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Description

[Party Crashers]

Belix and Clyde spent the rest of the day scouting out the area they were being forced to assault. The place was, essentially, a graveyard with no structure large enough to house a sizable congregation, leaving them to assume that the ritual would have to be taking place below ground. Despite knowing that they were walking into an ambush, neither had any intention of failing, but, without directly exposing themselves, there wasn’t much they could do. Even going to a local library to examine subterranean maps of local sewers and cave systems didn’t do much besides give them a basic idea of the dimensions of the hidden base they were trying to infiltrate.

The next day they went over strategy, how they were going to approach, and more importantly how they were going to defeat the army of demons waiting for them in the dark. Later, when night fell, they approached. Using their recently gained knowledge of the land, they had managed to guess the entrance to the underground chamber, an old mausoleum. After searching around, they found a hidden lever that caused the back wall of the crypt to swing back and unveil a small but functional lift. Belix sent it down empty, but then hit the emergency stop and set about collecting their weapons.

Clyde pulled a dufflebag off of his back and dropped it onto the floor, separating out a small pile of knives and holstering them onto his belt while Belix removed a compound bow and started preparing the arrows.

“Gods I hate these things,” she grumbled, stringing the bow and preparing her arrows.

“Pardon?” Clyde asked.

“Don’t get me wrong, It’s got its function,” she observed, “But, it’s the feel of it, the weight, the...aesthetic, every time I pick one up, I feel like I should bash someone’s head in, it’s a paradox.”

“If you say so,” Clyde scoffed.

“I’m being serious.”

“I know you are,” he nodded, then stood up, setting off his golden spiders to build himself a new suit, “Are you ready to go?”

“Sure,” she shrugged, latching the bow around the quiver and lashing it across her back, “Can I have one of those knives though?”

Clyde reached onto his belt and pulled a butcher’s glaive and she smirked as she examined it.

“It’s iron,” he told her off-handedly, “And it was cheap.”

“Long as it works,” she shrugged, tucking it in with her other weapons.

Together they stepped onto the roof of the lift and hit the lever sending them both down.

Deep within the Caverns below, Granger waited, fiddling around with his chains for lack of anything better to do. A bit later, someone appeared at the door and he looked up, almost expectantly.

“Evie…” he called out but caught himself as he looked through the bars in the window, “Mr. Kelly.”

“Not the company you were expecting?” the bald man smiled back, “Are you ready for the big day?”

“Shouldn’t I at least get a last meal?” he demanded sarcastically.

“You’re not on death row,” Mr. Kelly insisted, “We don’t owe you…”

“It was just a request,” Granger shrugged and rose to his feet, “Anyway, can we…”

“Your chains?” Mr. Kelly noticed, pointing to the manacles on his wrists that no longer had any restraints attached to them.

“Oh...this?” Granger smirked back and grabbed his chains off of the floor and bent the broken links back into place with his bare hands, “Do you feel better now?”

“I’m not intimidated big man,” Mr. Kelly stated to him, “You’re not scary.”

Granger stomped towards the door and leaned up to the barred window to look the bald man in the eye.

“Get to know me,” Granger whispered then stepped back, “So, are we doing this or what?”

With a grimace on his face, Mr. Kelly stepped back and a loud metallic click sounded before the door creaked loudly as it swung inward on its hinges. Granger just stood there waiting patiently while a group of guards in cloth masks shuffled into the room. Four of them surrounded him, each putting a hand on their swords, while two more unlocked his manacles and fitting him with a pair of heavy steel cuffs with a small leather leash attached to them.

“From your private collection?” Granger joked, looking down at his restraints.

“I’m curious,” Mr. Kelly wondered, seeming only slightly disturbed by his prisoner’s lackadaisical attitude, “What is it you’re expecting to happen today?”

“My friend shows up, I twist your head off of your shoulders, and we kill as many of your men as we can before you all run away.”

“Before We run away,” Mr. Kelly scoffed, “Wow, you really do have an ego.”

“It’s well earned,” Granger mentioned, “It won’t be the first time I’ve had to escape something like this…”

he stopped suddenly, a sharp pain in his lower back causing his entire body to lock up. Unable to stop or even scream, he went tumbling forward landing flat on his face and just lay there. While Granger was helpless, the masked guards approached him with the chains from his cell that they looped under his arms and used to drag him across the floor, until Mr. Kelly stopped them. Lifting his head up, he made sure that Granger saw Evie as she was wiping the blood off of her poisoned needle.

