55. 'Ding-Dong!' Invader's calling

“There’s a set of stairs from the first cavern we haven’t tried yet,” Suggested Marius as the friends gathered to discuss their next step, “It's clear we’ve gone as far as we can stealthing around. Maybe we should try something more direct.”
 
Marius was right. They’d been everywhere it was safe for Nox to investigate. The violent ghosts showed that there were few places left without something ready to kill a solo explorer. They walked back through the caverns, and at the top of a small flight of steps, Nox scanned the barrier.
 
“It’s not a door, but a barricade, “ she informed the other, “Reinforced from the other side. They don’t want us to go this way.”
“Then we should go this way,” Marius and Fureva-Yung said simultaneously.
“I need to exercise my muscles,” Fureva-Yung grinned in anticipation as Nox flew to the ceiling and out of the way. Leaning her shoulder on the barricade, she pushed forward. Dust rained down, wood creaked and groaned, but the structure stayed put.
“Let me help, “ Marius activated one of his cyphers and grew twice as big. Now head-to-head with Fureva-Yung, he, too, leaned his shoulder into the barricade, and together, they pushed. This time, the barricade budged forward. Either side of the barricade opened up into a larger room. Voices and cries of alarm from behind told them their plans to enter hadn’t gone unnoticed.
 
Something dropped from above in front of Fureva-Yung. Both Fureva-Yung and Marius dove for the item, but Marius was quicker. He wrapped his armoured gloves around the device before pushing it back through the side. Flashes of light haloed the barricade. Cries of pain and alarm, as well as the thud of bodies hitting the ground.
“Shocking, isn’t it, “ Marius joked, taking a moment to make one of his concussive bombs.
 
On the other side of the barricade, they could hear movement. The scrambling of claws on wood, chintious armour knocking against the barricade. An ant man’s clawed hand dropped something through the gap at the top of the barricade again. This time, it burst open on impact with the ground. A thick caustic gas boiled out. Marius jumped out of the gas, but Fureva-Yung breathed in a lung, making her choke and gasp. Before the hand could disappear, she reached up and yanked it through the gap. Surprisingly, the ant man attached to it was dragged through, to fall scared and confused at Fureva-Yung’s feet.
“Oh! I just wanted the arm.”
 
Marius sent his concussion bomb through a gap while Jaden peered into the room. Two metres off the ground floor, a catwalk ran around the walls. Two snipers stood either end of the catwalk, training their pistols on the barricade.
 
“Hey, up there! Let us in! I’m from the contingent assigned to Rubbletown! Let us in for the Emperor’s sake!” Jaden bluffed. She wore a uniform (poorly) and spoke with enough authority to be true.
“Who do you say you are?” One of the guards on the catwalk now spoke up, “What the devil are you doing here?”
“Rubbletown, hell the whole of Akavel is in uproar! We came out here to Rockspine hoping to find sanctuary, and this is what we get! Tell your men to stand down, will you?”
“Okay, so if you want in so badly, give us today’s call sign,” He yelled back, which didn’t deter Jaden.
“Haven’t you been listening? We’ve been days on the road. I wouldn’t have a clue what the call sign for today is. Hell, I couldn’t tell you what day is today.” To the ant man at Fureva-Yung’s feet, she turned her attention.
“Stand up, soldier! Unless you want to wake that thing back there, I’d suggest you keep your eyes on me, and we may just survive this.”
 
Nox hid in the shadows of the cavern ceiling, listening to Jaden’s attempts to bluff her way in. Around the barricade, she could see the guards on the catwalk and made a telepathic link, hoping to pick up the call sign he’d asked Jaden for.
Who are these guys? Are they the ones we sent ahead? We didn’t see them in the drone footage…
 
Marius made a less diplomatic entry, pushing his way in one side of the barricade. A sparking hemisphere of energy pulsed and spat in the centre of the room. Not far away, an enforcer lay prone and unmoving. He saw the two enforcers on the catwalk and another antman climbing the barricade. He also saw an enforcer lift a weapon and aim it at him. With a pop and a high-pitched scream, a tentacled projectile sailed across the space. Another purgespitter to the face! How unlucky do you have to be?
 
Tearing at the purgespitter wrapped around his head, Marius was just in time to see the ant man on the barricade spit down on him. He dodged aside, swiping at him with his fist in return. Another enforcer sparked up a baton and thrust it into Fureva-Yung’s fur. It tickled. She charged him, picked up him and the purgespitter gunner and dumped them into the scintillating hemisphere of energy with her on top. Nox sent psychic bursts at the spitting ant man and the two on the catwalk. The ant man and second sniper responded, clutching their throbbing heads, though the talker who seemed to be in charge was unaffected. Lucky for him, for at that moment, a spectral form sailed through the ceiling and wall, attacking with its glowing knife.
 
“We have not time for squabbling,” Jaden was still bluffing this time to the ant man Fureva-Yung had pulled through, “What is the call sign?”
“Stone lion,” The ant man replied, only now starting to stand. He looked confused and scared.
“You want a call sign? You stuck-up, posh babysitter? Stone lion! Now, hit the mother behind and get your arse down here.\!”
 
