Season content notes: violence, injury
Falchion’s sword flashed down. Guns rolled, but the blade moved faster. It stabbed through her leg, pinning her to the roof. Then Falchion twisted the sword and wrenched it out. Blood spurted and Guns shrieked but staggered to her feet. The blue, furry creatures pressed in despite her continuous rifle fire.
“Guns!” Sword cried. Ey, Frontman, and Heals were surrounded by a wall of greys and terror birds. Sword couldn’t break through. Frontman knocked down several and more kept filling the gaps. Heals put his sidearm to good use. But they were trapped.
The blue, furry bastards each had four arms. Each arm ended in a single claw. Swiping at Guns, they crowded her against the edge of the roof. This close, the rifle wasn’t effective. She cursed. Her ruined leg made dodging useless. On instinct, Guns brought her hands together on the rifle grip and yanked. The rifle split in her spreading hands, leaving two pistols. Well, she thought, pistol-whipping would have to do. These bastards weren’t letting up.
Heals watched the new monsters surround Guns in horror, then realized Speed hadn’t been caught in the monster ring. She was still zipping around getting civilians to safety. They had one shot at this. “Speed,” Heals yelled, “Get Guns out of there!”
A line of fire flashed and Speed skidded to a halt. Seeing Guns in trouble, she took off again. Her feet melted the pavement on her way to the building. She blurred up the fire escape and landed lightly beside her teammate.
Guns was pressed to the edge of the roof. If she fell, nothing would cushion the four-story fall. She shot two of the monsters and pistol-whipped a third, but they kept pressing closer. Blood loss kept ruining her aim. Suddenly, Speed caught her up, making her squeak. They zipped back down the building, bowling over a couple the blue monsters on their way.
Sword disengaged a moment and slammed the sword point into the ground. Energy pulsed and rippled out from the blade. The surrounding enemies toppled over each other. At the same moment, Frontman yelled, stunning them. “Let’s go!” Guns yelled.
Ey, Frontman, and Heals burst through the greys and terror birds. They met with Speed and Guns at the base of the building. Four of them surrounded Guns, with Frontman at the fore. Together, they faced down Poniard, Falchion, and their minions.
Falchion glowered. This wasn’t the plan. He cursed viciously. “Not today, children. But we will meet again!” The words echoed as he and the blue monsters faded out of existence in a flash.
Poniard yelled, “Wait for me!” With another flash, she and the monsters she brought disappeared as well.
Frontman scowled. “A trap, then. This wasn’t a spearhead attack.”
Guns staggered and dropped. Heals caught her. “She needs help. We have to get out of here.”
As one, they grabbed each other, hand to wrist. A moment later, they disappeared to their safe house.
Back at MourningDagger’s castle, the Prince lounged on his throne as Falchion and Poniand knelt before him.
“It isn’t my fault!” Poniard said, “It was Falchion who let the gun wielder escape.”
Falchion growled, “You were supposed to occupy the other four. If you had done your job I could have done mine!”
Poniard, “You–“
“Silence,” MourningDagger bellowed. The bickering was enough to test a patient man, which MourningDagger generally was not.
In the background, his lieutenant smirked and carefully stepped back into the shadows.
At their hidden base, Mobb lay on a couch, her bandaged leg propped up on a pillow. Blade had done everything he could, stitched the wound up, and somehow his suit managed to have the good painkillers, as well.
Salem, who knew better than the rest what she was doing in the kitchen, made chicken soup with warm rolls for everyone. The hideout, a hunting lodge hidden in the foothills of the Rockies, was stocked with food before they arrived. They all had opinions on the antler and taxidermy decor, but at least they had full stomachs. What would they do when they ran out of the food in the pre-stocked kitchen? Well, they’d have to figure it out. The place was perfect for a hideout. Not so much for food shopping when they were at least a mile from their nearest neighbor and didn’t have a vehicle. Or money.
“So… that was shit,” Quickmoon said, biting into eir roll.
Blade nodded as he double-checked Mobb’s bandages and turned his attention to his food.
“We walked right into it,” Astaroth said with a scowl.
Salem shook her head. “We thought it was an attack like any other. We got predictable.”
Mobb grumbled and glared at her soup. “It’s not like we have any training or even a basic field manual for this gig. But yeah, we maybe should have expected them to try something different when we kept beating their forward attacks.” She wasn’t sure how the painkillers Heals gave her worked, but they didn’t seem to come with the standard high.
“I mean, we kinda have a field manual. What about all those anime shows like this? It’s not real, but kinda is?” Salem took a bite of soup to keep her hands occupied.
Mobb snorted and winced as that jarred her leg. “No idea what shows you are talking about, but you can’t watch a medical show to learn how to work in an ER.”
“Fair.” Blade took another bite and swallowed. “Should we be making some kind of plan, then? Or maybe get intel?”
“What kind of intel?” Salem asked,” And how? I mean, it’s not exactly like we can, what, spy on MourningDagger? Our only source of information was… Mentor.”
Astaroth sighed. “If we can even call him that. Or could trust anything he told us.”
Mobb frowned. “Maybe not, but we should have some kind of ability that we’re not seeing that would allow us to spy.”
“We do keep finding new abilities as we need them,” Blade said thoughtfully. “Your gun trick today was pretty cool.”
She nodded. “That’s the thing. I’m not even sure how I knew to do it. I just did it. We need to start training.”
“You,” Quickmoon put in, “need to heal.” No one argued with that.
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