2103:11:10:22:02:58

  The former post office turned Jannacht warehouse was on the smaller side for buildings this side of The Hub. It had two floors, totaling around ten meters in height, and was fifty meters long from the front and about half that in width. There were five entrances, one to the right side of the building reachable by a metal staircase, two roller garage doors, and one fire exit on the other side.

  Our approach to the bust was simple. First, Crowsong and I would enter from the top and sneak through the warehouse’s offices which was, as far as we could tell, devoid of people. From there, we’d take position up on the catwalk hanging from the roof until Jagar Natha charges through the garage doors to provide distraction. Then, I would drop down and transform into a rhino and do my best to add to the chaos. Rhennish, Marching Orders and Crowsong would perform targeted strikes at either armed henchies or, in case we encountered them, Jannacht villains.

  An easy enough plan. Not much different from Crowsong and my usual approach. Of course, it could all go wrong the moment we enter, but such is the way of things. For now, all we did was observe old post office while we waited for Elegast to signal his team’s readiness.

  At 22:10, our phones vibrated at the same time. We didn’t check for messages. Two phones receiving the message was the agreed upon signal for the go-ahead.

  Crowsong, rather than try and pick the long-defunct electronic lock, pushed her sword in the gap between door and frame, then pushed down. The maker-made sword cut through whatever lock was on the other side like butter.

  Crowsong pulled open the door and stepped aside. I shifted into a cat and entered the building first, using my new eyes to cut through the darkness. When I saw the office was as empty as we’d expected, I let out a low hiss to signal Crowsong to enter as well.

  The offices of the postal service warehouse weren’t particularly large. It didn’t fill the entirety of the second floor, only right-back quarter of the building, leaving the rest open for the factory floor. Another opening in the office led to a metal catwalk stretching over said floor – the overseer’s and/or manager’s favored spot, no doubt.

  There was no door between the office and factory proper, so Crowsong and I had direct access to the metal walkway. My mentor laid a hand on my back and leaned down to whisper something into my ear before letting go.

  I nodded, shifted back to base before turning into a sparrow and flying off into the warehouse. I scouted our opposition, flying up above from metal pipe to metal pipe, landing on lamps and the top of storage racks. Nobody spotted me, hidden as I was by the bright lights shining down, the darkness above it, and the building’s features easily obscuring my small form.

  The Jannacht presence was large, but not as large as I’d expected. For all that this was a distribution center that could – and once did – house well over two hundred workers, the number of henchies didn’t exceed more than thirty. Forty at the absolute most.

  Most of them were simple underlings, a workforce used to haul goods I could only guess the nature of. But while these low-level underlings were clearly meant for manual labor, every single one of them was still armed with a pistol.

  They seemed to be in a rush. Handheld packages in paper bags, large duffle bags and suitcases, small and long crates carriable between two people and even a forklift carrying larger variants; all of it was hastily loaded in two trucks near the garage doors, which kept their engines running. I didn’t know enough about criminal organizations to know whether this rush was how it normally went or whether they were expecting trouble.

  Aside from them, there were a few more imposing henchies that kept guard. These were decked out in full combat outfits – helmet, armored vest, automatic rifle, the works – and were constantly keeping an eye out, both on their surroundings and the low-status underlings. Sometimes, they interacted with a guy that looked like a foreman of sorts.

  As for masked… if there were any, I didn’t see them.

  Done with my scouting run, I joined Crowsong at the walkway above at the center of the warehouse. I shifted and grabbed my phone, typing out our opponent’s numbers, positions, actions, equipment and other things of note I’d spotted, like the trucks and forklift. I send it to the rest through our recently-established strike force’s group chat.

  Crowsong looked at her phone, nodded and gave me a thumbs up. I nodded back in response.

  Our phones vibrated softly. Jagar Natha had sent everyone a simple message: one minute.

  Crowsong tapped me on the shoulder. She gestured towards herself and then pointed at the trucks – or, if I had to guess, the heavily armed and armored henchies guarding it.

  I gestured towards myself and pointed down in question. Crowsong shot me a thumbs-up, patted me on the shoulder and shuffled towards her self-assigned targets.

  I counted up to the minute. At forty-five seconds, I carefully climbed up the catwalk’s railing as quietly as I could. At fifty-five seconds, I sat on it ready to drop down.

  At sixty-three seconds, a loud bang! resounded through the warehouse as Jagar Natha charged through the garage doors and straight into one of the trucks.

  Immediately people began panicking, dropping whatever they were carrying and reaching for their pistols or raising their rifles. A second later, gunfire echoed from near the trucks, followed by the sound of it plinking of Jagar’s impenetrable skin.