“You ever deal with this before?” Mr. Kelly wondered, “Because I don’t think you have.”

Granger could do nothing as his brain was coated in a lethargic fog, he barely felt the rough cavern floor sliding beneath him as he was dragged along to the ritual chamber. The crowd of hooded men and women parted as he approached, his metal arm clacked loudly as he was dragged up the stairs and thrown on the altar. Above him a cloth masked priest in a dark brown robe hoisted a knife above his head, waving it in the air as he recited a chant which Granger was barely conscious enough to hear. All the while, Mr. Kelly stood back, watching him with amusement while the cyborg glared back at him.

“They’re cutting it pretty close,” Mr. Kelly commented, wrapping an arm around Evie’s shoulders and hugging her tightly, “Maybe they don’t love him after all.”

Granger managed to clench his fist and snarl, but this body still refused to move the way he wanted, barely even lifting his hand. Meanwhile the priest above him continued to chant, constantly repeating the name of Ragda while shouting a phrase from a long forgotten language. Eventually, his voice reached a fever pitch and he clenched the knife tightly before bringing it down.

“Here it comes,” Mr. Kelly giggled.

Just before the knife could pierce his skin, an arrow flew through the air and stabbed through the priest’s head. The blade continued to fall, but turned as it struck, slicing a shallow cut across his left pectoral as it slid out of the priest’s limp, lifeless hand. A gout of steam erupted from the priest’s hood and he lurched back, letting out a baleful groan before stumbling back off of the dais and hitting the ground with a resounding thud.

“Sorry for the dramatic entrance,” Belix called out from across the room, drawing a fresh bolt back on her bow, “Got a little turned around coming here.”

“No trouble,” Mr. Kelly smirked, stepping towards the edge of the dais to face her down, “We’re just happy to have you here.”

“So...are you stalling or just stupid?” Belix asked, warily eyeing the crowd of cloaked worshipers who stood patiently, waiting.

“You’re quite astute,” Mr. Kelly responded, perching on a nearby rock as he smirked at her, “I can see why you’re the captain.”

“And you’re in charge, right?”

“I suppose you could say that.”

“Good!” Clyde snapped, appearing from a portal behind him and putting a knife to his throat, “I hate wasting a good ambush.”

“We have that in common,” Mr. Kelly mentioned, throwing his head back into Clyde’s nose and slipping out of his grasp, “Of course, I’ll actually do something about it.”

Clyde did his best to rally, but, with his eyes watering, vision blurred, he barely noticed the spinning back kick that sent him tumbling into the altar, falling to a knee as his heels dragged across the tiled floor.

“Cute,” he spat, wiping his eyes with the back of his hand, “But, how long can you keep that up?”

“Oh…” Mr. Kelly shrugged as he smoothly slid to the side, avoiding an arrow as it flew by his neck, “A while.”

Smirking, Clyde reached up and grabbed the arrow out of the air as it flew overhead and flung it at Mr. Kelly once more. When the bald man moved to dodge, Clyde was on him, slashing and stabbing, trying to keep his opponent off balance, but Mr. Kelly easily managed to keep pace. Under his mask, Clyde’s face twisted into a grimace, much as he hated to admit it, the realization was dawning on him. The whole time they had been fighting, Mr. Kelly hadn’t even taken his hands out of his pockets.

For a moment, Mr. Kelly seemed to have back up too far, teetering on the edge of the dais, and Clyde saw an opportunity to capitalize, to end him. Yet, he hesitated, intuition, or, perhaps mere suspicion got the better of him, Clyde backed up and assumed a defensive stance. Mr. Kelly laughed at him.

“Was I so obvious?” the bald man wondered, finally taking his hands out of his pockets, “Well, I suppose it doesn’t matter, you’ll be dead in a moment either way.”

“Keep telling yourself that,” Granger muttered wearily, slowly lifting himself off of the altar.

Mr. Kelly watched the massive cyborg stand to his full and impressive height, and his suddenly worried eyes drifted onto Evie. She sat on the other side of the dais, sitting on a broken stone pillar, cleaning one of her needles.

