Chapter 176: ~Chapter 63~ Part 1

"He's back!"

To my sincerest surprise, my arrival at the makeshift prison cell under the warehouse was met with excitement of all things. Well, at least from Mike. Ammy was considerably less enthusiastic. I was about to greet them, but before I could do so, I was hit by a tremendous wave of… lack of vertigo. That was weird. Normally the more I teleported in a row, the worse it got, but this time there were absolutely no ill side-effects present. I couldn't help but wonder; was that a good thing, such as a sign of me getting used to Phasing, or was it just a symptom of a kind of supernatural runner's high, and I would get completely plastered once I crashed?

I pondered on this question longer than strictly necessary, as the class rep soon turned a disapproving frown at me, followed by an inquisitive, "I guess you're not going to explain how you can teleport in and out of this locked room at will."

I could have sworn that I have already done so (or rather, I've already given an excuse), but since she asked, I figured I might as well be straightforward for once and shake my head.

"How come I'm not surprised," she grumbled while idly sweeping aside a stray lock of hair hanging in front of her eyes. "Can you at least tell me where you got that sword? I don't think I've seen it before."

I was just about to dismiss her, but a short yet intense moment of consideration later I decided to keep being slightly more forthright and told her, "Long story short, the crazy huntress attacked me, so I took her sword, and now she's sitting in the base, tied up like a Christmas present. There's also some malarkey going on with the Chimera and the sword and Judy probably killing me once this is all over, but that's beside the point."

"{I beg to differ,}" came a series of deadpan and yet quite chilling words from the communicator, but for the time being I chose not to respond to her.

"Anyhow, I brought this to get him out of there, so I'd appreciate it if you took a step back."

That comment was aimed at the guy in the cage, yet Ammy also scampered behind me at the same time. I sent her an ever so slightly dubious glance, and she gestured towards the padlock in return.

"Hurry up, Leo! Grandfather could get here any minute now!"

"Oh, that? Didn't Judy tell you?" I inquired as I raised the sword over my head and swung it at the bars in front of me, only for the blade to be nearly torn out of my numb grasp when it bounced off the metal. I couldn't help but blink in incomprehension and mutter, "That wasn't supposed to happen. Give me a minute."

Having said that, I immediately entered the weapon one more time using my Phantom Limb, and it didn't take long to figure out what the problem was. Just for context: the outer-layer of the enchantment-ball was responsible for the 'real world' effects of the weapon, including the whole 'cuts everything like it's made of lukewarm butter' thing. Normally that kind of stuff would be pretty impractical because it puts a lot of strain on the weapon, so to make it work, Ichiko would be turning the effect on and off in short bursts from the inside just before the edge would make contact for maximum efficiency. While the enchantment was still working as intended, with the tiny miko gone, there was no conductor present to operate it, and because the whole thing was designed with the idea of an annoying little girl calling the shots in it, there were no external ways to turn it on by design, ergo there was no iron-bar slicing either.

It was a bit of an issue, but not an insurmountable one, and I managed to jury-rig a temporary solution by emulating a command from the inside that would permanently put the sword at about forty percent output. It had to be manually disabled after I was done using it, but hey, at least it worked. I also had a vague idea about reproducing and repurposing the complex behavioral-tree type enchantment that used to be in the dead Chimera to emulate an automated switch, but it was a project for later.

I exited the extra-illusory space between spaces and shook my buzzing head to clear it a bit, and once I confirmed that the magic glow around the blade grew in intensity, I unceremoniously swung it again. This time the effect was much more satisfying, as while there was some resistance, I managed to cut cleanly through the iron bars with a series of high-pitched tinkling sounds reminiscent of tiny little cymbals. Once I confirmed that the enchantment was working, I repeated the cut from the other direction, and this time each clink was followed by a much louder clank filling the room as the bars fell to the wayside one by one.

I let my weapon down and observed my handiwork, which resulted in a large hole right next to the only door of the cage, big enough so that even Mr. Minotaur could jump through it, let alone our captive.

"That… was awesome," said Celestial noted with eyes as wide as saucers, so I gave him a light wave that could be translated to a casual 'all in a day's work' before I faced the class rep again.

"So, as I tried to tell you before the technical difficulties: your gramps is already here."

"What?!"

Ammy's sudden exclamation (besides being so sudden it nearly made Mike fall on his butt mid-step as he was trying to get out of a cage) was so loud it made my ears ring. Or were they ringing to begin with? It was honestly hard to tell.

"It's exactly as I said," I reiterated while massaging my temple with my free hand. "He's already upstairs and put Labcoat Guy in custody. Josh and the others too, but that's beside the point."

"Then… what do we do now?" came the very, very insecure question from Mike, and I gave him an obligatory nod he might have misunderstood, based on the way he twitched when I looked at him,

"A good question, and the answer depends on a few variables. First off…" I paused as a faced away from him and followed it up with, "Dormouse, are you still listening?"

A long and decidedly petulant moment of silence later…

"{Yes, I'm here.}"

"Great. Are Lord Grandpa and company still in the Purple Zone?"

"{… Yes.}"

"Can you tell Josh and the others to stall them as long as they can?"

"{Can I? Wouldn't that involve explaining things to them? I was under the impression we no longer did that around here.}"

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I closed my eyes for a moment, and then told her, "I promise once we are done here, we'll sit down and I tell you everything about the sword and the kid, but we really don't have time for that now. Would you please do as I asked?"

There was another long beat of silence on the line, but at last my girlfriend relented with a still audibly sulky, "{You're lucky I'm a professional.}"

"I sure am." After responding so, I gestured for my increasingly more confused companions to follow after me, only to stop and point at the broken staff by the cage. "Don't forget that."

