Chapter 29: Breaking, Entering and More Breaking
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“Careful,” Flock said matter-of-factly as a piece of marble exploded next to her head. For a moment, the display inside wavered, but then picked back up. She had drones searching the building.

“How are there so many of them?” Mandy seemed to be almost amused, laughing as she hid behind a pillar in the ornate gallery they were in. The explosion they’d caused to open the proverbial doors had rocked the building, and apparently it had been swarming with guards and heroes. Mandy giggled and tossed something over her shoulder and the world seemed to go upside down for a moment as three heroes fell upwards and hit the ceiling with a dull thud, and then fell back down. “Do you think they were waiting for us?”

“That, or we got bad luck and stuck our hand in a beehive,” the big man said, occasionally ducking from out of cover to lay down a wall of suppressing fire. The air was full of superheated plasma, whirring disks of sharp metal, and good, old-fashioned bullets. Flock was having a hell of a time operating her swarm of microdrones to keep everyone from being seriously hurt. The only one she’d stopped looking out for was the woman with the many guns, the young lady with the leather coat who seemed to have no sense of self-preservation. More than once she’d stepped in front of incoming fire to shield another person. Flock realized that trying to protect this woman was pointless after her head had snapped backwards, impacted by a high-speed projectile, and her hand had shot out to grab her hat out of the air. Before she’d put it back on, Flock had seen her head regrow in real-time. She appeared to be made out of plant fiber, and was shrugging off every hit like it was nothing, returning fire with gritted teeth. “Damn, try not to kill all of them,” the big guy said as he saw her empty two guns and immediately open fire with two other ones.

“Why not?” she asked as she took cover to reload her weapons. “They’ll get over it.”

“Because we know like, half of these assholes,” he said. “Most of ‘em are… well, were mercs like us.” He lobbed some kind of concussive grenade towards the encroaching heroes, most of which had some kind of personal shield. Several were flying. But none of them were stupid enough to find out what kind of ordnance their opponents had. Well, none still standing. A few of them had assumed that their powers would hold up under concentrated fire. They had not. Flock was impressed at how casually the task force bantered back and forth. They were comfortable here. The combat and chaos seemed to be almost home for them. She turned to Ellis. 

“You alright?” she asked. She’d been worried his first taste of combat would leave him frozen, but he seemed to be doing well. Nervous, of course, and not likely to join in on talking like they were hanging out at a bar any time soon. But he held his own, firing downrange, and communicating with the others well. At her question he made his way over to her and softly pressed his forehead to hers. It wasn’t the same with her mask in the way, but the gesture mattered.

“I am. Thank you.” Something flashed out of the corner of her eye, and Ellis had seen it too. Before Flock could intercept the hero trying to sneak around with a drone, Ellis had dropped to one knee and knocked out the attacker with a concussive round, knocking them into a wall where they dropped to the floor, unconscious. Flock bit her lip. That should not have been attractive, and yet it was, and now she was weak in the knees in the middle of a fight. Ellis stood back up, unaware of the effect he had on her, and flashed his boyish smile. He reached out to squeeze her hand and then made his way back to where Tore had ducked down. 

“How is that my problem? They’re hostiles now,” the woman in leather said. She fired off a shot.

“I agree,” the robot said as it stepped out of cover to relocate, bullets always hitting where it just happened not to be. Despite its mechanical nature, its movements were remarkably fluid. “We do not owe them civility or respect because we share a profession. In fact, it could be argued to be disrespectful not to treat them as the threats they are.”

“That’s not what I mean.” The big guy waited for a pause in the gunfire. “Ay yo, Frankie!” he bellowed. The attacks from the other side, magical and otherwise, stopped for a moment too. Flock heard some muttering coming from the side of the heroes, before a voice rang out.

What!”

“Ha! I knew that was you!”

“Big Beef?”

Flock looked at Tore, who was behind a nearby pillar. Tore just shrugged. Big Beef was as good a nickname as any. It was just so… beefy. 

“Ya! Hey, why are you here, man? I don’t want to fight you, dude.” More hushed whispering from the other side. Flock was curious what ‘Big Beef’ was up to, but she was more than willing to see where this was going to go. They were grossly outnumbered. By her estimate, there were two, maybe three dozen heroes still standing. One of the two magical brothers had been hit in the shoulder, and his sibling taking care of him had taken both of them out of the fight quickly. 

“Ceasefire?” the voice Flock assumed was Frankie yelled out. There was more aggressive muttering from that side. Big Beef looked at her and she shrugged, then nodded. 

“Ya!” Big Beef yelled, and then gave a thumb’s up. The magic woman on Flock’s task force, the one who looked like she should have sharpened teeth, raised a sort of bubble around her, and then extended it. Big Beef and Flock stepped into it and then out into the open. On the other side, a dozen heroes had done the same. Flock took a breath. If there was honour among these mercenaries, this would go well. If there wasn’t, they’d be caught out in the open. The others didn’t seem too worried, however. Well, worst came to worst, she could take care of herself. She just didn’t want to kill everyone if she could help it.

“Frankayyy,” Beef said, his arms wide. He’d slung his weapon onto his back, and his jovial smile made it look like this was just a happy misunderstanding between old friends, rather than the warzone it had been just seconds ago.

“Big man! What are you doing here?” Frankie seemed a little more on edge than Beef (or was it Big?) seemed to be. His hand was near his holstered weapon, but not on it. 

“We’re here for people, Frankie. They got our own people locked up here.” That seemed to shake up several of the heroes. Flock didn’t recognize any of them, but she knew the look in their eyes. She’d worked with plenty of mercenaries, and despite the flashy outfits and the capes, these were people who, until recently, had been in the habit of falling asleep in their armour and went days without eating.