  “Sentinels!” I heard a couple of them shout, mixed with others yelling, “Jagar!” and one voice saying, “Call Darkstar!”

  I dropped down from the railing into the middle of the room, shifting into my by-now mastered rhino form as soon as I’d landed. One henchie crashed into me and fell on their ass, looking up at me in shock at my sudden appearance. He yelped in fear at my form and scrambled backwards.

  I raised my head and released a window-rattling roar.

  Renewed cries of alarm and panic echoed through the warehouse as henchies reoriented, turning their heads to review the new threat. A few of the henchies tripped in surprise or were bowled over by their colleagues who were still mid-run towards the warehouse’s garage section.

  “A fucking rhi-?!” I heard one henchie shout in the distance before they were silenced. Crowsong’s work, I imagined.

  It took the Jannacht forces a couple of seconds to get their bearings again, but soon they found their courage and drew their weapons. A second later, a hail of gunfire and hot lead followed.

  Bullets bit my thick hide like oversized, highly-determined wasps, but did little beyond that. The holders of the higher calibers were too busy with Jagar Natha and Crowsong, and all the smaller caliber handguns of the average henchie could do was hurt.

  Then, with thunderous hooves and mighty roars, I began my charge, aiming for boxes, racks, bags and everything else the Jannacht used to make their money.

  Henchies ran and screamed in fear as I neared them. I did my best to avoid them in the rush, carefully side-stepping those that fell in their haste. My intent wasn’t to cause permanent harm; it was distraction and destruction. Capturing henchies came third, and wasn’t something I could realistically do while in rhino form.

  One henchie went flying as I (very lightly) shoulder checked him in my charge.

  Oh well. Accidents happen.

  I stampeded through the warehouse, destroying everything I could. I flipped over the forklift with my horned head, stamped on crates and felt the metal and plastic of rifles and electronics bend and break around my feet. Powdered dust spilled over the floor as I kicked over and charged through two more wooden crates, crushed suitcases and tore open duffle bags with the grace of a steamroller.

  You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

  At the same time I was stomping around, the last two members of our party breached in from the emergency exit.

  Rhennish was heralded by high-pressured water blasting the door from its hinges, followed by a spray of high-powered liquid shooting into the room. While the caster couldn’t blast enough water to flood the warehouse or sweep people off their feet in a tidal wave, the droplets came in hard and fast like a typhoon.

  Henchies hid their faces, dove for cover or slipped and slid along the now-slick floor.

  Rhennish charged through the opening, carried by dozens of water-jets continuously casted out from under his feet, using his powers to skate atop the factory floor as if it was ice. Water shot from his hands like a firehose, attacking and subduing the underprepared Jannacht henchies wherever he passed by.

  Now that the henchies were properly distracted, I quick-shifted to base and back to rhino. No matter how thick my hide, bone and muscle were, or how small the caliber of their handguns, blood had begun to trickle out from the many, many wounds, draining me with every drop.

  In the shift, said blood vanished from the ground and my rhino body was fully restored.

  Next to come into the fight was March, but unlike the rest of us – and through no fault of her own – her entrance was overshadowed by another.

  As March rang the tiny bells attached to each finger of her hands, summoning two transparent knightly shades, the whole building shuddered and groaned, straining against an unseen force pulling at it from the outside.

  I felt my body lighten as something attempted, but ultimately failed to pull me up. Henchies, both those lying on the ground and previously standing, floated up until hovering about a meter or so from the ground. The contraband was treated less gently and shot up all the way to the roof, vibrating against it as if hoping it could phase through.

  March and Rhennish started to float as well, and a quick look back to the truck section revealed Crowsong and Jagar – along with the many fallen Syndicate soldiers groaning around them – were rising up in the air too. Only I and March’s summons were left standing – I too heavy for it and they exempt from its effect entirely.

  A few of the Jannacht gangsters cried in fear, pain and surprise at the unseen force. But many others started cheering instead, heralding their savior. “He’s here! Thank God, he’s here!”

  Then, with a mighty rip-and-tear, the roof of the old post office tore free of its foundations. Lights flickered and fell, shutting off as cables were stretched beyond their limits and snapped. A shower of sparks fell to the floor and set off fires as it found fuel in wooden scraps, packaging and flammable liquids.

  As if that wasn’t enough, the roof continued to groan and eventually split in two. Then fours, then eights and sixteenths and further and further as it was pulled apart piece by piece. Their remains converged on two of five floating orbs of pitch-black darkness surrounded by a purple event horizon.

