Dragon's Progeny: Chapter 78
And we're back! Had to rework some of the upcoming chapters, rewriting outlines and plot threads and junk. Not entirely sure I'm satisfied with what I've got, but we're nearing the end of the story and too many things are in motion to just rewrite it all so we're gonna let it ride! I'd say this fic will be finished in the next ten chapters or so.
All of my other stories will be updating this week as well so look forward to that! Please enjoy!
~~~
Skitter's insects proved to be a boon as we sank deeper into Coil's base. We inched our way forward one foot at a time, eyes peeled for traps while Skitter's swarm scouted the way ahead. The base was a maze of tunnels that seemed to stretch forever, according to her, and it was only thanks to Tattletale's insight that we didn't get completely turned around.
Even so, danger was practically around every corner. Every time I looked up, I half expected the ceiling to cave in revealing more turrets, or for the floor to simply drop out from underneath us into a dead fall lined with razor-sharp spikes.
Instead, we merely had to contend with his nearly endless horde of mercenaries and a much more mundane amount of automatic defences. A hassle, certainly, but I was expecting much more when approaching a villain of this caliber in his own base.
Tattletale seemed to pick up on my thoughts and gave me a look. “ You're wondering why he doesn't just gas us out, right?” I nodded, “Because that would be easy. He doesn't want easy, he wants to win.”
“So he's stupid?” Glam asked.
“He's arrogant,” Tattletale corrected. “We Thinkers all have our own special brand of narcissism. He thinks he's better than us and he wants to prove it. In his mind, we're all just a bunch of upstarts who have no idea what we're walking into. It doesn't help that he's been backed into a corner which definitely bruised his ego.“
“That will work in our favor,” I said gravely. “Coil might be dangerous, but even he cannot completely defend against a force this large. No matter how well prepared he is.”
“Yeah you probably could have just busted in here by yourself and smacked him up a little bit but since you brought all of us, he sees us as a challenge. You've come at him with force and he wants to respond with his own. Is it stupid? Yes, but it's also par for the course for Bond villains like him. Turn left up here.”
We skipped around the corner into a long corridor that sloped gently downwards. Checking to make sure the cost was clear, Tattletale continued.
“Of course,” she said, “It's also just as likely he already knows or at least has some idea of what's going to happen when we get there. Remember, he’s got a precog on his side. There’s no telling what kind of information he’s working with, but it’s definitely more than ours.”
We continued down the hallway, the slope making the descent feel more like a slide into the throat of some gargantuan beast. At the end of the corridor, we were met with an obstacle in the form of a massive, vault-like steel door that looked thick enough to withstand a missile from one of Dragon’s mechs. A single keypad glowed with a mocking green light on the side.
Tattletale stepped toward it, her eyes already flickering over the keypad in hopes to glean something from it, but I knew that we didn’t have time for that and instead looked towards Glitz and Glam who were hovering near the rear of the group.
“Take care of this, please.”
“With pleasure,” Glitz said with an audible grin. She stepped forward, full of pep as she dragged Glam with her. She clamped a hand firmly onto his shoulder, and he reached up, locking his fingers around her forearm as they raised their hands in unison.
They pointed their free hands toward the steel and thick bands of purple and red swirled before bursting from their palms as a beam of iridescent energy. The heat was insane, a blistering wave of air that made even Bitch’s dogs take a step back. The metal where the beams hit turned red and then melted into slag, the center of the door sagging and dropping like hot wax as they began to slide their way along the length of the obstacle.
The rest of the group stood back, blinded by the glare, until Skitter suddenly stiffened. Her head snapped back toward the corridor we had just traversed and we all followed her lead just in time to watch as a section of the wall slid open, revealing a hidden tunnel that we had somehow walked right past. A group of mercenaries spilled into the hall, their rifles already up and spitting lasers in our direction.
A member of Miki’s squad took a hit in the chest and went down without a sound, a sizzling hole carved into the front of his gear. The rest of us scrambled for some semblance of cover, while Spook strode forward to the front of the group, pulling open his costume to allow his lanky form to shine in the fluorescent bulbs up above.
