Jake stormed out of the hall, Malcolm gaping at him. He had never been spoken to like that. Sora knew Jake had said it all. He too followed Jake out of the hall along with all the Lucifer’s Fall contractors and Conner.
Within a few minutes, they had changed their clothes and were in the hangar. Sean had already briefed Roy on the situation and he had agreed with their decision. As the N-2 lifted up in the air, Sora imagined how Heinz would react if he knew what they were doing now. But Sora would take no chances.
It was a moment before he realized that they weren’t the only hovercrafts in the air then. The N-2’s radio buzzed and a voice crackled, saying,
“~ Aryan squad is ready to back you up. ~”
“~ Mystic Break squad is ready to form an alliance. ~”
Sora turned to Jake and grinned. Stella Blight’s guild had joined forces with them.
“~ North Star squad is ready to be in the front lines. ~”
“~ Morning Star squad is ready to support you as well. ~”It was the east continent guild Sakura Hitoshi, whom Sora had beaten in round of 32, belonged to.
“~ Terra Raptors are with you all the way, excluding Kenny Malcolm, of course. And Leander Craig says hi. ~”
Zack beamed. Sora’s heart was pumping. Almost all the strongest young contractors had decided to join forces and aid them. Even if it was the Dark Alliance, this team was strong enough.
A few more guilds joined them as well. There were now nearly fifty contractors heading towards Salt Lake City.
Roy spoke into the radio, “Nice to have some company on this trip! And you guys boasted about how good your babies were, didn’t you? Hope you can keep up with me and my N-2 now!”
Sora managed to get a couple of hours of sleep before the sunlight hit his face. He was puzzled for a moment but then remembered the time difference between the central continent and south continent. The sun rose earlier in that part of the south continent than it did in the central continent. Sora’s G watch had automatically changed itself to the south continent standard time and it was nearly six in the morning.
Roy had been awake the whole time and decided to put the ship on autopilot and snooze when he saw Sora wake up. But he didn’t sleep for long. They were closing in on Salt Lake City.
The hovercrafts landed on grassy lands nearly ten kilometres away from the city. Conner took out his laptop and connected it with the N-2s GPS system and used it to hack into one of the satellites.
Sora said, hiding his amazement at the ease with which the satellite was hacked, “But didn’t your dad say that nothing appeared on the satellites?”
Conner nodded and said, “It occurred to me that the encrypted file contained the lines, ‘use discreet methods of transport’. They might have some technology that renders them invisible or hides them from their radar. But there’s one thing they can’t hide... Their heat signature.”
Conner showed his screen, which showed images of Salt Lake City through the satellite. He activated one of his programs and suddenly, the screen went purple and blue. And in the center of the city, there were red and orange shapes of a number of big air ships.
Everybody gasped. There was hard proof right in front of them.
Sean said, “Conner, send a copy of these images to your father immediately. This is good enough proof for them to believe us. And all we have to do is stall them from leaving before the backup reaches us. Sora, any news from the guys in the guild HQ?”
Sora nodded. “I caught them just as they landed back in the guild after leaving Aboyr yesterday. They needed some time to refuel the N-2s and N-3s. But I already told them to come to this spot. They should be arriving here any moment now.”
And they did. Kira, Emily, Julie and the others stepped out of hovercrafts looking extremely tired, yet ready for action. Alex had already been sent on a mission and could not be reached.
They started heading by foot from that spot, fearing that their hovercrafts might be detected on the Dark Alliance’s radar. About a kilometre away from the city, they caught sight of the city and their hearts sank.
There was a thick, black smoke being emanated from the city. Even at a distance, they could see signs of struggles having taken place. And the huge black airship of the Dark Alliance loomed ominously over the city.
Jake clenched his fist and said, “Sean, can you use your hawk eye and see what’s happening now?”
Sean stared in front for a second and said, “The fight is over. They seem to be transporting children from the hospital to the big airship through a few smaller hovercrafts. The soldiers have taken over the city completely. The police have been tied up and the civilians seem to be locked up in a few buildings as well.”
“Wait… you can see all that? From here?” Leander Craig asked in amazement.
Jake took command instantly. “We need to split up. Zack, you take a group into the city and create a diversion on my command. I’ll lead another team into the buildings and rescue the hostages and bring them to a safe location. Eddy, how many people can you teleport with your shadow hound in one go?”
Eddy Cue replied, “I can handle around sixty people, but it’s dangerous to take any more than that.”
“You have a shadow hound?” Leander Craig asked perplexed.
Jake went on, “Okay. Anyone else with teleportation based contracts?”
Three people raised their hands. Between them, they could transport nearly two hundred people out of the city. Jake seemed pleased.
“What about the children taken inside the airship?” Sora asked.
Jake said, “Sora, do you have your sky surfer?” Sora nodded.
“Good. Sean, when Sora gives a signal, I want you and some other ranged contract users to take out some of the guards near the docking area, where the hovercrafts that are transporting stuff into the airship are kept. Sora, you take a team of contractors and hovercrafts pilots and use them to get into the airship. Follow them with your sky surfer. When they land in the ship hangar, I want you to take out everyone in the hangar as fast as you can. Then try to find your way around the ship and save those children and get them back to the ground. And...”
