The rest of the patrol had positioned themselves in a makeshift firing line. They announced their attacks and began to fire round after round down the hallway. Puck began to dodge the best he could. He no longer had the stamina to stop the magnetically propelled disks but did what he could to divert them to his sides so that they would not hit him.
With the fight initiated, everyone jumped into battle. Angel raced forward, spewing a plume of black clouds both in front of him and behind him. The smoke expanded through the room before coalescing into two dark black walls that protruded from the sides of the corridor. Puck jumped behind one of the newly fabricated barricades, and a barrage of metal rounds smacked into Angel’s creation, but to no avail. In one swift action, Angel had made fighting in the open hallway a lot more manageable for the group.
Karrel popped out his green book, while the girls moved up to Puck’s position. He wrapped the red symbols around his hand, peaked out from cover, picked his target, and fired. The red symbols dispersed, and a surge of purple and blue energy crackled forward. The lighting-like blast of energy connected with the dead-center of its target. The unfortunate x-bot shattered into pieces, the metal and bars being propelled down the hallway.
All six of the remaining automatons diverted their attention to where Karrel was. They all yelled, “SWITCHING TARGETS,” and began to collectively fire at the black wall he was behind. Both Karrel and Johnny, who had taken cover near Karrel, ducked their heads underneath the wall. Loud thumping barraged the other side of where they were hiding. They believed themselves to be safe for the time being, until they realized that the makeshift wall of solid black smoke was starting to crack. Johnny and Karrel gave each other terrified looks.
Luckily, the girls had jumped into action. The diverted attention of the x-bots gave them the opening that they were looking for. Prisca, Jessica, Krystalyn, and Alice all dove out from their cover. Prisca and Krystalyn grabbed Alice by the arms and launched her into the air, toward the group of metal guards. Jessica darted forward, easily dodging the incoming rifle fire.
Risking a gaze, Karrel attentively witnessed the girls fight for the first time. It was a ghastly sight. All four of the girls, some on the ground, some in the air, encroached upon their robotic opponents. Alice landed atop one of the guards, knocking it prone. She held one of her hands up in the air and spread her fingers as if they were a claw. Sure enough, her nails protruded slightly and formed themselves into razorlike entities. She swiped once and decapitated the machine with ease.
Both Prisca and Krystalyn jumped to the nearest wall, dodging a barrage of shots while doing so. Alice wasn’t the only one with claws it seemed, and Karrel watched wide-eyed as the two girls attached themselves to the sides of the walls and rapidly crawled toward their targets. Simultaneously, they pounced down upon their prey, shredding the metal arms and legs of their targets.
Meanwhile, Jessica had been charging up the front, dancing around the projectiles like they were nothing. Getting close to the guards, she slid on her knees below the elbow-strike of one of the x-bots. Mid-slide, she grabbed a severed metal bar from one of the deceased automatons and swung with all her strength at her failed assailant. The crushing blow caused the metal headpiece to cave-in upon itself, and the metal humanoid shuddered, collapsing to the ground.
The last two remaining robotic guards aimed their weapons at Alice, who was still straddling a metal corpse. But before they could pull their triggers, Alice leaped toward them. In an instant, she and the two remaining robots disappeared into a pitch-black void.
Karrel stepped out from cover, utterly confused. Where Alice and the two guards had just been, there was now a black, reflective, perfectly round sphere that filled up half the width of the corridor. Yet, as he looked around, none of the others seemed to be surprised. He shot a look at Angel, giving him a “what the hell” gesture, but Angel smiled and shook his head no, invalidating Karrel’s thoughts that it was he who had done this.
Walking up to the gigantic, black-mirror ball, Karrel could see that the substance was strange and unearthly, but also quite beautiful in its own way. He stared at his own reflection, and after a moment, it vanished. The dark sphere evaporated. Alice appeared, standing up and completely untouched. Where the two metal guards had been standing, there was now a pile of scrap metal and eviscerated electronics. Alice didn’t say a word. She simply brushed herself off and continued down the corridor.
