[IC][Story][Arc 1] The Big Raid

[robkelk]

The Plan Makes Contact with the Enemy, Part Three


Rei suddenly looked up and whispered, "Ototo..."

Mamoru risked glancing at her briefly, then - not seeing anything that worried him - turned back to watching where they were both going before whispering, "Mars, aren't you an only child?"

"That's ... It's complicated, Tuxedo. And I don't have time to explain," she added upon seeing a light in the tunnel ahead of them. She quickly checked the place where she kept things that she didn't want to lose, and confirmed that she had run out of ofuda. She then adjusted the glasses that Skuld had given her so that they wouldn't fall off her nose.

They approached the light at the end of the tunnel, quietly and carefully. But before they reached the person who was carrying that light, he asked, "Are you part of the liberating forces?"

"We are," replied Mamoru. "Do you need help escaping this place?"

"Later," he replied. At this point, Rei and Mamoru were close enough to see the pointed ears on the elf. "There's a group of people this way -" he gestured farther down the tunnel "- who I can't get to, and I'm not leaving without them."

"How many?" asked Rei.

"I'm not sure. At least three. They're locked in."

"Let's not attract any more attention than we need to," Mamoru suggested before holding one finger up to his own lips. The other two took the hint and started walking in silence, Rei and Mamoru listening to the action reports that their teammates were sending. There were still isolated pockets of resistance, including not one but two throne rooms with giants, but the tide had turned in their favour overall. And they couldn't help but worry when they heard explosions from both of the throne rooms at the same time.

Then they stopped hearing explosions. A long moment later, the call came over their communicators: "All units, TDD Actual. Primary targets have been neutralized. Headquarters authorizes commencement of Stage Three. Withdraw under fire if necessary."

Not now! "TDD Actual, Mars. Tuxedo and I are engaged in a rescue operation."

"Mars, TDD Actual. Continue the rescue. Polar Bear 4, TDD Actual. Abort your withdrawl and link up with Mars and Tuxedo."

Then, after a moment, Kazari asked, "Mars, Goalkeeper. How many people are you rescuing?"

"Goalkeeper, Mars. We don't know yet."

Almost immediately, Tessa said, "Reserve units, TDD Actual. Stand by to deploy for hostage retrieval."

Kuroko teleported in behind Rei while the reserves were acknowledging the new order. "Sorry I'm late. What's the situation? And who is this?"

"He's our guide to where some prisoners are being held," Rei replied as said guide stopped in front of a padlocked door.

"And this is as far as I can take you, unless you can do something about that lock," the elf added.

"Thank you. If you've never been on the other side of this door, then I'd suggest you make your way to safety now," Kuroko said while examining the lock.

The elf shook his head once. "There are prisoners in there, and I already told your friends that I'm not leaving without them."

"An admirable moral position," Kuroko replied. Then she narrowed her eyes. "Will you be leaving with them?"

In reply, the elf lunged at them, both hands glowing with eldritch power.

Rei pushed Kuroko to one side while Mamoru used his cane in a stop-thrust maneuver, hitting the elf in the gut.

As the elf doubled over, Mamoru pushed him to the floor while he asked Kuroko, "How did you know?"

"I didn't. I did remember that the Wise Woman told us some people were part of the Horde by choice, and I didn't want to take any chances. Be careful where you step." Mamoru and Rei looked down to see the stone of the floor dissolving where the elf's hands were touching it. "It's a shame that our clairvoyant is still in Ottawa," Kuroko continued while teleporting the hinges off of the door.

"Why?" Rei asked.

"If she was here, she could tell us how many people are waiting in ambush on the other side of this door," Kuroko replied while simply teleporting the lock off of the door (and into the puddle of dissolved stone, which immediately started eating away at the lock).

"You're sure there's an ambush?"

"No, but if there is and we aren't ready for it, they could kill us."

Mamoru nodded in agreement. "So we assume there's an ambush. Is everyone ready?" he asked while readying a rose.

Kuroko reached for the spikes that she still had in her pocket. "I'm as ready as I'll ever be."

"Right," Rei answered before kicking open the door.

The door went flying into the room behind it, hitting a troll square in the chest and pushing him into the far wall.