Jake spoke now to every member present there.
“You may all be strong contractors and I thank you from the bottom of my heart for deciding to help me. But please keep in mind that the people you will face now will not give a second thought about killing you. Don’t throw away your lives unnecessarily.”
Sora was completely mesmerized. He had noticed this leadership quality in Jake before. It had an effect on everybody present there. They all nodded and started forming groups along with the group leaders.
Soon, the teams were in position. The first thing they had to do was take out the lookouts that might notice them moving in. Sean’s long-range sniping team handled it beautifully by knocking out the outpost guards stationed all around the city. The other teams moved in on command.
Sora was leading ten people into the heart of the city. His team included Stella Blight, Vikram Arikath, a Lightning contractor from North Star, a wind contractor from Mystic Break, a blade vulture contractor and iron fist gorilla contractor from another south continent guild called Woodland Rangers. There was also one contractor from Terra Raptor with an earth retriever, known for its ability to find hidden objects, as well as three hovercraft pilots, which included Roy.
They were able to sneak into the city with ease. Sora experienced a sense of familiarity as he silently skipped past the quiet city.
His first job was to secure the area around a manhole connected to the sewers, from where another squad could invade the city.
Sora hid behind a broken car while the rest of his squad took positions inside the broken buildings. Stella stood alongside the pilots. The manhole was in sight. And so were a few Dark Alliance soldiers, wearing their purple suits branded with their symbol.
The reason Sora had chosen his team with these contractors was that they were capable of taking out enemies in the most quiet and inc
onspicuous manner.
The blade vulture and a slash of wind, followed by Sora and Vikram’s movements, were enough to take them out without causing a commotion. They hid the unconscious bodies in the buildings and tied them up. Sora spoke into his headset, “Infiltration point 1 secured.”
“~ Good job ~” was the reply he received. The manhole simultaneously twisted and opened and around twenty contractors came out of it. Zack and Jake were amongst them. The group leaders didn’t say anything, just nodded, and went off with their respective groups to handle the job given to them.
Sora’s group was soon in front of the hospital, which was the docking area. It also happened to be the same hospital that Sora was in after Kai had saved him eight years ago. He wondered if the good doctor was okay.
They had to get to the top of the hospital. But there was no way they could jump to the top of the building or fly in without attracting attention. So they had to climb up the six-storied hospital from inside. There was a ventilation shaft inviting them into the building so they used it. Sora led the way and as he crawled through the shaft, his senses told him that there was a man right below the shaft’s exit. But he had just the thing for the situation.
He took out a maroon knockout ball and rolled it down through the slits of the shaft. Within a few seconds, there was a dull thud and Sora pushed into the building and jumped on the sleeping guard to avoid making a sound. Near the stairs, there were a few more guards. Stella opted to take care of them. She summoned her Flora Staff.
Creepers suddenly sprang from the floor around the guards and strangled them till they lost consciousness.
The hospital was completely silent, other than the voices of the guards on the higher floors. There was not a soul in sight. Sora guessed the patients and the hospital staff had been held hostage along with the other civilians.
Fortunately for them, the stairs of the hospital were in a way that they didn’t have to enter the main building to go to the next floor. They were soon able to reach the last floor without facing too many soldiers.
They were outside the door that led to the roof of the building. Sora spoke through the radio to Sean, “We’re ready. How is the situation in the docking area?”
“~ The children have all been transported to the airship already. Only a few hovercrafts are left. And they are about to take off in a few minutes. I’ve already instructed the other snipers on where to aim, so they’re ready to fire on command as well. Excuse us if there are a few still standing. This is the first time the others are sniping from this distance. ~”
Sora grinned. “We can handle that. Now fire on my mark... ready... NOW!”
There were a few mild bangs from behind the door. Sora burst through the door and noticed one man with a gun crawling on the ground as everybody else around him fell to the floor. Sora sharply kicked his face and that was the end of it.
The squad rushed into action immediately. They took three of the biggest hovercrafts, which the pilots were thankfully able to fly, and rushed towards the ominous ship above them. Sora hid behind them while following with his sky surfer.
The hangar of the airship was visible. The men inside the ship did not seem suspicious yet. That was a good sign. As they entered the ship, Sora realized something; it would be a miracle if they could pull this off without being noticed.
There were nearly thirty armed soldiers and most of them seemed to be contractors. Each of them seemed to be between C and B rank level strength. But there was no backing out of it now. He summoned the Wind Fangs.
If Sora were keeping track of his split step’s speed, he would’ve realized that that was his fastest one yet. But even so, it was not fast enough for him to stop the last man he knocked out from pressing the alarm button.
The sirens rang all over the ship. Sora cursed himself but suddenly, the sirens stopped. He turned to see that the lightning contractor had sent a shock wave through the wiring, knocking out all radio working in the ship and even fried all the security cameras. Sora nodded and whispered, “Good job.”
But they couldn’t talk for long. More soldiers were flooding into the hangar through the doors connecting it to the main ship.