As everyone began to follow Alice, Karrel inched his way over to Angel.
“Okay… So… What?” Karrel was befuddled.
Angel was still smiling. “Yeah,” he mused, “whenever we ask Alice about that, she always says, ‘you wouldn’t understand,’ and walks away. I don’t even think her sisters know what it is.”
Staring at the four demonic women ahead of him, Karrel began to realize how little he truly knew about the girls. He had gotten to know them during the past months, and he was happy to now call them friends. However, seeing Alice summon that black sphere from nothing reminded him that he was still dealing with demons, and their weird capabilities, whenever they were around. If Alice had strange powers, he was willing to bet the others did as well… The piles of scrap metal reinforced his happiness that they were on his side.
With the skirmish at an end, the squad regrouped and proceeded forward. Johnny was constantly checking his wrist, making sure that they were all on the correct path. He warned everyone that they were getting close to the first objective, which meant it was going to be time to pull out all of the stops.
Puck held his fist up, signing for everyone to halt. Johnny approached his position, still looking at his wrist.
“Metal door around the corner?” Johnny asked.
Puck nodded his head. It was the first door they had seen since leaving the garage. It gave off an eerie vibe, as they had been bombarded with nothing but white walls for the past several minutes.
“Alright everyone,” Johnny began informing the group of the situation, “around this corner is a security station. It’s responsible for the camera network that covers the areas where we will be traversing. We need to take it out so that our movements can’t be monitored. Otherwise, they’ll know we’re going for their power stations.”
“Won’t the other security centers realize when the cameras go down?” Karrel was making sure to cover all the bases.
Johnny nodded his head. “This is where things get a little rough… Everyone ready?”
With their minds resolute, they rounded the corner and stood before the grey, metal door. Angel took point. “I suppose I’ll knock,” he suggested.
With a cloud of black smoke wrapped around his hand, Angel slammed against the metal door, unhinging it from the wall and sending it clanging across the security room.
The hallways they had been traversing had been oversized, to say the least. The surveillance area was no different. It was an enormous room, big enough to carry a second floor along the sides of its walls. The center of the area was hollow, allowing clear sightlines from the ground floor to the upper level. Servers and computer stations were neatly organized into columns, and where there wasn’t electronic equipment, there were patrolling robotic guards.
“There!” Puck pointed out a reinforced room as they entered. The boxed off area on the second floor was equipped with multiple monitors, and it quickly became apparent that that was the control center. It was going to be difficult to get there, however. Tens of x-bots had watched the metal door cartwheel along the floor, and they were all now staring at the group of intruders. They aimed their rifles, shouting in the process, “UNKNOWN ENTITIES VERIFIED.”
Angel immediately jumped into action. Devoured by black smoke and flying toward his first target, he shouted out, “Last one to the control center does the dishes for a week!” He then chucked a globe of darkness, blowing apart one of the automatons and initiating the fight.
Everyone either raced forward or took up positions the best they could. The robotic guard
s began to freely open fire. Metal disks were flung across the room at deadly speeds, and what was supposed to be a quiet place of monitoring devolved into a warzone.
Karrel ducked behind one of the tall server clusters. It didn’t feel like great cover, but the x-bots seemed to be doing their best not to hit any of the equipment they were supposed to be guarding. He pulled out his green book and got to work. He would pick a target, blast it into pieces, and change positions. Rinse and repeat. Stay in motion. That was how you survived gigantic scuffles like these.
Though there were different schools of thought. Johnny for example, had taken up position in the center of the room, where everything could see him, and he could see everything. He dropped three of the metallic polyhedrons he kept on his belt, and the MAITs swiftly built themselves into an array of weapon emplacements. The turrets began to barrage their targets with an onslaught of bullets and shells.