The effects were immediate. The majority of the squad locked up as mind-numbing terror flooded into their brain and many more flinched back. None of them deigned to flee – they far too well trained for that – but those that could even manage to raise their rifles failed to get an accurate shot on the creature standing before them.
Miki’s team dealt with them in short order, gunning down the frozen mercenaries with a few well-placed shots. As the smoke and gunpowder cleared, Spook replaced his costume and stepped back while we reconvened.
Miki stepped up to the body of his comrade, gently grabbing their helmet and lifting it up. A head of dark hair slid out of the opening, eyes open and glazed over in sightless death. Miki took one look at them and shook his head, before leaning down and closing their eyes with his hand.
Tattletale sighed, stepping up to me as the remainder of Miki's men scavenged gear from Coil's mercenaries. “I thought it was a little bit too quiet. I didn't think they'd start coming out of the walls though. That definitely wasn't on the blueprints.”
”How many of these guys does he have?” Tammi asked. “We’ve taken out dozens, and they just keep coming. It’s like he has a factory for them.”
“He’s probably running low by now,” Tattletale noted. “But we still have the actual threats to deal with. Some of the Travelers are up top, but that still leaves the ones that aren't, plus Night, Fog, and Othala if she decided to stick around. I also wouldn't put it past Coil to recruit what was left of the Kaiser’s court. He's already got a few skinheads on his side.”
“We can't let our guard down.” I nodded.
The crash of metal on concrete echoed through the hall as the melted section of the bulkhead finally fell inward, hitting the floor of the interior hallway. Glitz and Glam stepped back, power fading from their hands as they sagged with slight exertion. Glitz stepped away from her brother and motioned towards us, ushering us through the hole they had made with a flourish.
“Well done,” I nodded as I passed them by. I had initially been leery of bringing such new allies along on a raid like this, but the twins had proven to be a boon during this raid. When all of this was said and done, perhaps I would renegotiate our ‘contract’.
I led the way through the glowing, slag-edged hole and continued on, deeper into the den of our enemy.
~~~
Sitting in his office, Thomas Calvert stewed in silence. Before him, the wall of monitors displayed the invasion of his most well fortified base, following along as Yosei and her motley crew slowly made their way towards him.
He took a sip from his glass of mineral water, watching the screens with a detached expression. On one monitor, he watched as the intruders stepped through the melted metal bulkhead that had cost him quite a lot of money to construct. The thick wall of steel and tungsten held them back for a while, but as always, they moved ever forward, heading deeper into the bowels of his fortress.
That was the last one, too, He thought idly, tapping his fingers along the edge of his desk. If they continue at this rate, they’ll be here in less than half an hour.
A full hour quicker than he had planned for. Though this news would have disheartened any other villain, Coil simply frowned and took another sip of his water, already planning a path to delay the group until everything was in position.
He felt a flicker of irritation as he watched Yosei's team dismantle his latest ambush with only a couple of losses. He hadn’t imagined that his army of professionally trained mercenaries would be this ineffective against a group comprised mostly of teenagers.
He turned his chair slightly, looking at the small, hunched figure sitting on the edge of the sofa in the corner of the office.
“Pet,” he spoke in a smooth voice, ignoring the small flinch that his voice elicited. His pet slowly looked up. Her eyes glazed and her body trembling in the wake of the drugs coursing through her system, but he knew he had her attention. “What are the chances that Yosei makes it to this room with her squad at least three-fourths intact?”
The girl went still for a moment, her breath hitching. “Ninety-eight point two percent.”
Coil’s brow furrowed. “That is... remarkably high.”
He turned back to the intercom on his desk and pressed the buzzer. “Commander Baker.”
“Yes, sir,” the reply came instantly.
“Send a fresh squad to sector six. Use the heavy ordinance. I want her slowed down. She’s moving with far too much momentum for my liking.”
“Understood, sir.”
As the intercom went dead, Coil switched his attention to the cameras on the surface, watching the battle with the PRT progress. The bulk of his actual forces were down here in his base, but the resources he had sent up above weren’t insignificant. At the very least, they were doing their job when it came to stalling his former colleagues so that he could deal with Yosei.
