged lock.
"Momentum vis exploding!" I shouted, a single flicker of arcane symbols appearing, almost invisible, as the air itself seemed to ripple and explode forward.
The door bent around the lock, slamming open, pulling partially from the frame. The explosion of pure force cracked the door frame by the lock, freeing the door to slam open.
"Three directly to your left, two to your right in a separate room, five straight ahead in the central guard area," Alya said in my ear, even as I rushed forward through the now open door.
Sure enough, I stepped into a hallway running on either side of me, with an open doorway into a room ahead of me. There were several doors along the wall on each side of me, and to my left, three ABB gangers stood, their eyes wide.
"Alya, guide golems, prioritize the victims," I shouted, rushing forward, swinging my staff up, the gem pulsing as I quick cast a blast of air, which caught the closest ABB ganger in the chest, launching him up and back hard enough that he tumbled backward against the ceiling.
The gangers, broken free from their surprise, both pulled out guns, one a simple pistol, the other a MAC-10. The ganger with the submachine gun pulled his finger back and held it, dumping his entire magazine down the hall. With no idea what was going on behind me, I swiped my staff down, creating a green barrier. Several bullets still hit me, my ablative shield taking the damage and cracking before the green barrier appeared and absorbed the rest, the useless bullets flattening against it and falling to the ground, their energy spent. By the end of the barrage, the green, conjured shield was cracked and struggling to hold its form.
With a shout of force, I jabbed my staff through the shield, which collapsed once I did before I cast a barrage of low-energy sparks. The skittering lances of electricity zapped and shocked both of the gangers, the closer one with the submachine gun getting a face-full of sparks before seizing up and dropping to the ground.
The third ganger cursed and turned to run, only for me to zap his leg and then slam a knockout spell into his back as I ran forward. I literally kicked a healing spell into him, then into his two buddies, before knocking them out with my lightning spell as well.
I turned, just in time to watch my two golems, directed by Alya, drag the pair of gangers who had been in the side room. Behind them, I could see a dark, sparse room, with a bed frame in one corner, the other hidden by darkness.
"The five in the middle are splitting up," Alya shouted, prompting me to rush forward. "Three coming this way."
"Take the golems around!" I ordered, watching as the golems immediately shifted and ran, disappearing down another hallway.
I sprinted forward, arriving at the entrance to the center space just as the three ABB members walked out. Two of them had shotguns shouldered and ready, while the third had what looked like a flavor of Russian assault rifle. I moved quick, reaching them as they turned to fire at me, my staff slamming into one of the shotgun-wielding goons' stomach, lifting him off his feet. I quick cast a knockout ball into him before he hit the ground, before spinning around to slap the rifle from the other ganger's hand, bending the barrel and breaking his hands in the process. The third and final gang member managed to actually pull the trigger of his weapon, a barrage of buckshot making my ablative barrier glow before most of it failed. Any pellet with any kinetic energy left bounced off of me, their energy too drained to even penetrate my enhanced clothes.
The ABB member didn't get a chance to fire again as I clocked him in the chin with my fist, which I followed up with a knockout spell before he hit the ground.
"I've gotten the other two. The golems are dragging them back," Alya said quietly as I double-checked that all of the bastards were out cold. "The other teams are almost done, we- Arc, turn around."
I followed her voice as it moved, turning quickly, ready for a fight, only to find a battered-looking woman, bruised and with a cracked lip, limping out of the room Alya had dragged two ABB members out of. She looked around, shaking like a rabbit. What little clothes she had on were torn and bloody.
"Ma'am, everything is alright," I assured her, talking softly as I curled up my staff and clipped it to my belt, holding my hands out, palms out to show I was unarmed. "My name is Arcanum, I'm a hero, we are here to get you all out."
She backed up as I stepped forward, so I stopped, not wanting to traumatize her any more than she already was. As I watched, she scrambled back into her room, hiding back in the corner of the bed, eyes locked on me, gripping her bedframe with white knuckles.
