Broker-Chapter 225
Ishtar stood on the beach, the Atlantic Ocean crashing against the immaculate sandy shoreline. She was in her full regalia, helmet, armor-all gear prepared. Time was winding down and she was beginning to accept the fact that she would be going into this fight without her other half. She closed her eyes behind the screen within her helm and slipped into her subconscious. There, that little mote was still floating, the light within bright and vibrant but unchanging. Sonya’s presence had felt stronger recently, but that was the only change.
Now, time was up. She couldn’t wait any longer.
Ishtar frowned, Silly girl, you really are going to make me do this, aren’t you? She reached for the mote but instead of grabbing hold, she merely ran her fingers across it. Is it larger? The size of a tennis ball, perhaps? She cupped it in her hands, Whatever you’re doing in there, don’t come back empty handed, or you’ll get an earful from me, she thought dryly before her senses picked up someone approaching her from behind.
She slipped out of her subconscious world and turned her head, spotting the billowing white dress that adorned the raven haired woman approaching her.
“Oracle Setsuna,” Ishtar said, “I was about to leave.”
“Mm,” Setsuna said with a nod and a smile, coming to a stop next to her, “A seer, I not need be, this to see.”
“Did you?” Ishtar asked.
“Hm?”
“Did you have a vision about this battle?”
Setsuna chuckled, and lowered her head, letting out a sigh before looking up to the sky above, “I did. Share, I cannot.”
Ishtar frowned but nodded, “I don’t think I really would have wanted to hear it anyway,” she hissed and looked back out to the sea, “Your son wants to come with me.”
“Have him, you won’t,” Setsuna said without blinking.
“No, I won’t, not yet. The boy is not up to my standards,” Ishtar said, “I will take him from you soon, though. I can mold him into something special.”
Setsuna laughed, “Good. Greener grass,” she said and turned to look at Ishtar, her eyes going dark for a moment, “That lonely throne of yours won’t be that way for much longer, Iron-Hearted Queen,” she said with a gentle smile and turned away, brushing her hand against Ishtar’s shoulder as she departed.
Ishtar stood on the beach for a little while longer, her eyes closed as she rallied herself. She clenched her fists and looked up to the crashing waves as the wind picked up, her hair fluttering around her. She threw out a hand, a portal opened, and she stepped through. She emerged in a large domed room that had once been filled with jewels but was now stark and bare. Inside, dozens of her Heavenly Legion waited for her, armed, eyes smoldering with that resolute fire of theirs.
A chime rang in her helmet.
<”Kickoff is about to begin,”> Technocrat said into her ear.
<”Is Mephisto with you?”> She asked.
<”Yeah.”>
<”Good, make sure he stays there. I want both of you as secure as you can be for this fight,”> she said and raised her hand again, pointing towards the far wall. The narrow band of light of one of her portals stretched out, and kept stretching, until it was the length of the wall, <”Status on the plan with Tenebra?”>
<”Everything’s ready, her world tour went off without a hitch, though she’s pretty tired from two weeks of constant shows,”> Technocrat said.
<”Kingshark?”>
<”Approaching the mainland.”>
<”The Night Society plan?”>
<”Most of the outside groups supporting Liberty have been crippled, but it looks like she was preparing for something like it. Her compounds are well stocked and resourced. Seems like she’s expecting a siege,”> Technocrat said.
<”She expects it to end today,”> Ishtar corrected him, <”She just wants her people to have only one thing on their minds. Herself,”> she raised her hand and bent her arm, clenching her fist. The thin line widened and spread up and down, opening into a massive portal that stretched the length of the room. The Legionnaires turned on their heels in one unified motion. The sound of their marble feet against the floor echoing. <”On my signal.”>
<”Yes mistress.”>
“March,” she commanded the Heavenly Legion and they obeyed, stepping through the portal one line at a time. Perhaps it was because they were part of her ability, but the weight that usually pressed on her stamina from teleporting a light-touched did not come as they passed through, vanishing until the room was empty. She took one last look around August’s old base of operations and crossed her arms behind her back. In that silence, she stepped through the portal as well, leaving darkness in her wake as the portal slammed shut.
When she emerged she was standing in a Mississippi woodland. The leaves crackled beneath her feet. She looked up to see Kerauna sitting in one of the larger trees, kicking her feet lazily. At the base of the tree, Blackrazor stepped out of a shadow with his usual grim expression. “Mistress.”
“You both know your roles,” Ishtar said without preamble, “When you are done, return to my side.”