Kuroko immediately teleported into the room ... to discover that the troll was the only one guarding the door. "Well, that was anticlimactic." Then she was hit from behind. "Or not. That was stupid of me," she said as she fell face-first to the floor.

"Mars Flame Sniper!" Rei quickly took out the dwarf that had hit Kuroko, while Mamoru hit the dwarf beside him with his rose, forcing him to drop his weapon. Rei followed up with a run and a Sailor Kick, knocking out the last opponent in the room.

Mamoru rushed over to Kuroko. "Are you still conscious?" he asked while bending down to give her a closer look.

"My back hurts... and I can't feel my legs. I think I'm going back into that wheelchair again."

He took her hand in his own, being careful not to move her arm. "We'll get you out of here, I promise." Then, with his other hand, he thumbed the switch on his communicator. "Headquarters, Tuxedo. Polar Bear 4 is down. We need medevac at our location - sending coordinates now."

Their communicators went silent for a moment, as everyone realized that not only was one of their teammates hurt, but also that that teammate was the only person on the team that could teleport somebody else with no delay. Then the only comms traffic was from headquarters and the advance post.

"Tuxedo, Goalkeeper. Understood."

"Tuxedo and Mars, TDD Actual. Stay with Polar Bear 4. Forward base, TDD Actual. Carry out the medical evacuation."

"TDD Actual, Polar Bear Actual. Deploying Serenity Actual and his team for medevac. Goalkeeper, Polar Bear Actual. Can you route Mercury to Tuxedo's location?"

"Polar Bear Actual and Mercury, Polar Bear 2," Mii's voice came over the comms. "Goalkeeper is now offline. Routing course information to Mercury now."

Mamoru could picture Kazari's condition after hearing one of her closest friends was a casualty. "Headquarters, Tuxedo. Will comply." He switched off his microphone, and added, "And now we wait."

"We still have work to do," Rei replied with a shaky voice. "This room was ... obviously their kitchen."

Mamoru let go of Kuroko's hand, stood up, and looked around - to see a pile of bones in one corner of the room. "Can you ..." he started.

Rei thought for a moment. "Maybe. I'm a miko, not a kannushi; I haven't had the training."

"You're also Sailor Mars," Kuroko said weakly. "That has to count for something."

Rei turned to Kuroko, surprise at Kuroko's not-rationalist comment obvious on her face. "I never thought of that before." Then, after a moment, she added, "But you're right. I'm remembering something from the Silver Millennium." As Rei ceremonially walked over to the pile of bones, Mamoru took a look around the room and noticed another door - with another padlock. He concentrated on the padlock so that he wouldn't focus on Sailor Mars's words that he could almost understand. Then he stepped back a few paces and threw another rose, splitting the lock in two.

Just before he was about to open the door, a green light filled the room for a moment, dissipating to reveal Mal, Zoe, and Jayne, the latter carrying a stretcher. He took one look and immediately dropped the stretcher beside Kuroko. This caught Rei's attention - she turned, took in the situation, and muttered, "Be a little gentler, will you?"

"Sorry," Jayne answered grudgingly as Ami ran into the room. She immediately took charge of Kuroko's care, performing what first aid she could and making sure it was safe to move her friend onto the stretcher.

While she did that, Mamoru and Mal turned their attention to the door that was no longer locked. "You broke the lock with a rose."

"I did."

"You broke the lock. With a rose. Wǒ kào."

From the other side of the door, they heard a female voice say, "Mind your language..." before trailing off.

"Sorry, miss," Mal replied as he lifted the door's latch. He then held three fingers up where Mamoru could see them, then two, then one, then pushed the door open... to reveal three people chained to the far wall.

"Are you all right?" Mal asked.

One of the three - the only male - didn't answer. The younger of the other two replied, "I am well enough for somebody who is confined. This young woman," she gestured as well as she could to the other prisoner, "needs more care than I can give her."

"They... they tried to make me eat... don't make me say it..."

Mal took a closer look at the woman, saw that he left arm ended in a bloody stump near the shoulder, and realized just what they had tried to make her eat. "It's all right now. Nobody's gonna make you do anything you don't want to do." Then he then turned to the younger female - a teenager, maybe? "She'll get it once we get you out of here, I promise. What about him?" He gestured to the other prisoner, who seemed to be older than the girl he was speaking with and younger than Mamoru.