Johnny had left himself exposed however, and a squad of x-bots decided to jump on the opportunity. They slung a salvo of chrome disks down upon Johnny’s position. The deadly round bullets pierced through the air, ready to shred whichever limb they hit. A few of the projectiles missed, leaving fist-sized craters in the perfectly white floor, but three of the metal disks slammed into Johnny. He didn’t even flinch. For all the damage that should have been caused, none of it transpired. The disks bounced off Johnny as though they were rubber balls. Wherever they had hit, a thick layer of chrome metal, not unlike the substance his turrets were made of, covered the point of impact as if it was a second layer of skin.
Johnny gave a lackadaisical gaze at his new assailants, glanced back at his turrets, and pointed to where the oncoming fire had come from. His turrets shifted their targeting and rained hell upon the second floor. After a few seconds of sustained fire, there was nothing left but dust, scrap metal, and a few hundred holes in the pristine walls.
The patches of chrome coating, that was now covering Johnny, retracted into themselves, exposing his real skin and once again forming the narrow, silver, snakelike lines that ran along Johnny’s entirety. He remained completely uninjured.
Seeing the carnage that Johnny had just caused was fascinating, however Krystalyn’s actions were what was truly impressing Karrel. Her cloak and black hair were flying through the air as she jumped from machine to machine, decapitating and crushing whoever was closest. Nothing could touch her. The x-bots tried their best, shooting round after round at her while she bounced along the walls and computers, but she remained untouched.
Krystalyn landed in between a firing line of the robotic guards. They all turned to face her. In their robotic voices, they calmly announced, “ENGAGING IN MELEE,” and proceeded to throw punch after punch. Like a ballerina, she danced around the metal limbs, parrying their strikes when necessary, and slicing hardware away when she could. In a matter of moments, the machines lay collapsed onto the floor, one of them announcing that their right leg could not be located and recommending that the nearest maintenance engineer be contacted.
It was almost an elegant sight, watching Krystalyn rip the robots to shreds. She was versatile with her movements, but at the same time, she showed no hesitation when she picked her target. It was hard to look away from the brutal display of skill and power. However, Karrel did not realize how long he had been staring.
“Duck!” Puck screamed at him from across the room.
Karrel instinctually dropped to a crouch. Something whiffed over his head, and he could feel air tickle his hair. He turned around to come face-to-face with an x-bot whose arm had just barely missed the back of his skull. The automaton had slung his gauss rifle and was readying its next attack.
The metal contraption was too close, and Karrel knew that there was no time to use his green notebook. He was going to have to rely on hand-to-hand combat. Clenching his fist, he lashed out with a quick jab toward the headpiece. The x-bot weaved out of the way and unloaded a quick one-two-three combo against Karrel’s solar plexus.
Karrel vomited air and was forced to retreat a few steps. His metal opponent stood ready, taking a boxer’s stance. Karrel now saw that these robots had more than just rudimentary hand-to-hand programming; it was something he didn’t expect. However, he had always been confident with his unarmed combat, and this little debacle had become a question of honor.
Shimmying forward, Karrel prepared his counterattack. Unfortunately, he never got a chance to unleash it. A metal pole, vaguely similar to one of the twisted bars of the x-bot’s arm appendage, pierced through the skull of Karrel’s opponent. It lifelessly toppled to the floor.
Happy that his makeshift projectile had connected, Puck positioned himself next to Karrel, rolling his eyes. “You can gawk at her another time,” Puck barked, “but right now, we could use some more lasers.”
“I was covering her!” Karrel snapped, as Puck ran off, telekinetically launching some of the new scrap metal across the room. “It wasn’t gawking…! And they’re not lasers!”
Karrel had to admit though, Puck was right. He had let himself get distracted in the midst of a fight. That was not okay. He flipped through the pages of his green book and got back to work.
Between the gauss fire, Angel’s exploding globs of smoke, and Puck’s whirlwinds of scrap metal, the security room was thrashed. The blindingly white walls had been painted with shards of metal and burns marks from the sparking electronics. Every single server tower had at least one hole in it, and the only working computers were those that were located in the boxed off area on the second floor.