"Alya, drag all of the ABB to the center room and watch over them with the golems," I said, my voice cold as I took a slow step back. "Then tell the others that I cleared out my floor and that we need the police here as fast as possible."
I could feel her pull away for a moment, passing on my words and whispering orders to the golems, who returned a moment later, carrying gangers. I added my own knockout spells to each of them, assuring that they would be out for several hours. It might make things a bit more difficult for the police, but I wasn't taking any chances.
As I felt Alya pull back in, I asked about the victims.
"Are there any who look particularly hurt?" I asked. "Anyone being actively in danger or in exorbitant amounts of pain?"
"No, most of them seem to be sleeping," she responded. "Or at least pretending to be. There are bruises and cuts all around, but… nothing life-threatening. Are you going to release them?"
"Are there still forty of them?"
"Twenty-seven down here," She responded softly. "The rest are upstairs."
"Then no, we can't," I said, shaking my head. "We can't handle forty traumatized, panicking people at once. The cops will have the personnel and training to handle this. We just need to keep them safe until they can. How are the women upstairs?"
"Scared, but Lady Photon is keeping them calm enough."
I nodded before settling in to wait for the police to arrive. I might not be able to truly help these poor victims, but I could at least stand watch for them.
Soon, they would be free.
*could heal and
Chapter Seventy
New
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The police took a good ten minutes to finally arrive, during which we managed to get all of the ABB members up to the top, all but throwing them out of the warehouse. It was hard not to get a little rough with them. They deserved it, after all, for just being involved with this monstrous undertaking. I ended up leaving most of the work to my golems as I quickly found myself too tempted to enact my own justice.
When the police arrived, most of the team returned to the surface to watch for ABB reinforcements. I was pretty sure they weren't going to, as the only reason the Farm was useful to the ABB was because it was hidden, and from what Alya could see, there was no cash or resources stored at the site. There might be some interesting information on the computers, but if there was, they didn't care enough to try and take it back. There was no reason for the ABB to come try and take the facility back when we had already found it.
While the rest of the team kept watch, I remained inside the building, as I was asked several times to heal some of the more worrying wounds, treating the scared women gently as I washed away things that were likely to or were already infected, as well as a few broken and fracture bones that Alya couldn't have detected when I asked her to check on the victims.
As I stayed behind, I was treated to a horror show. Victim after victim was gently coaxed from their cells, revealing horrific living conditions. Even worse was the condition of the victims, with severe bruising being the absolute minimum injury. One woman in particular bore a split lip that reached her gums, while almost all others had tears and sores along their ankles and wrists, severe bruising, and quite a few stress fractures along their bodies.
I wasn't ashamed to admit I lost my last meal after running a scan on a particular unconscious woman. She had refused to calm down, traumatized past the point of sense, so the paramedics had been forced to sedate them. Her injuries were plentiful, but it was the trauma below the belt that undid my self-control.
Despite our involvement, the PRT did not show up during this entire process. Whether out of respect for the scenario or fear of the message of only showing up after everything was over, they never showed their face. At that point, I had more or less accepted their uselessness. If we wanted to help this city, we would have to do it ourselves.
Eventually, after almost two hours, the last woman was brought away, and it was time for us to leave. I had certain duties that I had ignored for the sake of taking down the Farm, but now that that was over, I needed to get them done. New Wave agreed to stay on watch for a little while long, and when I offered to bring Crow home, she said she would walk, fading into a shadow and disappearing.
I watched after her for a moment before cursing under my breath and teleporting away. When I arrived back home, I immediately stripped and climbed into the shower. I felt dirty and sick after what I had witnessed, and a scalding hot shower only just barely helped. When I felt marginally cleaner, I teleported off to the hospital.
I should have seen it coming, but when I arrived, they were already busy, as they had taken in all of the injured women from our bust. Kicking myself that I hadn't realized that sooner, I immediately volunteered to heal them.