“You know something,” she mentioned, her expression blank as her voice filled with venom, “I always hated you.”

“Well…” Mr. Kelly slid along the edge of the dais, trying to get some distance from the two combatants who were slowly approaching, “The feeling was never mutual but…”

Granger reached down, grabbing the side of the altar and hurling it across the room, embedding it into the wall, removing the only obstacle that separated him from his prey. Mr. Kelly let out a nervous laugh and then jumped down from the dais. As if by magic, he seemed to disappear, lost into the mass of bodies that surrounded the raised platform, who had all suddenly started to move, many pulling weapons from under their cloaks. Both Clyde and Granger pulled back from the edge, seeing a number of rifles being leveled in their direction.

“Kill Them!” Mr. Kelly’s voice rang out from somewhere in the cavern and his men were quick to respond.

Clyde and Granger ducked the first volley, dropping to the ground and letting the bullets fly over their heads, but they could already hear a number of swordsmen stomping up the stairs to meet them. Evie pulled a curved blade from her belt, and used her illusion powers to project the image of a screaming death’s head roaring down at them, but the attacker’s were undeterred, they charged forward anyway. For a moment, she seemed to stand in stark terror, then rushed through the image of herself, stabbing the nearest attacker in the throat, but, no sooner had she moved than Granger reached out, shoving her to the side the then back handing her victim into the crowd that was still racing up the stairs. They all scattered like bowling pins, falling down or over the side of the staircase, but, as they went down the riflemen returned, raising their weapons and preparing another volley.

Granger dropped back, using his metal arm to defend himself, but an arrow from behind distracted the riflemen and threw off their aim. They turned in time to see Belix nocking another arrow, but Clyde jumped from the top of the dais, landing directly into their midst and crushing one of them under foot. They lashed out at him with the butts of their rifles, but he easily dodged around their clumsy attacks to stab them fatally. When they started to drop, Clyde took notice that none of their wounds were emitting smoke or steam, meaning they had not been converted. He lost a blade when it got stuck in an enemy’s skull, and used a portal to join Belix on the fringes of the crowd, acting as her defense while she continued to pepper the enemy with arrows.

Doing what he could to help, Granger grabbed a few downed opponents who had been left on the stairs and hurled them into the crowd below, knocking a huge number of them over with a sickening crunch. Between Granger’s bombardment and Belix’s arrows, the crowd of enemies slowly began to thin allowing the other combatants in the group to pressure what remained as their heavy hitters slowly moved in. In minutes the battle was over, the whole crowd of armed guards hunched over and broken on the ground as Clyde and Evie cleaned their weapons, Belix moved through the mass of bodies to recover her spent arrows.

“Well,” Evie commented, “That wasn’t too much of a chore.”

“We could’ve used a few of those magic needles of yours,” Granger responded harshly.

“I only have three left,” she responded tersely and sheathed her blade.

Ignoring the pair, Clyde finished cleaning his knife and walked around the dais to where the priest had fallen. Pulling back his hood, Clyde let out a disappointed sigh, then stabbed the priest’s lifeless body through the face before collecting and tossing the arrow back to Belix.

“Friend of yours?” Granger wondered.

“Unfortunately no,” Clyde grumbled, “Not Ragda.”

“OH!” Granger spun around dangerously on Evie, “And I thought you said…”

“Well obviously I was misinformed!” she snapped.

“And what about now?!!”

“Shut it!” Belix ordered them, rolling her eyes, “Both of you!”

“...you know,” Granger turned on her now, “Last I checked you weren’t my captain anymore!”

“Free advice,” she told him warningly, and plucked the string of her bow, “Shut it, or I’ll pin it shut!”

They spent a few minutes staring each other down, but Granger quickly threw up his hands in defeat and wandered to the edge of the battlefield, fuming and glaring at a wall. Tentatively, Evie approached Belix.

“Thank you,” she whispered, but Belix was in no mood.

“You did something to him,” Belix observed, her voice curt and blunt, “Fix it, but do it on your own time, now,” she pointed to the pile of bodies, “Help me look for that bald fucker.”

“You mean me?” Mr. Kelly’s voice rang out and everyone in the cavern let out a collective grunt of annoyance, “Aw, it’s so nice to be so loved.”

They searched, but quickly noticed him standing at the opening of a tunnel at the side of the cavern.

