17 Chapter Seventeen: Armed and Dangerous (1/2)
The Six Guns take their time collecting rumors and information around the town about the recent actions of The Ly'Lum. Waiting for the right time to strike, they gather what they can about the enemy forces in Cairo. Unfortunately, there wasn't much useful information they could gather aside from The Ly'Lum still being active south of Cairo and The Ly'Lum command seeming strangely restless. After a week, the crew decided to head south themselves, to get more insight and settle the score. They spent their last night, before wandering further south, at the nostalgic rebel base at the Great Pyramid of Giza. Eventually they came across the Pyramid of Djoser, and next to it, a command base for The Ly'Lum. The base was larger than any other base they've come across so far, however, they've only come across small outposts near Balphor and Seeira.
”Definitely larger and more grandiose than expected if you ask me” Alex says.
”This is going to be harder than expected then” Finn says.
”Maybe we'll finally get a chance to actually test out our new abilities then” Zia says with confidence.
”Let's see if they can entertain us” Siran says with a sinister smile on his face.
”After observing for a while, right?” Holly says, barely paying attention and tapping away on her laptop.
”Y-yeah, of course!” Siran replies.
”Don't worry Syr, we know you didn't plan on running in blindly” Zia says.
Siran just laughs a little nervously and scratches the back of his head in response. ”We'll need to get a little closer, but we'll need to watch from a distance for a little while” Siran says, ”because we have no idea how many people there are, or what course of action to take yet”.
Night falls upon the group and after a while of watching in silence, Rose breaks the silence by saying ”I'm bored, have you gotten an idea of what to do yet?”.
”Not yet” Holly responds, unenthusiastically.
Siran, now taking off his sunglasses finally, peers over Holly's shoulder and points in the direction of the base. ”Over there” he says, ”I keep seeing soldiers walking down toward a basement floor outside there”.
”Yeah” Rose says, staring at the direction Siran is pointing, pressing her face alarmingly close to Siran's. ”Kinda like my old rebel hideout. It goes underground, but what do The Ly'Lum need with a hideout in the middle of their own base?”
”It's obviously not a hideout” Holly says, now seeming uncomfortable and irritated with the close proximity of two other people, ”it's a basement floor. But how big is their basement level, and how far exactly does it stretch?”
”If we could find that out, then we'd have a infiltration route that we can secure” Siran says. ”If there's an alternate exit outside of the gates of the base, giving access to the basement floor, that'd definitely be favorable”.
”Yeah, but how are we gonna find that?” Alex asks.
Right around then, the ground beneath them started to rumble and split open, like a door. The crew fell into the hole that was opened and looked up to discover an underground air hangar. There was a long, inclined passageway, exposing a run way spanning several meters in diameter. Large enough to let out one medium sized airplane at a time. As they got up, there were several other soldiers surrounding them, all dumbfounded, holding up glowing batons and radios to assist in an aircraft's takeoff.
”Uhh... hello” Siran says, waving awkwardly at the soldiers and giggling nervously. The soldiers all drop whatever they were holding and pull out their weaponized-magic guns and aim them at the crew. ”Sorry for dropping in on you like that” Siran says, now scratching his head in addition to laughing nervously.
”Don't move!” Several more soldiers shout as more soldiers close in on Siran and the rest.
”You mean... like this?” Siran says as all of the Six Guns crew pulls out their large guns too and aim back at the soldiers. The soldiers fire one after another, but all of them stop once they see all of the firing was blocked by a bunch of digital shields. Siran and Holly were holding up their hands, Holly with her magic charm on her gloves and Siran both making an entire series of shields to stop their fire from hitting the rest. Once the air calmed a little bit, Siran calls out ”Guns, go!” And in response, Alex, Zia and Rose all charge forward.
”Remember the no kill rule!” Siran shouts as Alex throws a giant fire ball out of his own fist, engulfing a large portion of the hangar.
”I'll keep that in mind, but no promises” Alex shouts back.
”Good enough I guess” Siran says as he looks back to Finn who is standing to his left. ”You know what to do” Siran says to Finn. Finn nods back, and pulls up an illusion wall, making him seem to disappear. Zia does a low sweeping kick and a gust of wind rampages across the floor like a blade, sweeping everyone off their feet and bending the metal bars on the plane that holds the wheels, making the plane tip forward. Rose charges to the back of the hangar and throws a knife towards the people in the back. The knife emits an extremely bright light, blinding everyone in the back. By the time they all reopen their eyes, Finn has stolen all of their guns straight out of their hands.
”You won't be needing these, will ya?” Finn says to them, then sticks his tongue out and runs off. Siran charges towards all the action too, grabbing one of the soldiers in the back of the hangar and putting a gun to his head.
”Who's in charge here?” Siran demands.
The soldier hesitates for a moment, then picks up his radio immediately and shouts ”Enemy infiltration in hangar 04, requesting immediate backup!”.
”Tch, damn” Siran says as he hits him over the top of his head and knocks him out. ”I was hoping this was going to go smoother”.
”More are coming, don't relax yet!” Holly says, catching up with the rest. A large wave of soldiers come running through a large door and into the hangar. They all immediately take formation and point their guns at the crew.
”FIRE!” A soldier from the back shouts, and all of the soldiers fire at the same time. A large blast hits, kicking up a lot of dust, making visibility low in the hangar. As the smoke and debris clears, a large, glowing, transparent digital magic shield in the shape of a goblin wearing armor is covering The Six Guns.
”Digital art!” Holly shouts with a wide smile, ”Dokkaebi!”
”We spent a long time laying low” Siran says to the large wave of soldiers, who are no longer shooting at them but still pointing their weapons. ”But you don't think we'd spend that time doing nothing, do you? We honed in our skills and made our own specialties and signature spells”.
As Siran says this, the goblin, Dokkaebi raises its hand and swipes away at the soldiers in the front of the group.
”B-but that's impossible!” A soldier shouts, ”I've never seen someone MOVE a digital shield before, let alone make a beast out of one and animate it!”
”It's your fault for underestimating us” Siran says, ”we are the impossible”.
Zia jumps out of the shield and punches the air, but sending the soldiers flying back down the corridor they came from. The speed she moved was beyond human, and you could almost see smoke coming from her fists.
”A little too flashy if you ask me” Alex says, ”I still don't like it”.
”I never asked your opinion” Holly says, readjusting her glasses as the goblin disappears.
”Enough bickering, let's move it” Zia says. ”We still need to find out who's in command here so we can find out what they're plans are in Cairo”.
Before they leave the hangar, Siran moves all the unconscious people away from the plane, then fires one large laser like burst from his gun, and causing the plane to explode and catch fire. They quickly run down the corridor, and any wave of soldiers that try to stop them in this maze like place was taken care of nearly in an instant by either Zia or Alex. Checking every room they come by, the crew only gets more and more anxious with the problem of finding someone high enough in the chain of command to know what The Ly'Lum plans to do with Cairo, or at least a map of this place to find out where to go next.
”Of course we can't be lucky enough to find any sort of map of this place, but lucky enough to fall in here by accident” Siran says as they run.
”I feel like I jinxed it or something” Alex says.
”Well, try jinxing it again!” Rose shouts.
”If only we could somehow find a damn map of this stupid place!” Alex shouts.