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Chapter 15
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The whole group, a party of eight, met in the northern end of Siren’s Gauntlet an hour before dawn, a mostly-abandoned business district that was supposed to be torn down and renovated into an amusement park, though that was before the heroes and villains turned it into a perpetual battle zone along with the Vambracemen and Arachne Regime on opposite ends. The group of heroes and mages had to watch their step, and hope no one would come after them.

Up ahead was the strongest Vambracemen stronghold in Paragon. Of course Ohm Wire had to be there. It couldn’t have been the smaller facilities hidden throughout the city.

“I thought the Vambracemen were generally liked by the heroes,” said Sean in a soft tone of voice.

“Long story,” said Psi Wizard. “A long time ago they were respected by most, even by a number of villains, and some actually were likeable. They represented law and order while trying to represent the original Captain Patriot’s good name and image. Things changed a little over eight years ago; again, long story. They fell apart and required reform, and now here we are, repeating history.”

Princess Undercut said, “Outright attacking them is still asking for trouble, and not the good kind. Villains are typically the ones to try, because heroes risk a shiny ‘fallen’ status when they do so.”

Sean tried to let that churn inside his head for a moment. “Then what are we doing? I thought you were all heroes.”

“We are, and now so are you, sweety. Mortar?”

“I’m almost ready,” noted Mortar Mage, who was tapping away at a handheld device with his stylus. “There are a few people who can do this faster than me, but I can make due; and there we go.”

“The cameras are ready?”

“They are ready, and so are my gadgets I’ve brought with me. All we need to do now is to make a good entrance, move in fast, and be out in time for breakfast.”

Mary held up her new cane and parasol—both durable enough to hit concrete a few times before breaking—with one hand, and said, “My turn,” before walking off toward the stronghold.

The facility was surrounded by a moat and a few secure bridges. Mary chose to walk to the nearest one where two Vambracemen stood watch. All they saw was a costumed woman carrying a parasol in the fading night. They thought they had it easy, and the base’s security system had their backs in case the wrong visitor came by.

“Can we help you, ma’am?” asked one of the guards in a firm voice.

“Excuse me, yes,” said Mary in a delightfully cheery voice, “Might I have a moment of your time to talk about letting waffles into your lives?” She winked.

Not one beat later, the parasol was closed, and the cane was soaring through the air in Mary’s other hand. They became like a pair of batons in her hands, and she laid the smackdown on both guards in a matter of seconds.

The security system failed as planned.

“Sorry about this,” said Mary to the unconscious guards, “but we’ve got a friend in need of saving.”

Back at the group, Mortar said, “A ‘B’ in originality, an ‘A’ in execution.”

“Right,” remarked Princess Undercut, “like you could have come up with better on such short notice.”

“Everyone’s a critic. Let’s go.”

The heroes and mages moved forward, though Genine pondered these friends of Mary’s. They were clearly as unusual as she was. Genine could not decide if this was comforting or something to worry about in the time it took for them all to cross the bridge leading into the stronghold.

“Hey! What are you doing here?” shouted a Vambracemen who spotted the group.

War Lagoon opened a dark circle beneath the patrolling Vambraceman, who then fell through it, and out a second circle into the moat outside the walls.

The scream attracted more men and women stationed around the base, but none of them had come into sight of the infiltrators yet. Mortar Mage took this as his cue to act, and he threw a few mechanical pucks down each of three ways. The pucks went off, casting illusions to confuse the Vambracemen.

“Eight of us, so three groups,” said War Lagoon. “One will have to be a pair.”

Genine panicked, “We’re splitting up?”

“Quicker that way to find the holding cells. Sadly I couldn’t get a full layout of this base or we’d do this together more quietly. Let’s do a mage per group. Ladies—yes, that counts you, Adamast—you three take the left. I’ll take the right with Psi Wizard and either one of you gentlemen.”

Mary mumbled something about picking out a new name.

She was interrupted by Mortar Mage saying, “Max, was it? If you’d like, we can team up for the center way here.”

His fan nodded to him. The groups were thus decided, if not by this quick exchange, then by Vambracemen shooting at the illusions.

Maryann said, “No time to argue or plan any further, I guess, and we're a-walking.”

Everyone else started moving. Sean bounced back and forth between the varying directions before he trailed after Psi Wizard and War Lagoon.

Ohm Wire stood up. She was as good as feeling whole now. That horned woman who used to be David was close. Ohm Wire knew the time was close. She knew she had done wrong and had to pay for it, but there was a better way than the Vambracemen.