One by one, each woman was treated delicately, and after their wounds and damages were documented, I healed them completely, doing everything I could to wipe away any reminder of their experience. Most of them were too traumatized to do anything but watch me nervously as I approached and carefully healed them. Only the woman who I saw, who had stepped out of her prison cell only to cower back inside, was cognizant enough to whisper a broken and tear-filled thank you when I was done.
After the women were healed, I completed my normal healing rounds more or less on autopilot. When I was done, I teleported to my usual spot near the PRT Headquarters so I could complete my duties there. Thankfully, there were only a few people who needed healing, and when I was done, the PRT officer escorting me through the building began to escort me back to the public areas. Despite the fact that I was at least still partially on autopilot, I did notice when my escort took a turn that I knew I did not lead to the exit. I stopped with a frown, my golems stopping with me. The guide made it a few steps before he noticed, stopping in the hall and looking back at me.
"Is there something wrong?" He asked.
"Why are we not heading back to the front door?" I asked with raised eyebrows.
"Director Piggot wishes to speak with you," He responded. "She wishes to discuss your recent success locating and clearing the Farm."
I looked at him for a moment, wondering what his superior could be thinking, before giving up and shaking my head. Resisting the urge to immediately assume the worst and snap, I let out a long breath.
"Did Director Piggot perhaps mention asking me if I was free?" I asked, looking at the fully uniformed agent. "I don't report to her, and my schedule doesn't revolve around her. She certainly doesn't get to drag me into a meeting without asking first. "
"I… " He started to respond, trailing off when the agent realized he didn't really have a way to respond without pissing me off more.
"Right. Well, tell Director Piggot that if she would like to make an appointment, she has access to my phone number. She can call me," I responded, before turning back and walking down the hall I knew led out.
"Hold on a minute, you are not allowed through restricted sections of the building without an escort," He responded, making no move to follow me, the tension in the room just slightly clicking upward. "If you would just meet with Director P-"
"Are you saying I'm not allowed unescorted… and then refusing to escort me?" I asked, turning back to look at the agent. "Are you fucking seri- You know what? Am I being detained?"
"No, you are not being detained," He responded. "The Director just wants a-"
"Good, then I'll be going."
I pulled out my staff, the curled wood straightening with a silent quick cast spell. The tension in the room suddenly spiked, and my guide pulled his pistol, though he kept it aimed at the ground. I could also hear the sound of several other weapons being pulled from behind me, but I ignored them. I whistled, and my golems moved in, gripping onto my arms.
"Tell Piggot not to bother calling me any time today," I said, before rapping my staff down on the floor, the iron cap thunking on the linoleum tiles. "Probably tomorrow either. Goodbye!"
One of the crystals on my staff, attached to a wooden loop by a strip of leather, glowed for a moment as I spoke the activation word for the spell trapped inside. The teleport spell activated in seconds, dragging me and my golems away instantly, landing on the ritual platform at the compound.
The golems immediately backed away, releasing my arms as they looked for threats. Meanwhile, I stood there, my eyes closed as I tried to contain my rising temper. After a long moment, Alya spoke up.
"Was that smart?" Alya asked.
"No, it probably wasn't," I admitted easily, shaking my head. "But I find myself not really caring. She isn't my boss. She has no right to order me around or just expect me to follow her demands."
As I responded, I pulled off my coat, hanging it in a branch, perhaps a bit rougher than necessary.
"Well… I thought you wanted to remain on good terms with the PRT?" She asked, shifting into her corporeal form and floating down, following me as I practically stormed to the fire pit area, dropping down roughly into one of the seats.
"I know, I know," I said, rubbing my eyes as I leaned forward, sitting on the edge of the seat. "But I just waded through the closest thing to hell that I have ever seen, and their response is to try and strong-arm me into a meeting, all after I just finished healing their people!"
Somewhere along my response, I had stood back up, beginning to pace around the compound, walking back and forth on the grown wooden boards that made up most of the latest additions.