  Above them, Darkstar hovered like a monarch, one ball right above his head and one right below his feet, with four more surrounding him at waist level. His tight black bodysuit had an unnatural depth to it and sparkled with white stars and purple nebulas hidden deep within, like his body was a portal to a galaxy all on his own. A purple cape flickered behind him, the color within it swirling like liquid. His face had that same fabric stretched over it, except with two suns for eyes.

  He surveyed his surrounding imperiously, suns flicking from henchies to heroes until – after lingering briefly on my rhino form – it honed in on-

  “Jagar Natha,” Darkstar spoke, voice deep and distinctly unnatural, warped by his mask. “Good to see you again.”

  I shifted away from rhino form. Darkstar’s power snapped, his hold gone over my body.

  Jagar stopped struggling against his invisible restraints and fixed his gaze on the villain. “Wish I could say the same, Darkstar,” his voice boomed with wrath. “Unfortunately, fallen angels don’t deserve that kind of respect.”

  He hadn’t noticed my transformation, attention fixed as it was on the old vigilante. So, while he was still busy with his dialogue, I shifted again, this time into a sparrow.

  “If you believed young me on the side of the angels, the more the fool to you,” the villain sneered. “You should not have involved yourself in my affairs, Jagar.”

  I flew up as quick and stealthily as I could, positioning myself above Darkstar.

  “And you should not have come to my city, young star,” Jagar returned, jerking against his restraints.

  I reconsidered and flew further away, planning a trajectory towards his back.

  “Your city?” he scoffed. Darkstar dramatically gestured and summoned a gravity orb above Jagar, its power focused solely on the hero. The hero’s struggle ceased under the renewed pressure. “A city of corruption, of unchecked power, of heroes getting away with crimes when they shouldn’t have and villains dying for crimes they didn’t do.”

  I considered dropkicking him from above, but targeting the head like that could lead to unfortunate consequences. I didn’t want to kill the villain by accident. Preventing escalation was still the name of the game.

  This time, it was Jagar that scoffed. “Oh please, don’t tell me you believe you’re saving the city by having the Jannacht rule here.”

  I began my dive, targeting Darkstar’s back.

  “No,” Darkstar replied, stretching out his hand. “I’m just here to even the scales.” He dramatically clenched it and Jagar’s body shot around the gravity orb, invulnerable skin starting tremble and strain under the no-doubt immense pull. The vigilante grunted and groaned softly at first, then heavily until it turned into half-angered, half-pained roars.

  As usual, I shifted back just before impact. While sparrow speed wasn’t that of a peregrine, any bird’s diving speed made a human body – even a teenaged girl’s body – a force to be reckoned with.

  “Surrender, Jagar,” Darkstar spoke. “Surrender, and I might-”

  Darkstar let out a warped yelp as I tackled him in midair. His concentration broke and with it, his orbs vanished.

  Heroes and henchies fell to the floor, each crying in varying degrees of pain and surprise. These were soon followed by the sounds of crashing concrete, metal, plastic and whatever else had been smushed together by Darkstar’s two material-focused orbs.

  I had little attention to spare for them, however, as Darkstar restabilized himself. We halted mid-fall and I felt gravity attempt to drag me backwards and off of him. I clung to his body with all the strength my android-powered muscles could carry, forcing Darkstar to accompany me in my horizontal fall.

  Darkstar cursed and started to struggle physically, attempting to pry my arms of his body. But he was too weak. Even when he changed tactics and began lashing out his elbows against my ribs and head, he was too weak and out of position to dislodge or even meaningfully harm me.

  I began punching back, but that was a mistake. As soon as I struck him in the side, the pulling force suddenly increased. With only one arm holding on, the sphere succeeded in ripping me off his back.

  But only for a moment. A series of quick-shifts to crow and back broke his gravitational hold over me, allowed me to grab the villain before he could fly – or fall – out of reach.

  I started punching again, and the process repeated itself. But that was fine. Each exchange was my win, by technicality if nothing else. Whether it be my blows taking him down or stalling him for long enough, it would be my win.

  Darkstar realized this, and shifted strategy, summoning another orb. This time, he pulled himself from one end while pulling me from the other. He began gradually increasing the pull of both, forcing me to use both hands to hold on to him. But soon I felt my arm start to strain under his power and inevitably, I slipped.

  We shot apart, Darkstar stabilizing himself meters away from me. I shifted into a crow and felt Darkstar’s hold on me disappear, and began rushing towards him in crow form.

  “Annoying creature,” he said and reached out. Two more orbs blossomed, one between us and one further away to the side. Darkstar flew towards one while the other pushed at me, but I quick-shifted again to break it, shooting off towards him in my quicker peregrine form.

  “Stop-!” More orbs, followed by another quick-shift to escape. Once again, the falcon chased.

