Chapter 73: Fireworks with Team Two
Team two, which was commanded by Elena, had started to circle around the work area from the left, but had not moved very far. Right now, Elena and Kou were waiting just outside the entrance to a very large hall filled with heavy machinery and cranes. The area was designed for trucks to drive in and to load or unload heavy freight with the mobile cranes. The place also had five enemies waiting for them, something they knew thanks to the scouting of Achara.
Achara was not good at staying invisible for a long time, she had not trained that a lot. Because of that, scouting the room did take longer than they liked, as Achara had to hide and take a breather before she could go on. But after a few minutes they knew exactly were everybody was hiding. Achara was slowly and silently moving behind one of the enemies, a woman with a precision rifle, on the second level of the large hall. It was just a small pathway connecting various crane controls and was most likely only used for maintenance. A great hiding spot for a sniper, she had to admit and prepared her black blade to neutralize the woman the moment the fun started.
Achara had given the signal and Elena took a deep breath. She stretched out her hand and a small globe of fire came into existence. The longer Elena concentrated the larger the ball grew and sweat formed on her face. This is large enough she decided and gave Kou a nod. They charged through the door of the loading area and Elena accelerated the fireball towards a large pillar behind a set of heavy machinery. Three of the five enemies were lying in wait behind the machines but before they moved even one meter the fireball hit the pillar and exploded. A wave of high energy plasma rolled over the area and put everything burnable on fire, including people. Screams of pain echoed through the hall but at the same time the sniper died in silence with a black blade through her throat.
The last enemy, a melee fighter based on his gear, was floating helplessly in the air controlled by Kou. He cursed and tried to break free but Kou had no problem controlling somebody like him.
Achara elegantly dropped down from the second floor and helped Elena to finish off the half burned remains of the three stooges. Then they joined Kou “So, do we keep this one?” Achara asked and Elena nodded after a few seconds. “We can interrogate him later, or the police can do it once all of this gets cleaned up. But we may have to cut off his arms.” She said and the man floating was screaming and begging for mercy. “Will you promise to be a nice and calm prisoner?” Elena asked playing around with a plasma ball in her hands. He promised and they let him down. After taking all his gear and most of his cloths, they gagged him and tied his hands and feet with a metal rope they had found in the area. While they were doing that they could hear the infernal roaring of a heavy machine gun in the distant, a sign team one had enemy contact.
Their first encounter with the enemy had been perfect, they never even learned what classes the enemies were but nobody believed that was the end or that it would stay that way. “But I have to say we are a great team. My scouting and your firepower make for a powerful first move.” Achara said and Kou looked bitter. “Right, you were here too. Good job.” Achara said teasing her boyfriend. Elena smiled but had to take a short break. Fireball was as powerful as it was draining to the user. Many Elemental Mages had died because they had mishandled this ability and drained their concentration too much. Elena could not wait until she got her Game Changer Mana Boost.
After a short break and a candy bar, they moved on and left the smoldering loading area behind them.
They past through some more rooms with processing machines and packaging material but Achara’s scouting revealed no enemy. They finally came to a large double door and even from a few meter away they could feel the cold. They opened one of the doors and waited for a reaction before Achara slipped in to scout. A minute later she came back, less happy and more cold. “Nobody in there, actually nothing in there. But it is a huge storage area.” She said and clung to her warm boyfriend. Elena took a look for herself and Achara was right. The place was huge, large enough to hold monster corpses stolen over months maybe even more. It must have been much larger than they needed, Elena thought. The crooks did not build all of this but bought it and revamped the building to their needs.
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“Let’s circle back and try to find stairs to the higher levels.” Elena said and the others agreed. They moved back the hallway they came from and towards the loading area. Achara was in the front and Kou guarded their back. They had covered about half the hallway as the wall next to Elena shattered and something big moved through. Large metal arms swung into her direction and only Kou’s quick reaction saved her from being smashed to a red stain. He pulled Elena back and Achara went invisible. As the dust settled they could see a ridiculous humanoid metal monster. It had overly long legs and arms with absurdly large hands which ended in metal claws. The body was just a round ball and on top was an absurd metal head with giant jaws. The thing turned and moved towards Kou and Elise, arms flailing, cutting and smashing, walls, ceiling and the floor. “It is a puppet!” Kou shouted and fell back together with Elena.