Regardless of what he thought of Jaden’s attitude, the commander turned his back on the barricade and attacked the spectral being. The other sniper stood his ground, neither opening fire nor standing down. Marius and the ant man on the barricade fought. The ant man spitting acid at Marius, Marius bludgeoning him through the barricade. The antman tried jumping onto Marius, missing him by inches. Marius tried seizing the opportunity for an attack and missed. Fureva-Yung also seized the opportunity. As the bodies of the two enforcers writhed under her, she took a moment to catch her second wind. The tingling of the energy cypher was almost… therapeutic. Nox giggled at her friend, relaxing in the middle of a battle and tried her psychic blast again. This time, she stunned the sniper but caught the attention of the one in charge.
“What? Get her!” He pointed directly in her direction. Exposed, she slunk back into the shadows, blending into the rocks of the ceiling.
“Stone lion, you piece of bug dung!” Jaden yelled, desperate to get the commander’s attention again.
“That creature on the roof, she’s not with you!” He replied, confused as to where Jaden’s loyalties lay.
“Don’t tell me you’re already seeing things!?!” Jaden replied, horrified. “Could it be here!”
“What are you talking about? Do you know who I am?”
“No, I don’t care either. Look, the City fell. The Patchwork Dream released a virus that makes victims see illusions! The whole system of government fell apart overnight. Rockspine is the last bastion of sanity in the south!”
“Attack the one on the roof…” He tried ignoring Jaden’s words, but now he turned to point to where he’d see the woman…she was gone.
 
Fueva-Yung finished with her impromptu day spa and stood up. Marius picked up the energy hemisphere and used it on the unconscious enforcer. Fureva-Yung’s ant man tried slinking away from the battle. Nox spotted him and, keeping her position on the ceiling, followed. The commander was still fighting his ghost, and the sniper was reeling from Nox’s last psychic attack. Jaden made a mock attack on the ghost on the catwalk. Sure the unconscious guard wasn’t going to cause any more trouble, Marius picked up the hemisphere and started walking up the stairs of the catwalk. Fueva-Yung leapt from the ground onto the catwalk in one standing leap. Her impact rocked the catwalk, breaking its supports in the wall and making a section fall into the room. When the dust cleared, the commander was impaled on the broken metal of the catwalk handrail.
 
A ghost apparated through the ceiling as Nox silently followed the ant man through the caverns. Dodging its attack, she touched the spectre, taking over its mind.
The ant man, she commanded telepathically of her new minion, Get him! Watching through the ghost’s eyes, she hid as it stalked the ant man through the darkness.
The ghost that had harassed the commander now took out its mad frustrations on Fureva-Yung. The blade sunk into her shoulder, leaving her feeling cold and…odd. In the corner of her eye she saw the sniper still left on the catwalk snap out of his stun and start towards a doorway. Choices.
 
Now stepping through the barricade, Jaden continued her confounding jargon in the form of highly creative and descriptive swear words. Those who heard them couldn’t help but stop and try and work out if her descriptions were even anatomically possible. Marius was on the catwalk, the other side of Fureva-Yung’s huge gap. Taking a running leap, he sailed across the gap, belly-flopped onto the far end and face-planted on the purge. After exposure to the energy cypher and the blunt force damage of being smacked into the catwalk, the purge gave up and slothed off Marius’s face. He thought things were looking up until he heard the snap and groan of the catwalk supports giving away. Another section of the catwalk fell, and the sniper was now making his escape.
 
Fureva-Yung tried a running leap for the remaining catwalk, failed to reach it and pulled herself up into the doorway, the ghost pursuing. Jaden climbed over the rubble towards the doorway.
“Hey, Twinkle-toes! Little help?” she yelled at Fureva-Yung, who leaned down and pulled Jaden up one-handed. Through the doorway, the three companions could see the sniper run into a stable area where two ghosts fought five other guards. Marius swiped at the ghost bothering Fureva-Yung with the energy cypher still in his glove hand and made his way towards the battle.
 
 
In the cavern, the ghost stalked the ant man, lashing out with its blade. The ant man scrambled backwards into the pool. Alone, hovering near the ceiling, Nox pursed her lips and blew a few notes of Fuzzy Wuzzy’s tune. They echoed and bounced through the cavern just as they had during the fight in the pool. Blue lights slowly rose into the dark around the cavern. Through the ghost’s eyes, Nox watched spellbound as she saw a black shadow tentacle silently breaking the water's surface. The ant man stepped back into the pool's depths, falling below the surface. The tentacle, too, disappeared. Neither returned to the surface. With a malicious grin of delight, Nox recalled her ghostly minion.
 
In the stables, the ghost stabbed Fureva-Yung, the wound becoming cold and insubstantial. She returned the favour with a shattering shout that had the ghost’s form vibrating before running after the enforcer into battle.