Kera dropped from her perch to land next to Blackrazor, she nodded with a surprising amount of seriousness on her face. Crackles of lighting flashing behind her eyes. “I’ll clear the way.”
Blackrazor bowed at the waist, “And I will neutralize my targets.”
Ishtar tilted her head up to the sky, she could barely see it through the canopy above, <”Technocrat? Are the heroes on the move?”>
<”Euclidia’s archways are rising at the monitored locations. They’re hitting the dungeons first as expected. First Wind has entered the Epic Dungeon solo. Protean’s team have entered the first Rare Dungeon. Qilin’s team has arrived at the second, she met some resistance from cultists who were stationed there but dealt with them quickly,”> he briefed her, <”The-”>
BOOOOOM
The ground shook beneath Ishtar’s feet. She stepped forward to catch herself and whipped her head towards the direction of the seismic shock. <”Tech-”>
<”Rare Dungeon four just went up!”> he gasped, <”That psycho Liberty blew the dungeon ahead of time! Evertide’s team was on site. No survivors. Mana levels in the region are spiking already. We’re going to have higher-order monster formations on the battlefield at this rate.”>
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Ishtar scoffed, Of course. <”The other dungeons?”>
<”Heroes are inside.”>
Then the remaining dungeons will stay under control for now so long as those teams keep themselves alive and keep killing the monsters inside, Ishtar thought before turning to Kerauna and Blackrazor. “Go.”
The two moved immediately, Blackrazor falling into the ground as if the world itself swallowed him whole as Kerauna let out a wild laugh and launched herself into the sky in the form of a bolt of lightning, leaving scorched trees in her wake. She struck the clouds above and the air shook. Ishtar tilted her head forwards and pointed through the trees, “Advance. Destroy the cult of Liberty.”
“BY YOUR DECREE!” The legion roared as one and charged past her, the speed of their movements whipping her hair around her head. She stood in silence as she watched their backs grow further away and disappear into the overgrowth. Above her, lightning crackled in the clouds before falling down on the trees, obliterating some and setting others alight. The lightshow flashed against her helmet and she lifted herself off the ground with levitation, <”Technocrat, you may begin.”>
Here I come.
–
Chunhua charged through the trees, the heroes that could keep pace with her following behind at a rapid clip. The ground shook with the aftershocks of R4’s explosion. Her eyes narrowed and she tightened her grip on the elegant sword she’d claimed in Seattle. A shadow shot past her and she glanced over to see Bandit riding atop a comically shaped housecat the size of a horse made of black material. It bounded up a tree before glancing back at her with a too-wide smile before shooting forwards.
KRAK-OOM!
A tree not far away exploded in a flash of lightning. A few of her fellow heroes raised shouts of surprise as she tapped her earpiece, “What was that?” she asked.
<”Mana surge was similar to those over the Hague and other monitored locations during attacks by the villain Kerauna. From what we’re seeing she’s attacking the forest indiscriminately, though none of her strikes have hit the vanguard,”> the voice in her ear reported.
Ishtar. You’re here. Chunhua frowned and turned to the others, “Keep moving! The villains have decided to get involved after all! They’re making room! Let’s use that to our advantage! Ignore them and focus on the mission!” she shouted and resumed her charge, the sound of lightning bolts coming down becoming more and more frequent as that mad-woman in the sky went wild.
A chorus of “Yes ma’am”s answered her as she turned back to the path ahead. We’re just a few miles out from the compound. I’m surprised we were able to drop in this close. She touched her earpiece again, “Euclidia? Have we been cut off, yet?”
<“Portal connection holding stead- wait! Whoops! There it goes!”> Euclidia said in her ear. <”Good luck, Chuchu.”>
Chunhua smiled as another bolt of lightning flashed in the distance, “Thanks, see you soon, Molly,” she ended the call and set her jaw, inner energy cycling through her body as she moved with her fellow heroes towards the compound. “This time will be different, Liberty.”
—
“Nothing will change, Black Lotus,” Liberty said from the war room, watching the many screens monitoring the surrounding forest. There were several areas that had already gone dark. A dark-garbed man with a bow sniping the drones from the sky atop his grotesque mount. Others had simply winked out as an unknown force passed through another portion of the forest. Liberty knew enough about Ishtar’s ability to go undetected by security cameras that it was obvious who was passing through there.
“Connel Manufacturing has backed out on us,” a young man said from a nearby desk, his eyes on his screen.