"The Farm has been here for years, and they did nothing about it! I mean, we didn't even do anything special! You found it, but I'm sure there are plenty of thinkers who could have done the same. I might be a potent jack of all trades, but what we did wasn't all that impressive, we just beat up a couple armed gangers!"
"What about Lung?" Alya pointed out. "Not to play devil's advocate, but he was a rather large threat, even to a large, powerful group. You said it yourself. The most likely reason you managed to beat him was that you didn't come off as a threat but were able to deal with his low-level ramping stages."
I stopped pacing, letting out a long, almost ragged breath. I reached my hand up to run it through my hair, only to find my mask was still on. I took it off and tossed it onto one of the nearby seats, missing it completely.
I took another deep breath and, begrudgingly, accepted that she had a point. The local Protectorate didn't really have one silver bullet that could take down Lung by themselves. Dauntless was close, but even he wasn't nearly as tough as I was. Still, that did not absolve them from their sins.
"If the local ENE PRT couldn't take care of him, then the PRT as a whole should have," I eventually responded, my point remaining strong despite the fire leaving me. "None of this 'Gotham belongs to Batman, Metropolis to Superman bullshit.' For fucks sake, there was a sex slave ring operating in the city! And people knew it existed! The only way the ABB could have been more obvious about it is if they took out an ad in the paper to talk about it! The PRT may not have known where it was, but they knew it was here somewhere. The fact that Lung wasn't crushed by someone who countered him inherently, or squashed flat under the Triumvirate boot is… Fuck, it's really unacceptable."
"I… cannot argue with that," She admitted. "It is as if this town had been abandoned, but nobody warned the civilians to evacuate. The local Protectorate is in a holding pattern while the gangs slowly progress, barely restrained."
I stood there, in the relatively warm space around my compound, looking out into the forest. I could feel Kali, just under the surface, doing her best to support me as I worked through the frustration and anger that ran under my skin.
"I'm… I won't be like them," I finally said, shaking my head. "Is it their fault they are stuck like this? I don't know. But I refuse to stop or slow down. Tomorrow, I'm going to talk to Crow, if she will even talk to me, about pushing this further. I am sick of ignoring the ABB and E88 and just letting them hang by the side, just because they are keeping quiet now. We will start with drugs, work our way down to guns, then crack down on their money."
"Obliterating the ABB is going to cause even more of a power vacuum," she pointed out. "The Empire won't stay away. Even gangs from outside the city will be tempted.'
"There won't be a power vacuum because I'm going to fill it," I explained, standing up straight. "For now, New Wave and I can fill in and keep the E88 out when they try to expand. But in the next charge cycle, I will figure out something specific to invest every point I can. Something that will let me create help at a level that can work on its own. Maybe it's just pure golem creation or something else entirely. I'm not sure what it is yet, but whatever I settle on, I will use it to make a whole group of people watch over the territory.
"Something sentient?" Alya asked. "That's not usually simple."
"Maybe. It's not a requirement, but it would likely solve the problem," I answered, shaking my head. "I'll have to explore the limits of my golem-making with my normal ritual crafting, see if there is any way to make it work."
Sentience was a complicated subject when it came to magic, as it was heavily tied into soul magic, which was far from something I could tap into. The entity that put me on this Earth had made it very clear, as did what Alya knew about it, that I would have to invest dozens of points into soul magic to even scratch the surface, and those were points I still couldn't spare. My golems lacked any sentience, and I was pretty sure my rituals couldn't create it without a significant sacrifice, either by me or someone else. It wasn't something I could do willy-nilly, especially since I had already created Kali.
"I have a feeling my golem work isn't going to cut it, and my ritual skill will probably lead me toward a darker angle than I would feel comfortable with," I said after a long moment of thinking. "That said, there is definitely a solution out there. I just need to find it. Once I do, I can make an army of 'capes' loyal to me and to making this shithole of a city safe.
"That is going to scare the hell out of a lot of people," Alya pointed out. "Not just the PRT."