“We need to kill the Puppeteer, don’t even try to harm that metal monster!” Elena shouted back and looked for a chance to pass the puppet. “What? Argh!” It came from Achara over com. “I’m trapped in some kind of invisible cage!” her voice sounded desperate. Kou used his telekinetic ability to hinder the monstrosity “Go Elena!” and the woman quickly rushed by the puppet who nearly cut her head off in spite of Kou. As Elena ran into the room with the broken wall she saw Achara on her knees desperately pressing against something invisible pushing her down.
A man and a woman, armed with guns, were standing in the back of the room watching the situation. Elena hurled a plasma ball at one of them but the ball collided with something invisible two meter before the enemies. “Two enemies, the other one is a Warder.” Elena said over com and continued to move as gun fire hunted her down. She hid behind some machinery but realized she could not stay here. The puppet would come in any second and Achara was either crushed or run out of air if Elena understood the situation correctly. Smoke, from a smoke grenade poured through the broken wall and Kou rushed into the room, slowing down the metal beast with his area ability. Elena decided to follow his example and dropped one of her own smoke grenades, covering this part of the room from sight.
Kalibar watched the young Asian woman struggle in the prison he had build out of barriers. She held on well but his prison was of high quality, not even air could escape his perfect barriers. She would suffocate soon. He turned his attention to the smoke wall on the other side of the room.
“Lilly would you please stop playing around and just end this.” He said to the woman next to him. “You are no fun.” She said in her typical emotionless tone. Her puppet “CoCoBon” stomped through the breach and started flailing through the smoke. Both little hares jumped out of the smoke and the woman, Elena an Elemental Mage, jumped over some machinery in one big leap. No wonder she was considered weak for her level, Kalibar thought. A few years back she had been hyped as a great catch for the LCPS but she had wasted her potential by spending crests inefficiently. Too much strength and dexterity not enough intelligence crests.
The Elemental Mage fired off one of her Piercing Crystals mid air but Kalibar had raised his remaining barrier and the projectile got stuck in it. If she had properly increased her intelligence she might even had a chance to break through, Kalibar thought. Not really, he smirked.
Something bounced against his boot and he looked down surprised. Where did this come from? And the grenade exploded. Kalibar was thrown to the ground and pain filled his mind. Dozens of metal pieces had penetrated his armor and stuck deep inside his body. He forced himself up, watching Lilly recovering from far less wounds and shouted “The girl is free!” He had lost control of his barriers for a moment but… something was floating in front of his face. The second grenade exploded.
Elena and Kou crawled and jumped forward as the mighty killing machine behind them tore the room apart and the crazed woman was screaming obscene curses and shooting the room up with her assault rifle from behind cover. Kou struggled to get away from the puppet and deadly claws thrashed that bit of machinery he was hiding behind before giant jaws snapped after him. The head of the puppet jumped forward revealing an extendable neck. A row of sharp metal teeth filled Kou’s view and then it stopped. The shooting and cursing had gone away and the puppet no longer moved. Kou crawled away from the horror thing and got back to his feet breathing heavily.
The room was now eerily quiet and he walked over to Achara who stood over the corpse of the Puppeteer blood dripping from her weapon. They embraced while Elena checked the other guy.
She knew him, a Warder over level 50, they only had talked once and he had scolded her for wasting her crests. After her encounter with the Hard Boys and Marcus she had changed some of her attitude towards crests and had started to push vitality, strength and dexterity too. The mangled corpse of a man to her feet had skipped out on these things. Power was not everything.
“You two done making out?” She asked and the two finally separated. The few seconds the smoke cover had given them, had been enough time to come up with a rough plan. Well, Kou came up with a plan. She had to draw the fire and he would float a grenade or two under their assess. “Great plan Kou.” She said and the man smiled. Colors of the Wild was a tiny clan but their members were outstanding for their level. “Okay enough chit chat. We have to move on.” She said focusing on the work at hand. What she would do after this, was a problem she would confront once this was over.
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