“Eight years since fate took you down, and you still think you’re in control of everything,” said Ohm Wire. “Once upon a time, there was a fanatic organization with access to arms that no civilian had the right to carry. They needed a cover for their operations, so they modeled themselves after the greatest hero of the time.

“For so many years, people looked up to this growing militia, and it seemed like everyone had to join whether they had powers or not. However, this organization’s true nature remained a secret to every law abiding citizen and heroic vigilante, and even half the villains. That is, until the truth was uncovered by two teenage girls and their doctor. Eight years ago, everything changed with two great battles. It was the first, last and only time such a militia could be seen prepared to fight and die for their beliefs.

“The villain reform system was made shortly thereafter, yet here you are, thinking you are above that. You’re torn between your truly good members and everyone else. If those girls hadn’t left for another dimension, they would be laughing at each and every one of your faces for what’s about to happen today.”

The guards spent every ounce of effort they had to ignore this prisoner. For once, that was not enough.

He said, “You will be silent, criminal. Or you will suffer a fatal accident.”

That was when Ohm Wire’s eyes glowed. She smiled, and one of her astral manifestations appeared behind the man.

In her raspy voice, the ghostly duplicate said, “Life is an illusion, but you mean nothing.” She kicked the same Vambraceman in the back before he could turn.

All five guards converged on her. The ghost moved with the grace of a ballerina and the ferocity of a feral beast while the real Ohm Wire stood and smiled inside her cell. Bones broke, noses bloodied, and men fell.

The ghost managed to drop one Vambraceman close enough to the wall switch that controlled the barriers. It required an authorized hand to do anything.

She used one of the unconscious guard’s hands to open the cell, and then the apparition vanished. Ohm Wire stepped out into the main of the room. Her eyes continued to glow. Her heart and mind continued to search the base for her other half.

“Get behind me!” Mortar exclaimed while opening a completely solid door.

He pressed a device against it to make it vibrate with defensive magic, and the gunfire on the other side did nothing more than bounce off of the door. Mortar held it like that for a few seconds, then the Vambracemen needed to reload.

Max took the chance to fire off some arcane blasts. The attack had a far greater success than the flying bits of metal.

The two of them slipped inside, and found a long hallway at the bottom of some stairs.

“Do you think Mary’s friend is down there?” asked Max.

Mortar said, “I’m not so sure about that. I’m sensing something down there, but it’s not prisoner containment.” He pressed against his earpiece, which was one of five that Mortar was able to scrounge up in short notice. “Any luck, guys?”

“Not yet,” said Princess Undercut.

Mary said, “I think this way leads to the mess hall and training areas. We’ll keep as many of these guys busy as we can while you all try to find Kyra.”

“We’ll keep you posted.”

Psi Wizard said, “Sean is working the protected door. This might be the way, unless these guys like to secure a bunker full of pillows and blankets. Though, I think I’d be down with that.”

“Down with—“ Everyone could hear Princess Undercut sigh over the sounds of gunfire and powers being used. “War.”

“Ow!”

“Thank you, sweety.”

War Lagoon said, “Alright, we’re in. We’ve appeared to hit pay dirt. Mortar, are you and Max joining us?”

Mortar Mage said, “Probably not. I think we stumbled onto something that needs looking into. We’ll meet you out front as planned.”

He nodded to his mage companion, and they hurried into the hallway below. A pair of Vamebracemen came up to meet them, and another entered from outside, but they made short work of them between their fireballs and arcane blasts. While he had no love for the Vambracemen, Mortar concentrated more on the concussive blasts than the hot ones.

Moments hardly passed before Mortar and the mage started down the hallway. It was dimly lit the whole way.

“So,” Mortar asked while they moved, “have you been following my journal for very long?”

“Only since my cousin submitted an article he’d written for your kids’ section,” Max replied.

“Oh really?”

“A little over five years ago, I think, yes.”

“And is he doing well?”

“I like to think he’s in a better place than I am, from time to time.” The truth was, Max didn’t want to talk about that.

They slowed down before hitting the door at the end of the hall. As dense as it appeared to be, able to withstand a bomb, the door belonged to the captain of the base. “Captain Bates,” the placard read on the wall. Mortar held another device up to the security panel.

The door unlocked with a click in seconds.

“Bates,” said Mortar Mage, “that’s one of the most renowned members in the entire militia. I'm pretty sure I heard it somewhere else before as well. And now we get to see his office. Odd that there weren’t other doors down . . . here. Hello.”

