The Last Dainv-Chapter 163

The Last Dainv-Chapter 163

A gunshot boomed across the whole vicinity followed by what sounded like a shockwave. Gale and Rachel moved to the window, scanning the streets below where the shot came from.
"That sounds like Clyde," Gale said.
"Definitely the twins," Rachel said. "Take the stairs?"
Gale nodded, already moving towards the spiral stairwell. They took multiple steps at a time as they rushed down the spiral. Multiple shots rang out, sounding smaller than the initial booming shot. Probably Kyle's pistol.
Reaching the third floor, Gale rushed through the window and landed straight down. Rachel landed beside him, making as little sound as possible.
Gunfire continued. A high-pitched whine of the laser weapon that the spider mech used against him screeched across the city's air.
"West," Gale pointed down a curved street.
"Definitely the idiots shooting up a whole street," Rachel said.
Gale took off, Rachel followed. They passed through multiple blocks, or curves, whatever they were called in this place. The shots and booming shockwave rounds grew louder at a linear pace, signalling that the twins weren't moving that much while fighting.
They reached a plaza that was twice as large as the one that was in front of the temporary base. When they looked below, dark stains of what looked like blood dragged along the surface, scattered everywhere in this plaza. That was along with machine parts and broken spider mechs stripped out of anything they had.
Gale stopped at the edge.
"No bodies," Rachel said, scanning the parts. "Just destroyed robots."
More gunfire echoed. Flashes of light erupted just a couple of blocks away between two high rises. Mixed with it, familiar high pitched whine of lasers shredding through metal followed by even more gunshots.
They sprinted across the open space, jumping over broken machine parts. Upon approaching the combat scene, Gale spotted the familiar mech spider, though slightly bigger.
Kyle stood atop the spider mech. His suit jacket torn at the shoulder, white shirt splattered with oil. He fired his pistol at the machine's spider like eyes. On the other hand, Clyde sat against a wall nearby. His suit ripped across the chest, hand pressed to his bleeding side. Long gun right beside him.
Kyle emptied his gun into the mech's main sensor. The spider mech whirred as its legs twitched, suddenly dropping dead onto the metal floor. He jumped down as it collapsed, landing beside Clyde.
"Took you long enough," Kyle said when he spotted Gale and Rachel. He popped out his empty magazine and slapped in a new one with black glyphs. "What, did you get lost?"
"How exactly were we supposed to find you without you shooting like maniacs?" Rachel said.
"Use your head," Kyle said, then pointed to Clyde. "My brother's bleeding out here. Got any bright ideas?"
"Red marbles." Clyde looked up, face pale. "The tracking ones. Didn't use them?"
Right. He still had the same one Ollie gave him in his storage. Not to mention, Rachel's kits probably had a couple.
Rachel cleared her throat. "Fair point, but fighting about it now doesn't help anyone."
"She's right," Clyde coughed. "Save it for later."
Kyle turned to Gale, eyes hard. "Don't just stand there, rookie! Give him a syringe gun. And throw me one too!"
Two syringe guns materialized in each of Gale's hands. He tossed both to Kyle, who immediately knelt beside Clyde and set the syringe onto his neck.
The syringe gun hissed as Kyle squeezed the trigger. Green light covered Clyde's body and his pale lips soon recovered their colour. Kyle then pointed his own syringe gun onto his neck and squeezed. The same thing happened. The wounds on the exposed shoulder closed.
Kyle sat beside Clyde, still heaving for air. "Two minutes and we move. Can't stay in the open."
A sound came from across the street. A scrape of a boot on metal. Kyle spun, pistol up and aimed in one motion.
"Show yourself," Kyle said, finger on the trigger.
A figure stepped from the shadows. Lily stepped out of the shadows, moving into the slightly more lit area. The gear she wore from Earth now had a few torn spots while covered in the oil of spider mechs. "Put the gun down, Kyle. It's just me."
Kyle kept his weapon up. "You're the one sneaking about."
Lily looked past him. "Calm down. Clyde's going to be fine. The syringe fixed the worst of it."
"Don't need your commentary," Kyle muttered, lowering his gun.
Lily turned to Gale and Rachel. "Found you two at last. Heard the gunfire."
"What happened?" Rachel asked.
"Well, it sounded like these two idiots decided to shoot at the first thing that moved," Lily said. "And now we're here."
"We wouldn't have had to deal with this crap if we weren't helping that asshole in the first place." Kyle spat on the ground. "Should've just taken the standard jobs. But no, had to go for the promotion."