Liberty snorted, “Then they will burn like the others that scurried away at the first sign of trouble when this is over,” she said, “Has Halloway spread his net?”
“The anti-teleportation barrier is up,” another reported.
“Excellent work, maintain contact with the other branches for as long as possible but don’t worry if they cut out, we’re expecting it,” Liberty said, “They want to make me think that I’ve lost them, but they’ve committed too many resources to the main compound to take them all out in time.”
“Do you want us to wake the others?” one of the men in the room asked.
She turned to him and shook her head, “That would give away too much,” she said, “Let the enemy do that for us.”
“Yes, my lady, wait-” the young man paused and held his hand up to his headset, brows furrowing. She turned and looked at him before marching over to put a hand on his desk. She leaned forward and squinted at the screen only to see a news feed of the strangest thing she’d ever seen. People dancing in the streets of some foreign city. The young man tuned and looked up at her, “The entire city of Tokyo is having some kind of party?”
Liberty shot up straight and turned to the door, marching past the desks and grabbing her sword as a grin spread across her face, “He’s coming to me!”
The ground shook and the entire building rattled, she could hear distant claps of thunder and feel the charge of mana rising in the air. The heroes were coming close, but one had already made his way directly to her doorstep. It would be rude not to greet him. She stormed through the hall and raised her finger to her ear, giving one last order before the Pandora Committee suppressed their communications, “Round Table, onward to battle. Leave him to me.”
A chorus of affirmatives entered her ear while she pushed open the doors of her throne room. She walked to her high seat and sat, leaning back to look down upon the door as crashes and gunshots filled the air beyond it. A noisy bang came next as the door bent partially, then again, and again, lumps forming in its surface until it finally creaked and fell to the ground. A glowing figure, a man-mountain of muscle, stepped inside with rage in his eyes.
She sneered as he reached up to his ear and snatched out what looked like his own communications device, crushing it between his fingers. He tossed the pieces aside and looked up at her, “Hero Sapporo.”
“LIBERTY!” he bellowed, his voice carrying with it an itching madness that scraped at the inside of her skull for a heartbeat before she shrugged it off with a sniff. “I AM GOING TO KILL YOU!”
She crossed her legs, “I thought you heroes wanted to arrest me,” she said blandly, resting her chin on her armored knuckles, “Won’t you get in trouble for stringing me up?”
“Once you die, I will perform seppuku as penance,” the glowing man growled, his fists clenched as he stalked into the throne room. The floor beneath his feet cracked and gave way with each step. He reached for his belt and drew up what looked like some sort of gord, he popped the cork on it as Liberty watched curiously. He held it to his lips and drank deeply, with each gulp the glow of his body grew brighter and brighter, his size increasing with each illuminating flash. When he finished, he tossed the gourd aside, his muscles bulging almost grotesquely.
“Alcohol makes you stronger, interesting,” Liberty said and rose to her feet before stepping down from the dias, “But I don’t need some one-time use trick like that to rise to the occasion, little man,” she snarled as her own body began to grow, her blue eyes flashing with terrible light. She stepped up to him and they looked one another in the eyes.
“You will be the first to fall, hero.”
Sapporo attacked.
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–
Far to the northeast, along the walls of the Liberty compound in South Carolina, the few guards that hadn’t been moved to sit in contemplation with the rest of the congregation stared out over the water. They checked their weapons for the hundredth time but were already beginning to grow tired of the high-alert status with nothing happening. The water was still and the people of the nearby town had given them a sensible amount of avoidance.
“Think it’s already started?” one asked.
“Probably, not hearing anything though,” another muttered, “I think-”
PSHHHHHHHHH
They looked up at the sound of static on the speaker system spread throughout the compound.
“What the?”
“Hey boys and girls!” the voice of a young woman came out, “It’s finally time to drop my latest single! Are you ready! Cuz I’m ready! Ready for Battle, baby!”
The two men looked at one another,
“This is my declaration! Sorry honey no more negotiation! I just can’t take it, the two of us, just won’t make it!”
Sirens blared briefly, cutting off the voice before dying down. One of the men looked down at his feet as fog spread across the floor of their watchtower. One looked up at the sea and gasped, the other did the same.
“Asshole! You really wanna push me? Come on, bring it!”
The sea was boiling, silver shapes stepping out of it carrying alien looking weapons in their hands. Before the pair could react shouts rose outside the compound walls, people chanting. The two guards looked at one another as a terrible realization sank into their guts.
“This is my declaration! Baby we are at WAR!”