He stopped when they entered the office. The chair was turned away from the door, and it had someone sitting in it. This someone was very still, not that Mortar or Max knew the reason for it right away. He approached at a slow, steady pace.

“Sorry to intrude, Captain. I can’t say I like how you run this company of yours. Ew.”

Mortar finally saw it. The outfit had been aged by a few years, and there was a skeleton in the seat rather than a body. There wasn’t even sign of decomposition nearby.

That should have been enough, but Max noticed that there were windows on either side of the office with thick blinds covering them. A light glimmered from behind the blinds, which was how he noticed them.

“Mortar?” said Max.

“Yeah, I know,” he responded, bowing his head with a weak smile.

“I’m sensing something very wrong here.”

“Let’s take a look. Dread and suspicion alone won’t help us. There should be a mechanism somewhere to open both sets of blinds.”

They searched the room starting with the desk area. Max found it by moving the chair away from the desk and looking beneath where the seat would have fit inside the larger piece of furniture. Mortar caught the skeleton when it started to topple over from the movement, but then he saw something on the back of the primary neck bone. He couldn’t make it out clearly at first.

Max tinkered with the mechanism he found, causing both sets of blinds to open. Light immediately started to fill the room. He stood up, and gasped at what he saw beyond the windows.

Meanwhile, Mortar made out the mark on the skeleton now that there was sufficient light. It was an insignia left behind by high-level demons. He looked up, hoping to find something that would beat back his coming paralysis. Behind the windows, however, were large rooms filled with workers. Their eyes glowed with green and red pyres, and they all wore lab coats. The two intruders looked between the two vast rooms and saw the possessed technicians hard at work. This was far worse than anything Mortar had expected to find.

In one room, the technicians constructed a circular platform on the ground with a glyph stretched across its center. Metal tubes lead away from the platform to the outer walls.

The other room had a larger machine with smaller consoles and computers around it. Mortar barely had time to recognize the larger machine when one of the technicians spotted him and Max. Every technician now faced the two of them when the first technician roared in an ancient and arcane language, which had been muffled by the glass. They raised their arms, and charged magical energy. They were about to attack what they saw.

And all Mortar could do was ask, “Why do they have a reactor like that?”

Adamast Cross rushed through the ranks of a couple dozen Vambracemen, concerning herself more with speed than strength. She knew what her touch would do, and she was counting on it for once as a distraction so as to knock them down before the hypnosis could lead to any real harm. Princess Undercut and Genine brought up the rear with their attacks upon the now affected men they faced.

Adamast turned on the women among the militia—she spotted five—and proceeded to attack them in earnest.

Princess Undercut flipped around with her punches and kicks. She changed from one martial arts form to another, then back to her first, and nearly touched upon her third when one man surprised her with an attack of his own. He apparently had enough wits of his own remaining to do so.

However, it did not matter, because the man fell with a few of the last members of the large group. Genine breathed heavily, and Princess Undercut gave her wrist a good shake.

“Taxation hypnosis?” asked Princess Undercut.

Adamast nodded, and said “Tactile hip-hop.”

“Um, excuse me,” said Genine. She was about to correct them both by calling it tactile hypnosis, but she chose instead to say, “I think it was called texting hippopotamus.”

Princess Undercut and Adamast glared at one another. They giggled, and said, “I like it!”

“You there!” shouted a Vambraceman. He had a rocket launcher, and he wasted no time to fire it at the ladies.

“Shit, look out!” Princess Undercut shoved the other two into an open door. The rocket and its explosion hit her, as well as slammed the door shut.

Groaning in slight pain, Adamast Cross started picking herself up when she felt a pair of hands pick her up by the arms. The next thing she knew, she was slammed against the wall, and two men were breathing on her like a pair of horny dogs.

Genine could not bear to watch, but the Vambraceman who lifted her was holding her in place, making it hard to look or run away. She had to get out. She had to break herself free.

She called for the magic.

Ohm Wire found her. Her lover was in danger. The help she brought must not have been enough. I’m on my way.

She reached for the exit when a couple bangs of metal sounded from behind. Someone was opening it, she gathered. Ohm Wire took a stance prepared herself for a fight, to strike first before anyone could see her.

Meanwhile, a pair of heroes and a mage stood on the other side. They were ready to be attacked by a group of Vambracemen. They were ready to fight back, and win.

At any cost.