“Is this fuck-wit actually useful?” Belix demanded.

“He knows things,” Evie stated, “But he’ll die before divulging them.”

“Well, too bad for him,” she mentioned and readied her bow to fire.

“Oh, do go ahead,” Mr. Kelly continued to mock her, “You’re still not going to escape.”

“Don’t tell me,” Belix rolled her eyes, “You bombed the exit?”

“Of course not,” he scoffed, leaning against the opening, “But, I did tell my people to hold back until you arrived, you must have noticed how the entrance was unguarded, didn’t you find it the least bit suspicious?”

“So,” Belix shrugged, “We’ll just go the other way.”

“You really think I’m a fool,” Mr. Kelly joked.

“You are the asshole standing in the open while someone points an arrow at your head,” Belix observed.

“While you were busy with the others,” he told her, a hint of exasperation in his voice, “I sent a notice to my men, they’re coming in through all exits, and you’ve got nowhere to run.”

“Weak, Bluff,” Belix smirked at him.

“Actually,” Granger raised his head, tilting his ear to the ceiling, “Do you hear that?”

Belix cast her gaze skyward and noticed a faint but unmistakable tremor as little showers of dust rained down on their heads. The conclusion she and the others reached was instant, and unmistakable.

“Footsteps,” Belix mentioned, finally relaxing her bow, “Heavy armor…”

“The elite guard,” Mr. Kelly corrected her, “Far better trained than those scrubs below you, they should be arriving any second now.”

“Fuck…” Belix groaned, “Granger, could we...I mean, could you...collapse the tunnels maybe, narrow their numbers?”

“Ah, yes,” Mr. Kelly snickered, “And trap yourselves inside, what a brilliant plan…”

“Not necessarily,” Clyde commented, staring intently at one of the few walls that hadn’t been hollowed out into a branching path, “If I remember correctly, the maps showed a waterway just on the other side of here.”

“So, now you’re going to drown yourselves?” Mr. Kelly scoffed.

“Certainty of death or possibility,” Clyde shrugged.

“Fair point,” Belix mentioned, firing an arrow in Mr. Kelly’s direction and causing him to duck behind the opening, “Granger, you got a drill in your arm, right?”

“I’ll get on it,” he nodded, rushing to the back wall and brutalizing it with his metal arm.

All the while the sounds of footsteps drew closer, the three remaining combatants bunched together in a defensive line, trying to protect Granger’s exposed back. Sweat beaded on their brows as they nervously clenched their weapons, the marching noise, the faint footsteps having now become a thunderous cacophony.

“How’s it coming back there big guy?” Belix wondered, her voice strained as she slowly pulled back on her bow string, noticing the first glint of armor and naked swords from the nearest tunnel.

“I’m trying?” Granger snarled, having already dug several meters into the stone wall, “It still feels solid… where the Hell is this thing?”

“It should be back there,” Clyde mentioned over his shoulder.

“Yeah?” Granger demanded, “Well where the Hell is it?!”

“Urrrr, screw it,” Belix shook her head and lifted her bow, “Form up...and try to give as good as you get.”

“Dammit!” Granger shouted, beating his fist against the hole he had created, but, just as he turned away, something fell onto his shoulder, a small drop of water, leaking down from the top of his escape hole, “...the fuck…”

Clyde glanced back, noticing the man’s confused expression and realization dawned on him.

“Wait…” he muttered, “No...I think we’d actually be under it, if we…”

“What?” Belix looked away just as soldiers began to flood the room from all sides, but at the perfect moment to notice the massive crack spreading out from Granger’s escape tunnel, “Oh...shit…The Dais, Get To The Dais!!”

They all followed her order, avoiding the swarm of soldiers and free climbing the back of the altar with barely enough time to spare as the back wall burst inwards releasing a tidal wave of water to flood the chamber. While it served to wash away the incoming hoard, only Granger was slow enough to be caught in it’s torrent and pinned to the side of the mound of earth as it swayed disconcertingly under their feet. Belix, with no thought to her own safety, reached down beneath the foaming waters, almost losing her footing, but managing to catch her old friend by a groove in his metal arm, and, with help from the others, pull him gasping and coughing from the brink of death. They all collapsed on the dais, exhausted and drained, but fortunately alive, at least for the moment.

