Act Five, Scene Nine
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Act Five, Scene Nine
Tyrant’s Palace
The explosion went off ahead of the party, and Sunder flinched. The scouts were somewhere up ahead and he was back checking for any robot patrollers coming on their rear, and it still rattled his bones. What was happening to them? What had happened to them? He felt unmoored, without Acerbus to push against one way and Starbright the other, with just two of the other knights left and a dozen mercenaries to fill the places of the best men in Novapest...
Century split; one of his bodies stayed with Ilderia in the forward group, the other going further ahead as a lone scout. Sunder fell back next to Morgan, murmured her name.
Her eyes flicked over to his chin and then away, and the two of them slowed down. “Yes?”
“Does any part of this seem... off... to you?”
“Everything,” she said. “Why.”
Two rooms ahead, Century was bisected by a laser grid, and Ilderia raised a hand, sending lightning flooding into the lenses. They flickered off one by one. “No reason.”
“Hey,” Jim said, and Sunder turned to look at him. Where had he come from? Banisher and Jacket were up with the middle group.
“Hello.”
Century split again. One of him touched his earpiece; the other called back - “Morgan, I need you to crack a wall.”
“So,” Jim said, “what are you talking about?”
Sunder looked down at him coolly, meeting his eyes. “I don’t particularly know why Ilderia hired you,” he said pleasantly.
“She trusts me,” Jim said. He didn’t look away either.
“Ilderia trusts everyone who doesn’t work for the Tyrant and half the people who do. What’s special about you?”
“I’m a good shot?” He shrugged.
“I think,” Sunder said, “that once we’re through this fight we are all going to need to talk.”
“Just so long as we’re running the place, that’s fine with me,” Jim said. “I’m happy to - talk.”
“Knights,” called Ilderia, voice warm, from halfway down the corridor. “Time to get moving.”
Century shook his head - carefully, so as not to make his headache worse. This wasn’t the first time there had been troubles between the knights and the mercenaries - Zero’s people were always the second, whatever their official title was - but this was worse than before. Since Acerbus had died, everything was getting worse and worse...
The planes hanging from the roof were obvious traps, and Century traced the obvious lines of fire for their weapons - he’d need to know where to dodge - but the tiny green strands that ran along the walls were not...
“Greenrose,” said his body next to Ilderia.
“Not an easy woman to kill,” Ilderia said. She had that distracted look again. “Banisher, do you carry any deadlier weapons?”
“Certainly, Your Majesty,” he said, adjusting his glasses, “but none that could be used in a confined space. High explosives are not optimized as close-range weapons.”
“You haven’t managed to steal one of Mechanos’s disintegration rays?” Ilderia said, the friendly smile looking almost like it used to.
“No.” His tone did not invite comment.
“Well, then...” She looked distant again, then focused. “We don’t have time to do this the right way so we’re going to do it the wrong way,” Ilderia said. “Century? This is going to be tricky.”
He’s not giving up on her, now or ever. “Yes, Ilderia.”
Just Century inside, so far, rifle over his back, sword by one side and submachine gun by the other, hammer in one hand... Just one... checking for traps (Greenrose remained still and silent) and defusing what he could. He set off a mine halfway across the room with a shot from his rifle (the shrapnel-burst severed one of Greenrose’s tendrils, not that she cared), then another (Greenrose didn’t bother moving), smashed the primary disruptor grid module, defused the neural scrambler, made his way most of the way to the far door, died to a flurry of poisoned darts, came in and looked again, slowly moving across the room, and then split, still no one else coming in, then split...
... Then split again, and again, and Greenrose impaled four of his bodies (eight of his bodies) at once and there were another half-dozen of Century pouring in, moving in all directions and splitting, and there was an armorjock Greenrose had never seen before -
(”She’s on the roof!” That was Nicator in there.)
- and Sunder and a couple mooks, and Nicator pointed her finger as Greenrose dropped, tendrils spearing everywhere, and lightning blasted through Greenrose, Nicator bending her hand and the lightning arcing around in circles through her and Greenrose couldn’t focus as Nicator’s mooks racing past. She couldn’t focus and so instead she lashed out, thorns growing everywhere across the strands of her body in the room. More mines went off and the planes opened fire, noses and wingtips opening up to reveal machine-guns firing and lasers flashing from arbitrary spots.
Nicator kept the lightning circling through Greenrose as she ran - most of the people in the room were Century, not worth going after, but Greenrose’s tendrils speared out to catch one brick, plowing into the force field over his chest and ramming him into a wall -
- the door -
Greenrose tried to concentrate enough to block it before Nicator passed through but she - simply - couldn’t - do it -
And then she was through and Greenrose could twitch out of the way of the no-longer-aimed lightning. She threw tendrils at the door to bar the path, slamming it shut once it was impassible and leaving Sunder, the stabbed mook and half a dozen of Century’s bodies trapped in a room with her.
“So,” Greenrose rasped, sixteen arms and a thousand writhing spines, “which one of you is first?”
Ilderia passed through at a run, dodging a blaster bolt from one of the walls as she did, then slid to a halt beneath a laser grid. Jim and Banisher had already made it past, and Morgan walked through a moment later, and there were still of two of Century’s bodies, which was enough for the rest to return, and then the door slammed closed...
Morgan’s eyes turned to Ilderia. “Don’t worry,” Ilderia said, “Greenrose can’t scratch him either.” (A crash came from behind them.) “Come on. Have a little faith in him.” (Another crash.) “We have to get moving.”
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