  “You-!” Same pattern, same escape.

  “I said-!” he shouted. I was almost within clawing distance, my talons reaching forwards. “-STOP!”

  Two dozen black-and-purple spheres sprang all around us like a cage. I felt myself being pulled from feather to bone in all directions, suspended perfectly still in the air. I quick-shifted again to escape the pull.

  Yet as I turned into human-me, the pull didn’t disappear. In fact, it even increased after a second, and when I turned back into the peregrine falcon, I felt myself being pulled apart much stronger than before until the force shifted back to its previous, more gentle immobilization.

  There was something different about these orbs. The force was a blanket one, covering an area instead of designated targets. On the other end, it seemed to require more concentration on the villain’s part, if the slowness of his force adjustments were any indication.

  “Christ, the reports were right about you,” Darkstar said. “Your powers are much more annoying than they seem at first glance. Really, whose first instincts is it to kludge together a basic flying super suite from mimicry?”

  My mentor, I boasted internally.

  “Now, if I put you down, will you please give up so I can focus on Jagar? You’ve lost and I don’t want to escalate against a minor, but you’re kind of a pain in the-.”

  I shifted into base form, then quickly into a rhino, hoping to overwhelm his concentration. I began to plummet immediately as the force required to hold me up increased, yet I was caught too soon to try and break away.

  “I ask you again, could you please-” Darkstar was cut off as a jet of water launched from below and hit him square in the face.

  I felt his concentration break and his hold release. I shifted into human-me and then into falcon-me to attack-

  The force returned. Yet, instead of the peregrine-level force, it was a rhino-level pull that tore at me.

  For a brief second, I felt a burning ache within everything – my feet, my wings, my skin, my bones, my muscles, my blood; everything was lit on fire and screaming at me.

  Then, before that same second could pass into a new one, a falcon exploded into a fine red mist and a shower of feathers.

  That red mist disappeared, and human-me reappeared hurtling toward the ground. I landed on my back with a heavy, painful thud that forced the air out of my lungs.

  “Jester!” I heard my mentor yell.

  “Jesus fuck- Is she alright?!” Darkstar cursed.

  “What the hell were you doing?!” Jagar shouted at Darkstar.

  “Don’t you dare put this on me! I told her to give it up!”

  “You shouldn’t have enga-!”

  “She! Attacked! ME!” Darkstar’s voice boomed at decibels above even the sound of the roof tearing apart, with an echo and volume that spoke to some aspect of his power amplifying it.

  As silence reigned, I stood up out of the debris. “I’m… alright?”

  All heads – henchies, heroes, villain – turned and stared at my (relatively) unscathed form.

  “Fuck this, I’m out.” Black-and-purple spheres popped into existence and pulled the henchies up and into the air. A second later and other orbs blossomed, dragging the entire group of Syndicate employees toward the far-off horizon.

  Crowsong rushed me and I had to repress the urge to step back. She grabbed me by the shoulder and shook me like a rattle, sending my floppy crown swaying back and forth.

  “You fucking idiot!” she shouted right into my face. “Do you have any idea how lucky you are?!”

  “I’m sor-”

  “How many times have I told you this?! When an adult villain has you and asks you to surrender, you surrender!”

  And she had. But I just couldn’t let him… “Sor-”

  “Why do you think Blazin left us alive?! Do you think rule four of the Treaty is there just for fun?! Children don’t fight adult masked, and when they do, they don’t fight to the end!” Crowsong was breathing heavily by now, shaking in either fury or fear.

  I swallowed the lump in my throat. “I’m sorry,” I said, voice hoarse. Silence followed my words, my face and eyes burning with shame behind my mask.

  Crowsong stared at me for a second before shakily nodding. Her grip loosened, her shoulders dropped and her head hung in exhaustion. I could hear her shakily try to steady her breathing.

  I turned to look at our surroundings. Jagar Natha was staring at the floor, arms crossed and shaking his head. Rhennish and Marching Orders were standing off further to the side, pretending to examine the rubble while doing their best to ignore the spectacle between me and Crowsong.

  Of the old post office, there was little left. Only a few walls and two large, indistinct lumps of debris of the roof combined with whatever the facility had once held.

  “So… Are we still going to look for those bomb parts?” I asked tentatively. “I doubt we’ll find anything though."

  Crowsong’s grip re-tensed and she lifted her head, staring at me again. I winced, withering under the glare. Even behind her crow-faced mask, I could tell Crowsong’s gaze was both venomous, exasperated, genuinely furious and dead, dead tired.

  Thankfully, all she did was sigh before walking toward the great lumps. The rest of the strike team, myself included, did the same.