"If they didn't want to force someone to solve their problems, they should have fixed them first!" I fired back, before taking another long breath, once again pushing my fingers through my hair, before shaking my head and letting out a long sigh. "Sorry, I'm just… I'm not in a good head space right now. Not after what I saw. Whatever I need to do to make it work, whether it's to make them seem like real people or pass them off as projections, I will make it happen. If the PRT isn't going to save this city, I will."
Alya floated just a few feet away, slowly flowing cooling air over me, a gentle breeze that was refreshing, even as it made me shiver. I could feel Kali too, pushing from her space inside the land around us. She actually appeared, no more than a shimmering flutter of air, colored by spinning and dancing leaves. Still, it was impressive, a mark of her progress and growth as a Genus Loci. She didn't say anything, only stepped forward and wrapped me in a hug, rubbing the back of my head. From beside me, one of her living wood wolves pressed against my leg.
Silently, I leaned on her for support, an anchor through the horrific scenes I had witnessed throughout the day.
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The police took a good ten minutes to finally arrive, during which we managed to get all of the ABB members up to the top, all but throwing them out of the warehouse. It was hard not to get a little rough with them. They deserved it, after all, for just being involved with this monstrous undertaking. I ended up leaving most of the work to my golems as I quickly found myself too tempted to enact my own justice.
When the police arrived, most of the team returned to the surface to watch for ABB reinforcements. I was pretty sure they weren't going to, as the only reason the Farm was useful to the ABB was because it was hidden, and from what Alya could see, there was no cash or resources stored at the site. There might be some interesting information on the computers, but if there was, they didn't care enough to try and take it back. There was no reason for the ABB to come try and take the facility back when we had already found it.
While the rest of the team kept watch, I remained inside the building, as I was asked several times to heal some of the more worrying wounds, treating the scared women gently as I washed away things that were likely to or were already infected, as well as a few broken and fracture bones that Alya couldn't have detected when I asked her to check on the victims.
As I stayed behind, I was treated to a horror show. Victim after victim was gently coaxed from their cells, revealing horrific living conditions. Even worse was the condition of the victims, with severe bruising being the absolute minimum injury. One woman in particular bore a split lip that reached her gums, while almost all others had tears and sores along their ankles and wrists, severe bruising, and quite a few stress fractures along their bodies.
I wasn't ashamed to admit I lost my last meal after running a scan on a particular unconscious woman. She had refused to calm down, traumatized past the point of sense, so the paramedics had been forced to sedate them. Her injuries were plentiful, but it was the trauma below the belt that undid my self-control.
Despite our involvement, the PRT did not show up during this entire process. Whether out of respect for the scenario or fear of the message of only showing up after everything was over, they never showed their face. At that point, I had more or less accepted their uselessness. If we wanted to help this city, we would have to do it ourselves.
Eventually, after almost two hours, the last woman was brought away, and it was time for us to leave. I had certain duties that I had ignored for the sake of taking down the Farm, but now that that was over, I needed to get them done. New Wave agreed to stay on watch for a little while long, and when I offered to bring Crow home, she said she would walk, fading into a shadow and disappearing.
I watched after her for a moment before cursing under my breath and teleporting away. When I arrived back home, I immediately stripped and climbed into the shower. I felt dirty and sick after what I had witnessed, and a scalding hot shower only just barely helped. When I felt marginally cleaner, I teleported off to the hospital.
I should have seen it coming, but when I arrived, they were already busy, as they had taken in all of the injured women from our bust. Kicking myself that I hadn't realized that sooner, I immediately volunteered to heal them.
One by one, each woman was treated delicately, and after their wounds and damages were documented, I healed them completely, doing everything I could to wipe away any reminder of their experience. Most of them were too traumatized to do anything but watch me nervously as I approached and carefully healed them. Only the woman who I saw, who had stepped out of her prison cell only to cower back inside, was cognizant enough to whisper a broken and tear-filled thank you when I was done.