Description

[Party Crashers]

Belix and Clyde spent the rest of the day scouting out the area they were being forced to assault. The place was, essentially, a graveyard with no structure large enough to house a sizable congregation, leaving them to assume that the ritual would have to be taking place below ground. Despite knowing that they were walking into an ambush, neither had any intention of failing, but, without directly exposing themselves, there wasn’t much they could do. Even going to a local library to examine subterranean maps of local sewers and cave systems didn’t do much besides give them a basic idea of the dimensions of the hidden base they were trying to infiltrate.

The next day they went over strategy, how they were going to approach, and more importantly how they were going to defeat the army of demons waiting for them in the dark. Later, when night fell, they approached. Using their recently gained knowledge of the land, they had managed to guess the entrance to the underground chamber, an old mausoleum. After searching around, they found a hidden lever that caused the back wall of the crypt to swing back and unveil a small but functional lift. Belix sent it down empty, but then hit the emergency stop and set about collecting their weapons.

Clyde pulled a dufflebag off of his back and dropped it onto the floor, separating out a small pile of knives and holstering them onto his belt while Belix removed a compound bow and started preparing the arrows.

“Gods I hate these things,” she grumbled, stringing the bow and preparing her arrows.

“Pardon?” Clyde asked.

“Don’t get me wrong, It’s got its function,” she observed, “But, it’s the feel of it, the weight, the...aesthetic, every time I pick one up, I feel like I should bash someone’s head in, it’s a paradox.”

“If you say so,” Clyde scoffed.

“I’m being serious.”

“I know you are,” he nodded, then stood up, setting off his golden spiders to build himself a new suit, “Are you ready to go?”

“Sure,” she shrugged, latching the bow around the quiver and lashing it across her back, “Can I have one of those knives though?”

Clyde reached onto his belt and pulled a butcher’s glaive and she smirked as she examined it.

“It’s iron,” he told her off-handedly, “And it was cheap.”

“Long as it works,” she shrugged, tucking it in with her other weapons.

Together they stepped onto the roof of the lift and hit the lever sending them both down.

Deep within the Caverns below, Granger waited, fiddling around with his chains for lack of anything better to do. A bit later, someone appeared at the door and he looked up, almost expectantly.

“Evie…” he called out but caught himself as he looked through the bars in the window, “Mr. Kelly.”

“Not the company you were expecting?” the bald man smiled back, “Are you ready for the big day?”

“Shouldn’t I at least get a last meal?” he demanded sarcastically.

“You’re not on death row,” Mr. Kelly insisted, “We don’t owe you…”

“It was just a request,” Granger shrugged and rose to his feet, “Anyway, can we…”

“Your chains?” Mr. Kelly noticed, pointing to the manacles on his wrists that no longer had any restraints attached to them.

“Oh...this?” Granger smirked back and grabbed his chains off of the floor and bent the broken links back into place with his bare hands, “Do you feel better now?”

“I’m not intimidated big man,” Mr. Kelly stated to him, “You’re not scary.”

Granger stomped towards the door and leaned up to the barred window to look the bald man in the eye.

“Get to know me,” Granger whispered then stepped back, “So, are we doing this or what?”

With a grimace on his face, Mr. Kelly stepped back and a loud metallic click sounded before the door creaked loudly as it swung inward on its hinges. Granger just stood there waiting patiently while a group of guards in cloth masks shuffled into the room. Four of them surrounded him, each putting a hand on their swords, while two more unlocked his manacles and fitting him with a pair of heavy steel cuffs with a small leather leash attached to them.

“From your private collection?” Granger joked, looking down at his restraints.

“I’m curious,” Mr. Kelly wondered, seeming only slightly disturbed by his prisoner’s lackadaisical attitude, “What is it you’re expecting to happen today?”

“My friend shows up, I twist your head off of your shoulders, and we kill as many of your men as we can before you all run away.”

“Before We run away,” Mr. Kelly scoffed, “Wow, you really do have an ego.”

“It’s well earned,” Granger mentioned, “It won’t be the first time I’ve had to escape something like this…”

he stopped suddenly, a sharp pain in his lower back causing his entire body to lock up. Unable to stop or even scream, he went tumbling forward landing flat on his face and just lay there. While Granger was helpless, the masked guards approached him with the chains from his cell that they looped under his arms and used to drag him across the floor, until Mr. Kelly stopped them. Lifting his head up, he made sure that Granger saw Evie as she was wiping the blood off of her poisoned needle.