“Fuck, man. A bunch of us were hired because the people up here are scared that the Queen was gonna start a full-scale war with the upper city. We’re just protection.”

“That’s ridiculous,” Flock blurted out. All eyes were on her, and she had to remind herself why she was wearing the mask in the first place. “I -- I think The Queen would have nothing to gain from a fight with the upper floors. It’s the people up here who keep sending more and more heroes down to us.” 

“She’s not wrong, Frankie. And you’re working with them now, y’know?” Beef looked over the heroes who had stepped out and locked eyes with each of them. Flock wondered how many of them he knew personally. “We know how much we need someone like her downstairs. And the assholes up here are trying to get rid of her.”

“Why would they do that?” Frankie asked, but his hands were more casually on his hips now. “I mean, they have to think she’s a threat, right? I mean, like, you’re all here, right?”

“I can’t overstate how much all -- how many of us are there? -- how much the eight of us are not here to blow up the top ten floors. Even if every single one of us was a bomb, there wouldn’t be enough of us. We’re here for our colleagues they got locked up here.” Another one of the heroes raised his hands.

“I didn’t sign up for this,” they said. “I thought I was protecting people, not… y’know, playing warden and jailer. This is too gross for me.” With that, they turned around and started walking away. A tall woman in the middle of the heroes turned to them and pulled a gun on the leaving hero. Immediately, every one of her ‘allies’ had turned their weapon on her and she lowered it again. Big Beef pushed on.

“We’re here to save our own. The movers and shakers are trying to stir shit up and they’re making us fight ourselves for it. They won’t even feel it.” He paused. “Your mom still lives on Sixty-Three?” 

“Sixty-Four,” Frankie said quietly.

“How’s she doing?”

“Pretty good, Beef.”

“Why’s that?”

“I get your point. Fuck!” Frankie looked to the other heroes there, and then towards the rest that were still in cover. “You have no idea how much they’re paying us, man. We all have our own place. Custom made gear. I’ve got my own car!

“Is it worth it?” Big Beef crossed his arms and cocked his head. The woman glared at Beef and then at Frankie. 

“These negotiations are over,” she hissed. Frankie looked at her for a moment.

“I reckon they are,” he said, pulled his gun and fired. She screamed and grabbed her shoulder, and in an instant everything seemed to explode as the heroes, all the ones Big Beef had looked at, turned around, conjuring up shields or opening fire on the ones that had been their allies just a minute ago. Suddenly, they’d gone from being outnumbered four or five to one, to having some of the hardest hitters on their team. Flock grinned as they made their way back to cover. She should have put more faith in Big Beef, evidently. 

“Don’t make me regret this, man.” Frankie said as he covered the retreat. Big Beef’s bellowing laughter was easy to overhear, even over the sound of his massive gun hosing bullets downrange like a waterfall of lead. 

Flock, finally back into cover, patched back into her drones. They were still sweeping, but there were simply too many people in or around the building to check every single one of them. Suddenly, she got an idea. It didn’t take more than fifteen seconds for her to get a match. She waved to Tore, who ran over.

“Yes?”

“One floor down, three-hundred feet that way,” Flock said, pointing. 

“How do you know?” 

Flock grinned under her mask. “I scanned you and then sent my drones to look for you.” For effect, a drone the size of a small bird buzzed around her head.

“But I am right here,” Tore said, matter-of-factly.

“One of you is.”

“Oh.” Tore grinned. “Clever. Please stand back.” Before Flock could figure out what Tore was about to do, the woman lifted her massive hammer over her head and, the little jets firing, brought it down on the floor with a quite-literally ground-shattering boom. Two more times, and suddenly they had a very quick way down. Without waiting, Tore jumped into the hole. Flock joined her, and she heard Ellis drop down directly behind her. The hall they were in was largely deserted, except for two very frightened guards who were standing by a door in the direction Flock had pointed. They slowly brought their weapons to bear. 

“No,” Flock said, and two of her drones, little shock-resistant ones with stubby noses, shot out almost as fast as the eye could see, and hit the men in the forehead. Tore was already barrelling forward. Not waiting to see if the door was locked or not, she simply slammed into it with her hammer and it flew into the room. It was clearly a holding area of some kind. There were several cages with wild animals in them and…

“Tore!” the large woman -- who Flock remembered pretending to be Tore -- yelled out.

“Cassandra!” Tore shouted back, dropped her hammer and went over to free them.

“Ellis!” The other bound figure, a robotic person, yelled out.

“Tee?” Ellis said, coming into the room behind Flock.

“Ellis!” Cassandra said.

Flock blinked a few times, and then narrowed her eyes at the figure at the far side of the room, who was trying very, very hard not to be seen.

“Haze,” Flock said, hissing through her teeth.

Finally! They've found each other!

If you like this story and want to know how it ends, the whole thing is up on my patreon! Subscribers will get access to every single chapter right now. Other than that, I will be posting a chapter (maybe even two) every other day. You'll also have access to my other stories, including some that aren't available on scribblehub yet!

ALSO: 2 new stories on scribblehibble!

Among Brighter Stars is an ongoing science-fiction series that anyone can request additions to. 

Eris, The First God of Chaos is a VRMMO with a (secret) twist. :)

If you're in the mood to catch up on my other stories, feel free to check them out. Additionally, Horns in the Library 1 is now available as an ebook

I also want to point people at the discord server of the ever-prolific QuietValerie (right here) where you can find her wonderful stories, like Ryn of Avonside, Falling Over and The Trouble With Horns, as well as other authors' works, and talk about them with fellow fans, and even the authors themselves! I heartily recommend joining it and reading their works! (Also check out Walls of Anamoor. It's rad as heck.) 

Thanks again for reading, and I'll see you all in the next one. 

<3

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