Stella, who was hiding among the hovercrafts with the pilots, used her Flora Staff to take out a large number of them. The blade vulture contractor did the same as well.
The others used this opportunity to split up and do the roles they were assigned to do. The lightning and wind contractor followed the Earth retriever contractor from Terra Raptors as he left to find the abducted children. Sora’s and Vikram’s job was to find the other important object or ‘package’ suspected to have been taken from the city. The encrypted message said Class A and B so there had to be something else on this ship.
“Why are you following me?” Sora asked Vikram as they ran through a passage together.
“I’m not. I’m just going where I want to go. You’re the one following me around,” Vikram retorted.
They ran into a fork in the passage and both of them turned right.
“See, you’re still following me. Are you that scared to go alone?”
“Hey, I was the guy to turn right first. You followed me, so you have to be the one scared.”
“In case you forgot, I beat you in that fight. Why would I want to hide behind someone, who is weaker than me?”
“I only lost because your flying caught me by surprise. If I had known you could fly, I would’ve had ways to beat you anyway.”
“Giving excuses? That is so lame.”
Suddenly, a door in front of them opened and a guard stepped out. He caught sight of them running towards him and shouted, “Intruders here as well!”
“SHUT UP!” Sora and Vikram burst past him without slowing down and they continued running. After a while, they stopped in front of another junction.
Sora looked at the two ways and said, “Tell you what, you go right and I’ll go left.”
“Nice try, smart guy,” Vikram interjected. “I’m the guy, who gets to fight the man with the strong ki on the right. You can go left.”
“Oh no, you don’t. Let’s decide who goes right fair and square.”
Sora and Vikram eyed each other and took a step back. Their breaths became deep and they clenched their fist, ready to make their move. They shouted in union:
“ROCK, PAPER, SCISSORS!”
They stared at each other’s fists. Sora groaned. He knew he should’ve used paper. But that inner voice inside him had told him to go for scissors.
“Too bad,” Vikram grinned. “My rock never fails me. See you then!”
He marched off to the right. Sora grumbled and walked down the path in the left. As he went on, Sora realized that there were actually a large number of soldiers guarding that area. And all of them were B rank level contractors.
He used his wind smash, but almost all of them could block it. Sora was taken aback. Everybody he had fought till now was weak enough to fall in one strike. But he guessed that some of the strongest contractors of the squad were posted here. And he was right.
Sora tried to avoid using too much ki while trying to defeat them, but that was almost suicidal. He was forced to block a barrage of attacks using his typhoon shield and dive into another room.
It was a big room, somewhat like a dining area. The soldiers followed him in. Sora had no choice but to use his Tempest Take down on them.
After a few seconds, Sora stood panting slowly. The unconscious men on the floor were strong, meaning that there was someone or something in the area that was of great importance.
As he tried to guess what it could be, Sora remembered something. This ship was a lot like the airship in which Sora had made his blood contract with the Wind Fangs. The conversation he had had then filled his mind. That was when it hit him.
The Dark Alliance was also trying to collect Z grade contracts. There was a possibility that they might’ve found one such Z grade contract in Salt Lake City. If it was a contract, there was only
one way to find out.
Sora activated the ki sensor on his G watch. And true enough; he was getting another strong reading other than Vikram’s and his opponent. And it was very close to where he was. Also, seeing as he couldn’t sense it yet, it had to be a contract.
Sora proceeded cautiously through the passage with his Wind Fangs in his grasp. He followed the direction showed to him by his G watch. The reading was astoundingly high, easily a Z grade level. That was when it happened, a feeling he would never forget in his life.
His arms felt a strange impulse that made him stop. It was a moment before he realized that the impulse was from his Wind Fangs.
The Wind Fangs were suddenly glowing, a bright light that seemed to make the rest of the room appear dark. It kept switching on and off every time Sora felt the impulse. The Wind Fangs almost felt alive at that moment.
Every step Sora took towards the contract made the impulse stronger. Soon he was in front of a large metal door with a finger scanner. Sora felt there was no need for formalities and burst through the door. He took one look inside and gasped.
In front of him, at the centre of the room, was a big golden chest embedded with gems. Yet, it was not the first time Sora had seen something like that. He knew what it was, not only because his Wind Fangs had been stored in something similar, but also due to the fact that the strange light was also flickering from inside the box along with the Wind Fangs, as though resonating with it.
Sora took a step closer to the other legendary contract of the dragon. There was something drawing him towards it. But just as he placed his arm on the chest, there was a rumble, and suddenly, Vikram came crashing through the wall.
Sora stared. He might’ve defeated Vikram, but by no means was the latter going to get pushed around with ease. Before he could speculate, Vikram’s opponent walked in through the hole in the wall.
He seemed to glide into the room, with his long, blue hair flowing behind him. He was muscular but not bulky, and his big, dark eyes were creepy. But his looks did not even begin to describe who he really was.
The man walked into the room and spotted Sora. He stared at him for a moment and then said, “You... what are the odds that I’d meet you here of all places. It must be fate.”
Contractor: The Legendary Contract of Vento Page 37