“You ever deal with this before?” Mr. Kelly wondered, “Because I don’t think you have.”

Granger could do nothing as his brain was coated in a lethargic fog, he barely felt the rough cavern floor sliding beneath him as he was dragged along to the ritual chamber. The crowd of hooded men and women parted as he approached, his metal arm clacked loudly as he was dragged up the stairs and thrown on the altar. Above him a cloth masked priest in a dark brown robe hoisted a knife above his head, waving it in the air as he recited a chant which Granger was barely conscious enough to hear. All the while, Mr. Kelly stood back, watching him with amusement while the cyborg glared back at him.

“They’re cutting it pretty close,” Mr. Kelly commented, wrapping an arm around Evie’s shoulders and hugging her tightly, “Maybe they don’t love him after all.”

Granger managed to clench his fist and snarl, but this body still refused to move the way he wanted, barely even lifting his hand. Meanwhile the priest above him continued to chant, constantly repeating the name of Ragda while shouting a phrase from a long forgotten language. Eventually, his voice reached a fever pitch and he clenched the knife tightly before bringing it down.

“Here it comes,” Mr. Kelly giggled.

Just before the knife could pierce his skin, an arrow flew through the air and stabbed through the priest’s head. The blade continued to fall, but turned as it struck, slicing a shallow cut across his left pectoral as it slid out of the priest’s limp, lifeless hand. A gout of steam erupted from the priest’s hood and he lurched back, letting out a baleful groan before stumbling back off of the dais and hitting the ground with a resounding thud.

“Sorry for the dramatic entrance,” Belix called out from across the room, drawing a fresh bolt back on her bow, “Got a little turned around coming here.”

“No trouble,” Mr. Kelly smirked, stepping towards the edge of the dais to face her down, “We’re just happy to have you here.”

“So...are you stalling or just stupid?” Belix asked, warily eyeing the crowd of cloaked worshipers who stood patiently, waiting.

“You’re quite astute,” Mr. Kelly responded, perching on a nearby rock as he smirked at her, “I can see why you’re the captain.”

“And you’re in charge, right?”

“I suppose you could say that.”

“Good!” Clyde snapped, appearing from a portal behind him and putting a knife to his throat, “I hate wasting a good ambush.”

“We have that in common,” Mr. Kelly mentioned, throwing his head back into Clyde’s nose and slipping out of his grasp, “Of course, I’ll actually do something about it.”

Clyde did his best to rally, but, with his eyes watering, vision blurred, he barely noticed the spinning back kick that sent him tumbling into the altar, falling to a knee as his heels dragged across the tiled floor.

“Cute,” he spat, wiping his eyes with the back of his hand, “But, how long can you keep that up?”

“Oh…” Mr. Kelly shrugged as he smoothly slid to the side, avoiding an arrow as it flew by his neck, “A while.”

Smirking, Clyde reached up and grabbed the arrow out of the air as it flew overhead and flung it at Mr. Kelly once more. When the bald man moved to dodge, Clyde was on him, slashing and stabbing, trying to keep his opponent off balance, but Mr. Kelly easily managed to keep pace. Under his mask, Clyde’s face twisted into a grimace, much as he hated to admit it, the realization was dawning on him. The whole time they had been fighting, Mr. Kelly hadn’t even taken his hands out of his pockets.

For a moment, Mr. Kelly seemed to have back up too far, teetering on the edge of the dais, and Clyde saw an opportunity to capitalize, to end him. Yet, he hesitated, intuition, or, perhaps mere suspicion got the better of him, Clyde backed up and assumed a defensive stance. Mr. Kelly laughed at him.

“Was I so obvious?” the bald man wondered, finally taking his hands out of his pockets, “Well, I suppose it doesn’t matter, you’ll be dead in a moment either way.”

“Keep telling yourself that,” Granger muttered wearily, slowly lifting himself off of the altar.

Mr. Kelly watched the massive cyborg stand to his full and impressive height, and his suddenly worried eyes drifted onto Evie. She sat on the other side of the dais, sitting on a broken stone pillar, cleaning one of her needles.

