Chapter 6-175: Buying Opportunities (2/2)
As this place dealt in technology and magical adaptations of it, it didn’t really hold much interest for Sama, who was more medieval in her applications of destruction as yet. Perhaps someday she’d be able to do more than look at a bunch of equations without getting a headache, but that was not now.
Patient and calm, and looking much less dangerous than she was, affecting a face of complete disinterest and spaced-out boredom, she yet followed Daedrig precisely and accurately, eyes roving here and there and-
What was that?
Her hand reached out, slapped down on Daedrig’s shoulder where he was talking with a vendor displaying some sort of shock baton intended for civilian law enforcement use. Cantrip-grade magic made for great improvements in batteries and amperage...
“ATTENTION EVERYONE! THERE IS A POISON GAS ATTACK BEING PUMPED INTO THE AIR THROUGH THE CIRCULATION SYSTEM FROM THE ROOF! GET OUT OF THE FUCKING BUILDING! SOMEONE BLOW A HOLE IN THE ROOF, AND SOMEONE ELSE BLOW A FREAKING WIND OUT IT RIGHT NOW IF YOU CAN!”
Her voice rang out with grim command, and she wasn’t even looking at Daedrig as the gas mask came out of her Pack and slapped over his face before he could say a thing.
“NOW, PEOPLE!” she blared out.
There were shouts, and then people started running for the exits.
A guy in a red leather jacket grinned and gestured, throwing his hands up at the domed roof far overhead, and a blazing Fireburst streaked up to detonate against it, instantly melting and blasting a twenty-foot circle in one of the sections. He called out to another Caster nearby, who whirled his hands and spun up a short cyclone about himself, which he sent whirling up to the dome... and which naturally started sucking up the poisoned air and drawing it out of the hole.
Then the shooting started, and that wasn’t silenced at all.
“GUNS OUT! SOMEONE WANTS TO KEEP US IN HERE!” Sama pulled Daedrig’s heavy shotgun out of her Masspack and deposited it into his ready hands, not taking her eyes off the vortex. The fire Caster turned to look at her, identifying her as the center of the Voice, and she pointed left, to where the sounds of firing and the screams were coming from. He pulled out his own sidearm, the muzzle already burning, and holding it low and away, headed through the string of civilians starting to run away from the entrances now.
She could see people clutching at their throats and dying... the ventilation system was naturally pumping near the entrances, too. The fire alarms that should have gone off as the fire doors were kicked open did not, and then automatic fire ripped into the first people to exit them, sending those behind scurrying away as dark objects were tossed inside, and the screams as the grenades detonated were much louder.
Vendors were upsetting tables, weapons on display were suddenly being taken up for usage, and Sama shouted out, “If YOU’RE NOT GOING TO BE SHOOTING, GET ON THE DAMN GROUND SO YOU DON’T GET SHOT! FOCUS ON THE DOORS COMING IN! ANY CASTERS, TOSS ANY GRENADES YOU SEE BACK THE WAY THEY CAME! YOU SEE THAT PURPLE ON THE SHOTS? THAT’S SINBOUND WARLOCKS! SHOOT THEM ALL!”
There were grim shouts going back and forth, as Sama dragged Daedrig over towards the aeromancer who was focused on blowing a constant gust of wind out of that new hole.
“It’s still pumping,” she told the man when she arrived next to him. “Lay down on the ground so you aren’t seen, and keep at it. These people aren’t dying because of you. We have you covered.”
The middle-aged man in casual attire of blue and white just glanced at her, then crouched on the ground, sat down, and laid back, not taking his eyes off the hole in the ceiling as he did so. A thirty-mile-an-hour wind was shooting up from him for that hole, and the amount of air it was venting was keeping pace with the entire circulation system easily.
Fall was already in full autobow mode, and Sama was up and scanning down the length of the aisle for targets. Desperate people were already scuttling between booths and tables, hunting for cover, but everyone over twenty here had been in military service, and knew how to duck and cover.
The grimmer ones knew how to shoot back, even if they didn’t have much ammunition on them... but oddly enough, there were ammo vendors here, whose wares suddenly became extremely popular and cheap.
The killers came in behind purple-black Ward Walls that ate up the incoming fire, tossing grenades and shooting. A couple lit off with RPG’s against the thickest areas, which blew flaming holes in the aisles and raised new screams from hidden people beyond wounded as the raiders moved in with professional discipline, using the manifested Ward Walls for cover and shooting everything they could.
One group bought it as the pyromancer threaded a Fireburst right in between two Wards’ coverage area, and blew it off in the middle of the squad. They were sent flying in all directions, and before they could get their defenses up, three of those custom GR-19 mods in their bright pink and pale green attachments opened up on them and hosed them down mercilessly.
There was fighting and shooting going on from all directions as the Warlocks came in. Sama dragged the Wizard out of the aisle along the ground to a mercenary recruiter’s booth, said recruiter no longer in the area. The man said nothing and just stared up at the hole the wind kept going out the whole while, and she simply covered the left while Daedrig covered the right.
“Group coming up this way,” Daedrig growled over the ruffling wind around them.
Sama’s hair pulled a Potion bottle out of her pack, she bit the seal, pulled it off, and then inverted the contents over the length of the prone Wizard. “You’re going invisible. Stay there. Daedrig, cover my side.” The Wizard’s hand just flicked acknowledgement before he vanished from sight.
There was a blast of lightning somewhere, and a couple shouts shook the floor as some chi-users unleashed something that caused a lot of enhanced gunfire to go off. Daedrig smoothly switched the direction of his cover fire as Sama shot into the motion down the aisle.
Thirty yards was literally a couple seconds, not much time for even a professional shooting team to blink and realize someone was coming to assault them with a glowing Sword, shouting out, “Contact, contact! We’ve found her!” and massing up the Wards to take her charge.
They’re here after me?! Sama’s eyes got wide as she glanced up at the yellow distortion in the air normal human eyes couldn’t see. That was drought-out gas, which literally blew open red blood cells and turned a human being into a bag of blood bleeding out in seconds if it got into them. Even skin contact was going to cause topical bursting of capillaries and create a bloody scene. It could kill everyone in here, eventually, even if they didn’t breathe it in.
They had deployed such a thing just on the chance they could fight her?!
“TREMBLE!” she snarled, and her Sword blazed with golden edges and two killing notes shattered the air... and as her Null hit them, shattered those Ward Walls, too.
They were shooting full-auto enhanced Warlock fire at her as the Wards went down, but she was moving through and between them, Tremble burning Enmity and leaving a trail of bloody Human banefire as she wove through them, taking a couple hits that her DR snarled at and her healing factor started dealing with... and six men died to one swirling blow, dropping in various pieces behind her.