After the women were healed, I completed my normal healing rounds more or less on autopilot. When I was done, I teleported to my usual spot near the PRT Headquarters so I could complete my duties there. Thankfully, there were only a few people who needed healing, and when I was done, the PRT officer escorting me through the building began to escort me back to the public areas. Despite the fact that I was at least still partially on autopilot, I did notice when my escort took a turn that I knew I did not lead to the exit. I stopped with a frown, my golems stopping with me. The guide made it a few steps before he noticed, stopping in the hall and looking back at me.
"Is there something wrong?" He asked.
"Why are we not heading back to the front door?" I asked with raised eyebrows.
"Director Piggot wishes to speak with you," He responded. "She wishes to discuss your recent success locating and clearing the Farm."
I looked at him for a moment, wondering what his superior could be thinking, before giving up and shaking my head. Resisting the urge to immediately assume the worst and snap, I let out a long breath.
"Did Director Piggot perhaps mention asking me if I was free?" I asked, looking at the fully uniformed agent. "I don't report to her, and my schedule doesn't revolve around her. She certainly doesn't get to drag me into a meeting without asking first. "
"I… " He started to respond, trailing off when the agent realized he didn't really have a way to respond without pissing me off more.
"Right. Well, tell Director Piggot that if she would like to make an appointment, she has access to my phone number. She can call me," I responded, before turning back and walking down the hall I knew led out.
"Hold on a minute, you are not allowed through restricted sections of the building without an escort," He responded, making no move to follow me, the tension in the room just slightly clicking upward. "If you would just meet with Director P-"
"Are you saying I'm not allowed unescorted… and then refusing to escort me?" I asked, turning back to look at the agent. "Are you fucking seri- You know what? Am I being detained?"
"No, you are not being detained," He responded. "The Director just wants a-"
"Good, then I'll be going."
I pulled out my staff, the curled wood straightening with a silent quick cast spell. The tension in the room suddenly spiked, and my guide pulled his pistol, though he kept it aimed at the ground. I could also hear the sound of several other weapons being pulled from behind me, but I ignored them. I whistled, and my golems moved in, gripping onto my arms.
"Tell Piggot not to bother calling me any time today," I said, before rapping my staff down on the floor, the iron cap thunking on the linoleum tiles. "Probably tomorrow either. Goodbye!"
One of the crystals on my staff, attached to a wooden loop by a strip of leather, glowed for a moment as I spoke the activation word for the spell trapped inside. The teleport spell activated in seconds, dragging me and my golems away instantly, landing on the ritual platform at the compound.
The golems immediately backed away, releasing my arms as they looked for threats. Meanwhile, I stood there, my eyes closed as I tried to contain my rising temper. After a long moment, Alya spoke up.
"Was that smart?" Alya asked.
"No, it probably wasn't," I admitted easily, shaking my head. "But I find myself not really caring. She isn't my boss. She has no right to order me around or just expect me to follow her demands."
As I responded, I pulled off my coat, hanging it in a branch, perhaps a bit rougher than necessary.
"Well… I thought you wanted to remain on good terms with the PRT?" She asked, shifting into her corporeal form and floating down, following me as I practically stormed to the fire pit area, dropping down roughly into one of the seats.
"I know, I know," I said, rubbing my eyes as I leaned forward, sitting on the edge of the seat. "But I just waded through the closest thing to hell that I have ever seen, and their response is to try and strong-arm me into a meeting, all after I just finished healing their people!"
Somewhere along my response, I had stood back up, beginning to pace around the compound, walking back and forth on the grown wooden boards that made up most of the latest additions.
"The Farm has been here for years, and they did nothing about it! I mean, we didn't even do anything special! You found it, but I'm sure there are plenty of thinkers who could have done the same. I might be a potent jack of all trades, but what we did wasn't all that impressive, we just beat up a couple armed gangers!"
"What about Lung?" Alya pointed out. "Not to play devil's advocate, but he was a rather large threat, even to a large, powerful group. You said it yourself. The most likely reason you managed to beat him was that you didn't come off as a threat but were able to deal with his low-level ramping stages."