“You know something,” she mentioned, her expression blank as her voice filled with venom, “I always hated you.”

“Well…” Mr. Kelly slid along the edge of the dais, trying to get some distance from the two combatants who were slowly approaching, “The feeling was never mutual but…”

Granger reached down, grabbing the side of the altar and hurling it across the room, embedding it into the wall, removing the only obstacle that separated him from his prey. Mr. Kelly let out a nervous laugh and then jumped down from the dais. As if by magic, he seemed to disappear, lost into the mass of bodies that surrounded the raised platform, who had all suddenly started to move, many pulling weapons from under their cloaks. Both Clyde and Granger pulled back from the edge, seeing a number of rifles being leveled in their direction.

“Kill Them!” Mr. Kelly’s voice rang out from somewhere in the cavern and his men were quick to respond.

Clyde and Granger ducked the first volley, dropping to the ground and letting the bullets fly over their heads, but they could already hear a number of swordsmen stomping up the stairs to meet them. Evie pulled a curved blade from her belt, and used her illusion powers to project the image of a screaming death’s head roaring down at them, but the attacker’s were undeterred, they charged forward anyway. For a moment, she seemed to stand in stark terror, then rushed through the image of herself, stabbing the nearest attacker in the throat, but, no sooner had she moved than Granger reached out, shoving her to the side the then back handing her victim into the crowd that was still racing up the stairs. They all scattered like bowling pins, falling down or over the side of the staircase, but, as they went down the riflemen returned, raising their weapons and preparing another volley.

Granger dropped back, using his metal arm to defend himself, but an arrow from behind distracted the riflemen and threw off their aim. They turned in time to see Belix nocking another arrow, but Clyde jumped from the top of the dais, landing directly into their midst and crushing one of them under foot. They lashed out at him with the butts of their rifles, but he easily dodged around their clumsy attacks to stab them fatally. When they started to drop, Clyde took notice that none of their wounds were emitting smoke or steam, meaning they had not been converted. He lost a blade when it got stuck in an enemy’s skull, and used a portal to join Belix on the fringes of the crowd, acting as her defense while she continued to pepper the enemy with arrows.

Doing what he could to help, Granger grabbed a few downed opponents who had been left on the stairs and hurled them into the crowd below, knocking a huge number of them over with a sickening crunch. Between Granger’s bombardment and Belix’s arrows, the crowd of enemies slowly began to thin allowing the other combatants in the group to pressure what remained as their heavy hitters slowly moved in. In minutes the battle was over, the whole crowd of armed guards hunched over and broken on the ground as Clyde and Evie cleaned their weapons, Belix moved through the mass of bodies to recover her spent arrows.

“Well,” Evie commented, “That wasn’t too much of a chore.”

“We could’ve used a few of those magic needles of yours,” Granger responded harshly.

“I only have three left,” she responded tersely and sheathed her blade.

Ignoring the pair, Clyde finished cleaning his knife and walked around the dais to where the priest had fallen. Pulling back his hood, Clyde let out a disappointed sigh, then stabbed the priest’s lifeless body through the face before collecting and tossing the arrow back to Belix.

“Friend of yours?” Granger wondered.

“Unfortunately no,” Clyde grumbled, “Not Ragda.”

“OH!” Granger spun around dangerously on Evie, “And I thought you said…”

“Well obviously I was misinformed!” she snapped.

“And what about now?!!”

“Shut it!” Belix ordered them, rolling her eyes, “Both of you!”

“...you know,” Granger turned on her now, “Last I checked you weren’t my captain anymore!”

“Free advice,” she told him warningly, and plucked the string of her bow, “Shut it, or I’ll pin it shut!”

They spent a few minutes staring each other down, but Granger quickly threw up his hands in defeat and wandered to the edge of the battlefield, fuming and glaring at a wall. Tentatively, Evie approached Belix.

“Thank you,” she whispered, but Belix was in no mood.

“You did something to him,” Belix observed, her voice curt and blunt, “Fix it, but do it on your own time, now,” she pointed to the pile of bodies, “Help me look for that bald fucker.”

“You mean me?” Mr. Kelly’s voice rang out and everyone in the cavern let out a collective grunt of annoyance, “Aw, it’s so nice to be so loved.”

They searched, but quickly noticed him standing at the opening of a tunnel at the side of the cavern.