"Ollie?" Gale asked.
"Who else?" Kyle snapped. "Risk our necks for what? Get the golden boy of the Path. You'll get a promotion. Blah blah blah."
Clyde sat up straighter as the syringe worked its magic. "We took the job. No point complaining now."
Kyle helped his brother stand. Clyde swayed but remained upright. The twins exchanged looks, clearly talking amongst themselves.
"So," Lily said, "anyone got a plan?"
"What else? We find Ollie. This is a rift. The more people we have, the better our chances. Six of us make a full squad." Kyle snorted.
"Although a single squad isn't enough to run an actual rift operation," Clyde said. "Better than nothing. Losing Ollie would diminish our survival rate by approximately twenty percent."
Kyle nodded toward Gale. "Pass Lily a red marble. She's our scout."
Gale materialized the red marble Ollie had given him in the Eclipsed and passed it on to Lily's palm.
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Gale focused. A small red marble appeared in his palm. He handed it to Lily, who took it confidently. Guess everyone already had their own roles? Five years in limbo, and everyone feels more professional than him now.
Lily held the red marble between thumb and finger. She tossed it up. The marble spun, caught the fake light from above, then dropped. Instead of falling straight, it moved toward a street leading to the distant tower.
"That way," Lily said, picking up the marble.
The group moved out. Lily took point 20 metres ahead. Kyle and Clyde walked side by side, Gale and Rachel at the rear.
"Usually scouts are chosen based on agility and abilities," Rachel said. "Lily has skills that make her the perfect scout. Her reflexes are faster than most Resonants, and she can create short-range force fields for defense. Good for survival. Scouts stay ahead of the main team to prevent ambushes from wiping out the whole squad. They need self-sufficiency since they often work alone."
Gale nodded. "I guess you're going to explain more about the positions after we get Ollie?"
"Of course," Rachel said, eyes constantly shifting left and right and up. "Consider this your crash course."
After 20 minutes of walking, Lily raised a closed fist, a stop signal. She crouched behind a broken statue and pointed ahead.
About 50 metres away sat Ollie, still in the same chair from the Earth lab. His head hung forward, unconscious. Something invisible dragged the chair across the metal street, scraping against the metal floor.
The invisible force stopped as soon as they approached. The chair and Ollie remained still in the middle of the street.
Breath of the Void's tendrils told him that the thing that was dragging Ollie had moved away, retreating left, away from the tower.
"This is too easy," Kyle muttered, pistol pointed at the space around Ollie.
Clyde nodded, raising the long gun. "Much too easy. Classic ambush setup."
"I'll scout the perimeter," Lily said, slipping between buildings.
Rachel moved toward Ollie with Gale behind. She checked for traps while Gale examined the restraints.
Two restraints remained on Ollie's feet while the two for his hands were already snapped. Glyphed etchings marked all over the metal were probably what prevented Ollie from taking them off himself. Gale pinched the remaining two in half and hoisted Ollie over his shoulder.
"Got him."
"We'll give him medical aid later," Rachel said. "Let's retreat to base first."
Kyle looked at her. "There's a base set up already?"
"Yes," Rachel said. "Lily! Return to formation."
Lily returned from between buildings. "No sign of hostiles. They could be watching from far though."
"Think of a twentieth-floor building with a tent inside," Rachel said.
Lily immediately tossed the red marble again. It spun, dropped, pointing back with a slight right angle.
"This way," she said, catching the marble and moving out.
The group followed, more alert with Ollie as extra cargo. Kyle and Clyde took the flanks while Rachel stayed near Gale, who carried Ollie without strain.
They navigated the twisted streets, the marble guiding them through the maze. Lily occasionally stopped to retoss the marble when multiple paths presented themselves.
"How much farther?" Kyle asked after 40 minutes of walking.
"Close," Rachel said.
Gale adjusted Ollie's weight. He kept thinking about the invisible force that had been dragging Ollie. That was definitely not a ghost. Could be one of the comrades of the eye spider clickity clack thingy. Some kind of mix between a clanker and a human.
Lily stopped at a plaza and tossed the marble once more. This time it pointed directly at a tall, twisted building with a spire reaching about 20 floors up.
"That's it," Gale confirmed.
Lily pocketed the marble and waved them forward. "Let's move."
They approached cautiously, Kyle and Clyde taking aim at either side of the group.
At the junk-blocked entrance, Gale adjusted Ollie on his shoulder. "Follow me."