I stopped pacing, letting out a long, almost ragged breath. I reached my hand up to run it through my hair, only to find my mask was still on. I took it off and tossed it onto one of the nearby seats, missing it completely.
I took another deep breath and, begrudgingly, accepted that she had a point. The local Protectorate didn't really have one silver bullet that could take down Lung by themselves. Dauntless was close, but even he wasn't nearly as tough as I was. Still, that did not absolve them from their sins.
"If the local ENE PRT couldn't take care of him, then the PRT as a whole should have," I eventually responded, my point remaining strong despite the fire leaving me. "None of this 'Gotham belongs to Batman, Metropolis to Superman bullshit.' For fucks sake, there was a sex slave ring operating in the city! And people knew it existed! The only way the ABB could have been more obvious about it is if they took out an ad in the paper to talk about it! The PRT may not have known where it was, but they knew it was here somewhere. The fact that Lung wasn't crushed by someone who countered him inherently, or squashed flat under the Triumvirate boot is… Fuck, it's really unacceptable."
"I… cannot argue with that," She admitted. "It is as if this town had been abandoned, but nobody warned the civilians to evacuate. The local Protectorate is in a holding pattern while the gangs slowly progress, barely restrained."
I stood there, in the relatively warm space around my compound, looking out into the forest. I could feel Kali, just under the surface, doing her best to support me as I worked through the frustration and anger that ran under my skin.
"I'm… I won't be like them," I finally said, shaking my head. "Is it their fault they are stuck like this? I don't know. But I refuse to stop or slow down. Tomorrow, I'm going to talk to Crow, if she will even talk to me, about pushing this further. I am sick of ignoring the ABB and E88 and just letting them hang by the side, just because they are keeping quiet now. We will start with drugs, work our way down to guns, then crack down on their money."
"Obliterating the ABB is going to cause even more of a power vacuum," she pointed out. "The Empire won't stay away. Even gangs from outside the city will be tempted.'
"There won't be a power vacuum because I'm going to fill it," I explained, standing up straight. "For now, New Wave and I can fill in and keep the E88 out when they try to expand. But in the next charge cycle, I will figure out something specific to invest every point I can. Something that will let me create help at a level that can work on its own. Maybe it's just pure golem creation or something else entirely. I'm not sure what it is yet, but whatever I settle on, I will use it to make a whole group of people watch over the territory.
"Something sentient?" Alya asked. "That's not usually simple."
"Maybe. It's not a requirement, but it would likely solve the problem," I answered, shaking my head. "I'll have to explore the limits of my golem-making with my normal ritual crafting, see if there is any way to make it work."
Sentience was a complicated subject when it came to magic, as it was heavily tied into soul magic, which was far from something I could tap into. The entity that put me on this Earth had made it very clear, as did what Alya knew about it, that I would have to invest dozens of points into soul magic to even scratch the surface, and those were points I still couldn't spare. My golems lacked any sentience, and I was pretty sure my rituals couldn't create it without a significant sacrifice, either by me or someone else. It wasn't something I could do willy-nilly, especially since I had already created Kali.
"I have a feeling my golem work isn't going to cut it, and my ritual skill will probably lead me toward a darker angle than I would feel comfortable with," I said after a long moment of thinking. "That said, there is definitely a solution out there. I just need to find it. Once I do, I can make an army of 'capes' loyal to me and to making this shithole of a city safe.
"That is going to scare the hell out of a lot of people," Alya pointed out. "Not just the PRT."
"If they didn't want to force someone to solve their problems, they should have fixed them first!" I fired back, before taking another long breath, once again pushing my fingers through my hair, before shaking my head and letting out a long sigh. "Sorry, I'm just… I'm not in a good head space right now. Not after what I saw. Whatever I need to do to make it work, whether it's to make them seem like real people or pass them off as projections, I will make it happen. If the PRT isn't going to save this city, I will."