“Is this fuck-wit actually useful?” Belix demanded.

“He knows things,” Evie stated, “But he’ll die before divulging them.”

“Well, too bad for him,” she mentioned and readied her bow to fire.

“Oh, do go ahead,” Mr. Kelly continued to mock her, “You’re still not going to escape.”

“Don’t tell me,” Belix rolled her eyes, “You bombed the exit?”

“Of course not,” he scoffed, leaning against the opening, “But, I did tell my people to hold back until you arrived, you must have noticed how the entrance was unguarded, didn’t you find it the least bit suspicious?”

“So,” Belix shrugged, “We’ll just go the other way.”

“You really think I’m a fool,” Mr. Kelly joked.

“You are the asshole standing in the open while someone points an arrow at your head,” Belix observed.

“While you were busy with the others,” he told her, a hint of exasperation in his voice, “I sent a notice to my men, they’re coming in through all exits, and you’ve got nowhere to run.”

“Weak, Bluff,” Belix smirked at him.

“Actually,” Granger raised his head, tilting his ear to the ceiling, “Do you hear that?”

Belix cast her gaze skyward and noticed a faint but unmistakable tremor as little showers of dust rained down on their heads. The conclusion she and the others reached was instant, and unmistakable.

“Footsteps,” Belix mentioned, finally relaxing her bow, “Heavy armor…”

“The elite guard,” Mr. Kelly corrected her, “Far better trained than those scrubs below you, they should be arriving any second now.”

“Fuck…” Belix groaned, “Granger, could we...I mean, could you...collapse the tunnels maybe, narrow their numbers?”

“Ah, yes,” Mr. Kelly snickered, “And trap yourselves inside, what a brilliant plan…”

“Not necessarily,” Clyde commented, staring intently at one of the few walls that hadn’t been hollowed out into a branching path, “If I remember correctly, the maps showed a waterway just on the other side of here.”

“So, now you’re going to drown yourselves?” Mr. Kelly scoffed.

“Certainty of death or possibility,” Clyde shrugged.

“Fair point,” Belix mentioned, firing an arrow in Mr. Kelly’s direction and causing him to duck behind the opening, “Granger, you got a drill in your arm, right?”

“I’ll get on it,” he nodded, rushing to the back wall and brutalizing it with his metal arm.

All the while the sounds of footsteps drew closer, the three remaining combatants bunched together in a defensive line, trying to protect Granger’s exposed back. Sweat beaded on their brows as they nervously clenched their weapons, the marching noise, the faint footsteps having now become a thunderous cacophony.

“How’s it coming back there big guy?” Belix wondered, her voice strained as she slowly pulled back on her bow string, noticing the first glint of armor and naked swords from the nearest tunnel.

“I’m trying?” Granger snarled, having already dug several meters into the stone wall, “It still feels solid… where the Hell is this thing?”

“It should be back there,” Clyde mentioned over his shoulder.

“Yeah?” Granger demanded, “Well where the Hell is it?!”

“Urrrr, screw it,” Belix shook her head and lifted her bow, “Form up...and try to give as good as you get.”

“Dammit!” Granger shouted, beating his fist against the hole he had created, but, just as he turned away, something fell onto his shoulder, a small drop of water, leaking down from the top of his escape hole, “...the fuck…”

Clyde glanced back, noticing the man’s confused expression and realization dawned on him.

“Wait…” he muttered, “No...I think we’d actually be under it, if we…”

“What?” Belix looked away just as soldiers began to flood the room from all sides, but at the perfect moment to notice the massive crack spreading out from Granger’s escape tunnel, “Oh...shit…The Dais, Get To The Dais!!”

They all followed her order, avoiding the swarm of soldiers and free climbing the back of the altar with barely enough time to spare as the back wall burst inwards releasing a tidal wave of water to flood the chamber. While it served to wash away the incoming hoard, only Granger was slow enough to be caught in it’s torrent and pinned to the side of the mound of earth as it swayed disconcertingly under their feet. Belix, with no thought to her own safety, reached down beneath the foaming waters, almost losing her footing, but managing to catch her old friend by a groove in his metal arm, and, with help from the others, pull him gasping and coughing from the brink of death. They all collapsed on the dais, exhausted and drained, but fortunately alive, at least for the moment.