Ammy seemed affronted by the very idea that she would do so, yet she didn't utter a single word and simply hurried over to pick up the pieces. In the meantime I walked up to the door and, with three quick slashes, I cut a triangular hole around the doorknob, and then rammed the door itself with my shoulder. It flew right open with a loud bang, leading us into another slightly larger, yet just as poorly lit room. It was likely used for temporary storage by the looks of it, as it had a bunch of large plastic boxes filled with various raw materials and components, including one particularly eye-catching container full of porcelain doll heads. I… honestly didn't even want to know.

Mike meekly followed after me like a lost duckling, and we were soon joined by the class rep clutching the remains of her destroyed weapon.

"This way."

Following my lead, we passed through the room and out into a long corridor filled with air that was somehow staler than the rooms themselves. At one end of it, we could see some light seeping in through the half-open doors at the end of a short metal staircase, and it didn't take a genius to logic out that it was the way to the ground floor of the warehouse. We, naturally, went in the opposite direction.

"So, errm… What's the plan?" Mike asked in a voice tense as an over-tuned guitar.

"For now, just follow my lead."

My answer didn't exactly reassure him, but I didn't really care at the moment, as we just reached an unassuming door near the other end of the corridor. I was vaguely familiar with this place due to all the time I spent observing Labcoat Guy, and this time I didn't need to cut my way in, as the door was left unlocked. As I opened it, we were hit by a gust of extra-stale, musty air, but I walked in all the same, and after a moment of fiddling I found the light switch. The small room, now lit by a single light-bulb hanging from a plain wire nailed to the ceiling, wasn't much larger than my bathroom, and it had unplastered walls with the red bricks clearly visible.

"What are we doing here? Shouldn't we be escaping?" came the next question from an increasingly impatient class rep, and if she still had her glasses, I was sure she would have pushed them up the bridge of her nose about five times by now.

"That's what we're doing right now," I answered a tad absent-mindedly as I was counting the bricks from the light switch. "According to what I've heard, every self-respecting mad scientist must have an emergency escape route in their lair. As it happens, Labcoat Guy's is here."

"Seriously?"

She was understandably skeptical, but in my defense, I literally parroted the resident mad scientist's words when he described this room to his fembot assistant. More importantly though, after a couple of tries, I finally managed to find the right brick, and after pressing down on it, the wall in front of us let out a series of clicking noises before a whole segment of it detached from the rest. I grabbed the edges of the secret door and slid it aside, revealing a long, narrow tunnel; its completely smooth walls were unexpectedly well-lit by evenly paced red emergency lights. After making sure there was nothing dangerous inside, I turned around and knocked on the displaced panel.

"Fully mechanical fake wall. Makes it harder for magi to detect it, if they can do so at all. It should lead to the basement of an apartment building a couple of blocks away from here."

"Wait, stop! Hold on for a moment!" I raised I brow at Ammy's abrupt outburst, and it went even higher when she actually reflexively tried to tweak her still missing glasses. Once she realized there was nothing on her face, she forcefully waved her hand and continued with, "How did you even know about this?"

"Need I remind you that I'm an information-trader? It's my job to know these things."

"Okay, wait! I just remembered your thing; that was the wrong question. Let me try this again." She paused here to take a long breath, and then asked, "Since when did you know about this escape route?"

"I learned about it when Labcoat Guy moved in," I told her the truth, but it only seemed to make her angrier.

"Then why didn't we use this route to get Michael out?"

"{Good question,}" my dear assistant agreed, much to my chagrin.

"We really don't have the time for this, but for your interest, here are but a few of the reasons: number one, I don't know the exact endpoint of this tunnel, only that it's at an apartment complex. Number two, even if I knew the precise location, the door at the other end only opens from the inside. Number three, even if I knew where to go and figured out a way to open the door from the outside, I couldn't do it, because we had to mount this rescue operation ASAP before the Assembly's investigators arrived. Is that explanation good enough for you?"

The last question was aimed at both the girl in front of me and the one on the other end of the telepathic communicator, yet neither of them said a thing, which I interpreted as agreement.

"Good, now get in there. I'll close the door on this side. Once you reach the other end of the tunnel, go outside, close the door behind you, and lay low for about half an hour. After that…" At this stage of the instructions, I took out my wallet and pointed at the hapless Celestial. "You'll be leaving first. Even if Labcoat Guy talks, his interrogation is going to take a while, so even if you happen to run into some Magi on the street, they shouldn't be looking for you yet. Here's some spare change, take a cab to the station and then ride a train home. Try not to draw attention to yourself in the process." I paused for a second to let them digest this, and then I turned to the class rep and took out another bill from my wallet, "You should come outside about an hour or so after this guy's gone. Call a cab and have it take you to the School. With some luck, I should be able to resolve the whole situation by the time you get there. Are we clear?"

The two of them nodded with different levels of enthusiasm (or the lack thereof), so I shooed them into the tunnel, though not before taking the two halves of her staff from Ammy.

"This would draw too much attention. I'll take it back to the base with me and will hand it back to you later."

She agreed without any back-talk, and after one last warning, I watched them walk down the narrow tunnel one after the other before I unceremoniously slid the fake wall back to its original location and locked it into place with a satisfying click. With this, our original objective from before this incident ballooned out was accomplished, though the day was far from over. Thinking so, I turned on my heel, left the small, moldy room behind, and headed towards the other end of the corridor and the door leading to the warehouse, determined to use the little time I had before the Purple Zone got dispelled and Lord Grandpa or his goons barged in here to its fullest.

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