Alya floated just a few feet away, slowly flowing cooling air over me, a gentle breeze that was refreshing, even as it made me shiver. I could feel Kali too, pushing from her space inside the land around us. She actually appeared, no more than a shimmering flutter of air, colored by spinning and dancing leaves. Still, it was impressive, a mark of her progress and growth as a Genus Loci. She didn't say anything, only stepped forward and wrapped me in a hug, rubbing the back of my head. From beside me, one of her living wood wolves pressed against my leg.
Silently, I leaned on her for support, an anchor through the horrific scenes I had witnessed throughout the day.
Wow...you're really trying hard on having Arcanium create more drama and problems for himself. And alienate everybody. And refuse to listen to anybody without access to an air elemental capable of infiltrating buildings and sense everything in a vast area explain why they do not have access to an air elemental or equivalent and thus cannot make use of said air elemental or equivalent in their search...
Yeah, PRT isn't perfect. And inneficient. But to try to make them their enemy because a single trooper didn't ask until he's halfway done misinterpreting his order and used to only work with other professional employees...I get that he's in a bad mood, but to lash out like that seems very counterproductive. Just say "I can't deal with this right now, I need to clear my head." rather than treat them like dirt and enemies...
Ah well, guess we'll see if anybody can get him out of this mess he talked and acted himself in. I've been pleasantly surprised before with this story.
Yeah, PRT isn't perfect. And inneficient. But to try to make them their enemy because a single trooper didn't ask until he's halfway done misinterpreting his order and used to only work with other professional employees...I get that he's in a bad mood, but to lash out like that seems very counterproductive. Just say "I can't deal with this right now, I need to clear my head." rather than treat them like dirt and enemies...
Ah well, guess we'll see if anybody can get him out of this mess he talked and acted himself in. I've been pleasantly surprised before with this story.
ScreamyBirb
Here is Screaming
Oh, Piggot, you daft iron-clad bitch. The sad thing is that you know for a fact she wanted to meet him to chew him out for doing that raid without informing the PRT first.
I doubt this is going to change the public-facing relationship between them right now, it'd be a PR disaster of the highest order to break things off immediately after he and New Wave so cleanly took down the Farm. Hell, that's a PR nightmare itself, they're going to be working on squashing reporting on why the heck the PRT didn't take out the Farm for a long while. Behind closed doors people are going to have their opinions, but I don't see how any of them can be put into action, Arcanum's public position is... well, not unassailable, but too firmly positive for a good counter-narrative.
I doubt this is going to change the public-facing relationship between them right now, it'd be a PR disaster of the highest order to break things off immediately after he and New Wave so cleanly took down the Farm. Hell, that's a PR nightmare itself, they're going to be working on squashing reporting on why the heck the PRT didn't take out the Farm for a long while. Behind closed doors people are going to have their opinions, but I don't see how any of them can be put into action, Arcanum's public position is... well, not unassailable, but too firmly positive for a good counter-narrative.
- Location
- The State of Denial
As it stands, it looks like Piggot was making a power play. She was demanding that Arcanum report to her. Someone who isn't in her chain of command. Without so much as asking for permission or acceptance.
That is the kind of thing that would upset me, and I hadn't even broken up a prostitution slave ring this morning.
Then the trooper didn't take no for an answer, and didn't let Arcanum just walk away, and hell, even started getting twitchy near the gun holster.
Now, the trooper could have been given false or misleading orders from Coil, but even without that, absolutely nothing the trooper did was designed to be helpful or deescalate the problem. All of it was petty power plays and stupid fuck-fuck games.
If Arcanum was a proper parahuman, that kind of shit would result in walls being blown out at a minimum as opposed to just emergency teleporting out to cool off.
I'd call drawing a lethal weapon a bit more than "getting twitchy near the gun holster" personally. Even if it was little more than a concerningly destructive noise maker for Arcanum.
That said, while I do see this being piggot's usual pigishness, this does have coil's usual stink hovering around it.
Arcanum seems to be getting closer to how cauldron's deliberately sabotaged Brockton Bay. Though ironically, his plan is a perfect demonstration of their parahuman feudalism idea lmao.