Johnny, Puck, Jessica, Prisca, Alice, and Krystalyn had all made their way into the closed off room. Walking in through what used to be the opening for a door, Karrel regrouped with his friends. There were monitors everywhere. Johnny was right to mark this place as a target. Not only could they disable this station, masking their movements through the next area, but the group could now take a look through the cameras and peer into what their paths were going to look like in the near future.
“Looks like we’re all finished up here,” Angel rejoiced, walking into the room.
Everyone gave him a long, blank stare before looking to each other. Alice finally spoke out in a quiet and passive manner, “He forgot about his bet.”
Angel’s eyes darted to the upper left corner of their sockets. Realizing he was last to enter the room, he slapped his palm to his face. “Ah, crap!” he groaned.
“You can do our dishes later,” Johnny mocked, before addressing the computer screens. “Right now, I need you all to take a good look at where you’re going.”
The screens showed multiple hallways, and rooms, but the most important images were on the center monitor. Bright, glowing rooms with blue walls could be seen. In the center of each of these four rooms, a single fusion energy core could be found, radiating a vast amount of light and energy.
“There’s our targets,” Karrel remarked.
“Good!” Johnny said. “Everyone take a good look at the layout of this place. We’ll split into two groups at first and break off into pairs when we get close to the cores.”
Everyone nodded in agreement.
“Alright,” Johnny began to create the groups, “Karrel, Krystalyn, Angel, and Alice. You’ll go for the two cores on the east side. Jessica, Puck, and Prisca. You’re with me on the west side.”
The group took one last look at the security monitors, memorizing the layout of where they were going. The two groups were going to be distanced from one another quite a bit, and it would happen again once they had to break off into pairs. None of them could waste time getting lost.
“Everyone ready?” Angel asked.
A last few checks of gear, and a few tugs on their armor, and everyone nodded their heads.
“Perfect!” Angel smiled. He charged a ball of black smoke in the palm of his hand before throwing it at the monitoring station. The computers exploded into pieces, sending sparks everywhere and rendering them, and their subsequent cameras, completely useless. �
��‘cause someone might have heard that.”
With everything in order, the teams split up and proceeded further into the depths of the UWP facility. It was only going to get more dangerous from here.
Chapter 18
Never Split the Party
The east side of the complex provided a change of pace. Karrel, Angel, Krystalyn, and Alice had run into very little opposition as they charged through the pristine, white corridors of the UWP facility. They were met with robotic guards here and there, but they were easily avoidable, and confrontation was being kept to a minimum. Their main goal was to collect as many of the fusion cores as they possibly could. Destroying x-bots was secondary to that objective. With two of the cores generally located near the east edge of the territory, and several hundred feet above them, the group needed to find an elevator.
Looking to his sides, Karrel found comfort in those who were beside him. Over the months, Angel had accidentally become his closest friend, and after forgiving Karrel’s physical outburst against him, he knew that Angel felt the same way. It was not just sentiments that consoled him either. Angel was a powerful ally to have. He had lost count of the sheer number of impossible situations Angel had simply breezed through.
The girls had also shown their barbaric fury as well. The metallic guards that they faced might as well have been made out of paper with the way they had sliced through them. Karrel was still in disbelief at how much relief he felt having two demons by his side in a scuffle. Regardless of their tails, he occasionally found that he had to recall that they were not, in fact, human. However, after watching Alice summon that giant, reflective, black orb, he knew that the disbelief would fade fast. He wondered if Krystalyn had any hidden powers that she had yet to show. Honestly, there was a lot of things about Krystalyn that he wanted to know more about. Special abilities or not however, he found himself reassured having Krystalyn by his side. And, from the way Angel kept glancing at Alice, Karrel had an inkling that his black-masked friend was enjoying a similar comfort.
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