He bent down and launched from the ground, landing on the third floor's sill without making a sound.
Gale set Ollie down inside against a wall, then returned to the window. Below, the others looked up.
Rachel jumped first, landing perfectly beside him. Lily followed just as smoothly. The twins exchanged looks before Kyle bounded up, landing with a soft thud. Clyde came last, moving stiffer than the others.
Gale picked up Ollie again. "This way."
He led them through the hallway onto the spiral staircase. He looked back and nodded his head to the staircase, then climbed up without waiting. The others followed immediately, none showed any sign of fatigue.
Twenty flights later, they reached Gale's base floor. He carried Ollie to the tent and set him down. He pulled a syringe gun from his space storage and placed it against Ollie's neck.
"This should wake him up," he said, pulling the trigger.
The device hissed. Green light surrounded Ollie, then his eyes flew open. He gasped and coughed several times.
"That's the good stuff," Ollie coughed more while looking at Gale. "You got any more of that other good stuff? The stuff in the vial?"
Gale paused. "Wait, I can get one."
"Just joking. I'm fine." Ollie waved a hand, sitting up with effort. He looked around, taking in the tent, the others, and the window that showed the giant tower. "What happened?"
Kyle crossed his arms. "Welcome back to the land of the living where Event Horizon meets Prometheus."
"With lots of loot too," Clyde side eyed Gale. "Probably for later."
Ollie rubbed his temples. "What's the situation?"
"We've been transported to a rift using Project Threshold's generator. Alexei used it on us after he caught you," Gale said.
"What the hell did you even do to piss off the Silver Lions that much?" Kyle holstered his pistol.
"Used the shard on a girl, cured her, asshole got mad, and now we're here," Ollie said. "Nothing complicated about it."
Clyde pretended to wipe a tear. "So the tin man now has a heart, huh? Next thing you know, you'll be adopting puppies and volunteering at soup kitchens."
"Fuck you, Clyde," Ollie said. "Soup kitchen sounds fun though. You know, for the street rats."
Lily stepped between them, hands on hips. "We can talk about that later. We got a bigger situation than figuring out how big the Grinch's heart grew."
Rachel moved toward the supplies. "Is anyone hungry? We can discuss this while eating."
"Starving," Ollie said.
"Could eat," Kyle said.
Clyde and Lily nodded.
Rachel pointed to the pile of nutritional bricks. "We have these."
Kyle picked one up, turning it over. "What are these? Some kind of advanced sailor biscuits?"
"Something like that," Rachel said. "You'll need to boil them with water to make them edible. They turn into a paste."
Ollie took a foil wrapped brick and turned it around. "And how exactly are we supposed to boil water up here?"
Kyle snorted. "She's talking to a bunch of Awakened. Figure it out, genius."
"Right."
Gale retrieved several metal bowls from space storage, passing them around. "Here."
Each took a bowl and a nutritional brick. Kyle held his palm over his bowl, focusing until water formed inside, pulling moisture from the air. Clyde did the same, though slower.
Lily placed her bowl down, touched the rim, and whispered something. Water flowed into the bowl as if poured from an invisible pitcher.
Ollie stared at his empty bowl before setting it down with a sigh. He flicked his wrist, and water from Rachel's bowl splashed into his own.
"Really?" Rachel said.
"What? I'm still recovering," Ollie grinned.
They each created heat differently. Kyle with a small flame between his fingers, Clyde by heating the metal bottom directly, Lily with a whispered word that raised steam immediately. Ollie just stared until his water bubbled.
The bricks dissolved slowly, becoming thick paste as they stirred. The food had a faint smell of something earthy. Soil always made things taste better.
"So," Lily said between bites, "what's with this whole conflict with the Silver Lions?"
Kyle pointed his spoon at Ollie. "Ask Mr. Softheart over there. He's the one who broke the deal."
"Deal was off," Ollie said. "Alexei wanted the shard for his research. I already knew he wanted to steal the shard. I just chose to use it to save someone instead."
"Thanks," Gale whispered.
"Well you are right. I did lose myself," Ollie sighed. "Guess I'm just gonna have to get the cure without shortcuts then."
"That's all well and good, but now we're all paying for your altruism. Thanks a lot," Clyde said.
"Don't make me bring up Vancouver again, asshole," Ollie gave the twins a sharp look.
Gale ate silently as the twins and Ollie argued.
"What matters now is finding a way out," Rachel said. "This is a rift, not a prison. There's always an exit."

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Chapter 163