The boy answered before she could. "I'm just tired..."

"You are exhausted," the girl countered. "You kept defending me, and..." Her resolve broke, and she started crying. "Touma, please don't die on me!"

"Nobody's dying, not if we can help it," Mamoru announced from where he was standing, half-hidden by the open door. "Let's see whether these will get you out of those chains," he added while holding up a ring of keys.

"Where'd you find those?"

"On a hook on the back of the door," Mamoru told Mal as he tossed the keyring over.

"Psychological torture. These Unseelie are worse than the gorram Reavers." Mal tried one key, then another, which unlocked the chain holding the traumatized woman. He proceeded to release the others, helping the boy stand and steadying him once he was on his feet.

The women walked on their own - unsteadily - to the doorway. The boy took two steps and collapsed.

Mal shouted through the doorway, "Jayne! Give me a hand with this guy."

It only took a minute for Jayne to grab the boy and carry him out piggyback-style. "I don't think I can carry this kid and the stretcher."

That caused Kuroko to look up from the stretcher. Her eyes widened when she saw who Jayne was carrying. "Of all the monsters I expected to find here, I never thought I'd see a troglodyte."

"Who are you callin' a troglodyte?" Jayne asked angrily.

"The boy you're carrying on your back," Kuroko replied.

"Oh. Okay." Jayne thought for a short moment, then turned to his companions. "Mal, what's a troglodyte?"

Before he could answer, Kuroko added, "I'm not finished. We can't teleport him out - somebody needs to get him through the tunnels the hard way. Aargh!" She finished as her pain overwhelmed her.

Ami immediately kneeled at Kuroko's side. "What's wrong?"

"My legs hurt..."

"That's a good sign - that means the nerves are still intact. We can fix you up."

Rei nodded in relief and switched her mic on. "Stars 2, Mars. We need a teleport out from this location to Sawbones. Two wounded, including Polar Bear 4. However, Polar Bear 4 tells us that one of the hostages cannot be teleported. That hostage, Mercury, ..." She looked at Jayne.

"I didn't expect to need a callsign."

Rei gave him The Look, then had an idea. "Sorry. That hostage, Mercury, the Hero of Canton, and I will be evacuating on foot."

"Aw, why'd you have to pick that?" Jayne complained as he headed back into the room he had just left, followed by Rei and Ami.

"It was all I could think of," Rei replied as Yuuno teleported the others out. Once the glow of the teleport spell had completely faded, they headed out to the corridor. "Let's get out of here. Headquarters, Mars. Requesting a route on foot from our current location to the nearest exit. Please transmit to both me and Mercury."

"Mars, Polar Bear 2," came Mii's reply over the comms. "Transmitting now. And good luck."

---

And so the last of the assault team made their way out of the caverns, using more or less stealth.

Finally, Sailors Mercury and Mars, Jayne Cobb, and the person they had liberated, made their way to the exit.

At a run. With Mercury pointing behind herself and shouting "Shabon Spray Freezing!"

"We've got a giant chasin' us!" Jayne yelled.

At that cry, everyone prepared to counter-attack; there was no way that a giant's presence could be hidden in the mid-morning light. All of the Misaka Sisters pulled out the new "toys" that Ben had given them - man-portable railgun pistols loaded with the same spikes that Kuroko used to secure criminals - and Nanoha readying Raising Heart to launch a Divine Buster.

The icy fog cloud slowed the giant down just enough for Jayne to get behind the defensive line. But it wasn't enough to stop the giant altogether. Bruised, bloodied, scorched from Ryoko's energy blasts, and with one arm broken, the giant filled the entryway to the Unseelie's stronghold.

Minako took one look at her, and shouted, "Hey, it's Advil!"

"That's Avril!" the giant answered, turning her attention to Sailor Venus... which meant she didn't notice the ground shaking rhythmically until she was punched in the gut by an invisible opponent.

As the giant collapsed, Rob grinned. "Uruz 7, Polar Bear Actual. Good work. Please make sure your opponent is immobilized."

"Polar Bear Actual, Uruz 7. Affirmative. Opponent is immobilized," came Sosuke's reply from the cockpit of the still-cloaked Arbalest.

And, except for the wounded, there was nothing left but to go home.

Except for the wounded.