In his alternate timeline, however, things were moving along much less smoothly. In it, he had committed many more men to the battle up above, keeping the Travelers down below to deal with Yosei and her strike team. It was a decision born out of morbid curiosity and the desire to learn more about his opponent and as he suspected, it turned out to be a mistake.
As he suspected it might, putting that many capes against the woman had only served to catalyze her. In that discarded reality, the pressure had forced her to escalate, and he found himself witness to yet another display of her might might that was as unnerving as it was enlightening
The fact that she survived his base’s self-destruction was certainly a surprise. The consequences she levied upon the entire city afterwards in a rage-fueled attempt to track him down? Less so.
In his main timeline Coil focused on the monitor displaying Yosei and her group approaching. They were roughly halfway to him now, moving with purpose. He no doubt had Tattletale to thank for their impeccable sense of direction. The girl was a nuisance and a liability, but even she couldn't see everything.
Yosei thought she had the upper hand here. She likely felt the thrill of the conqueror as she stalked through his base and crushed his mercenaries. She thought herself a warlord, a sovereign of the streets, but he had been playing this game for far too long to be unseated by a girl who just stepped into a pair of shoes three sizes too big.
He watched the monitors closely. Yosei might make it to him, but he would make sure that by the time she did, she was crawling on her knees, begging for a respite he would never grant.
And if he couldn't manage that… Coil’s gaze strayed to a feed set apart from the rest, a solitary screen displaying a dark room and the thickest, heaviest door in the entire base.
There were only two ways this ended: with his victory, or everyone’s defeat.
~~~~
It didn't take long for us to come across another obstacle, though this one wasn't so easily bypassed as a big door.
“Wait,” Skitter preempted us as we turned a corner. The yellow lenses of her mask gleamed as she turned her head, and the insects lining the walls around us seemed to buzz with sudden agitation. “Someone's coming.”
We fell into a defensive formation instantly. Miki’s remaining men moved to the flanks, their rifles leveled at the far end of the corridor, while the rest of us stepped around them. A series of clicks echoed off the walls, a rhythmic tapping, like a piece of chalk on a board.
Click. Click. Click. It slowly grew closer, and my shoulders grew tenser as I stared down the hall.
Then, the lights began to go out. One by one, the bulbs overhead began to snap into darkness. The shadows in the hallway stretched longer and longer as they disappeared. The clicking was growing even closer, and my eyes narrowed before I turned to Miki's squad.
“Flashlight's, now!”
Beams of light burst to life with a series of tiny clicks. They signed them down the hallway, bringing them to bear just in time to zero in on a slender figure standing down the hall.
Night was smiling, pearly white teeth glinting against the harsh beams of the flashlights. In full costume and holding a slender blade, she seemed akin to an apparition, appearing from the shadows like a bad omen.
I felt a low growl rumble in my chest, the sound echoing within the confines of my mask.
“Night,” I rasped, the name slipping off of my lips like a curse.
Miki’s squad responded quickly. The metallic snick of safeties being disengaged echoed through the hall, and half a dozen red laser sights converged on the woman’s chest as they waited for my word. She didn't move an inch.
“You’ve been a right thorn in our sides, haven't you dear?” The woman's voice was as polite and soft as it had been in the parking garage, but her eyes were cold and dead. “This all could have been avoided if you just stayed to your own and out of our way, but you just couldn't let her go.”
She turned to Tammi and her smile widened, “Good afternoon, Tammi. I see you still haven't come to your senses. Agnes is quite disappointed.”
“Tell Agnes her disappointment is the highlight of my day,” Tammi growled. “Actually, I'll tell her myself. Where is she?”
“Quite busy, I'm afraid,” Night tittered. “But don't you worry. You'll be reunited soon enough.”
Night twitched, and a metallic cylinder rolled down the hallway as she ducked behind her cape and rounded the corner at the end of the hall as bullets screamed past her.
The flashbang exploded just as designed, blinding and deafening us all for several long moments. When our vision returned the hallway was empty and the woman was gone, and there was only one way forward.
“She’s baiting us,” Tattletale said, her voice seeming shaken by the encounter. “She wants us to follow her.”
“I know,” I replied. “But our path lies ahead anyway. We'll simply have to be careful.”
We continued onward.