Chapter 77: Chapter Seventy Seven

Shadowthorn was...upset. I could see it, hell I could FEEL it. There  was a palpable aura of cold malice rolling off of her. That wasn't an  exaggeration either, I could literally see frost forming on the ground.  Something about the darkness of her ability clearly interacted with  temperature, and she was apparently unable to suppress that particular  issue given her obvious rage.

Callie  looked...conflicted. Seeing how furious her former friend was at her  being put in danger probably reminded her of how close they'd been.  Still, she stepped forward to stop her, putting a tentative hand on the  older woman's shoulder. "Shadowthorn, don't kill them yet. Since you  have them restrained we have someone with questions. This place is  involved with some pretty bad stuff, and they have information about the  disappearances of a bunch of kids if we can get them to talk."

Shadowthorn  glared at Callie, which I think shocked both of us. I'd never seen the F  ranker get mad at Callie for any of the things she said to her, but she  was livid right now. "What the hell were you thinking? Coming down here  to this place looking for people like this? Are you stupid? There are  twenty of them, you could have been killed. Almost were killed. What  were you even doing here? Why would you come looking for these kinds of  people? This isn't Velan, you can't just run around playing detective  without telling anyone and expect everything to be fine!"

Callie's  jaw clenched and she pulled herself up to her full height, staring down  the older heroine. "I was thinking that they were actively trying to  murder my friend. I was thinking that this place is G ranked and that we  could handle it. Which by the way, was still a possibility. Don't count  us out so soon, twenty four isn't too much for us to handle. I  appreciate the assist Shadowthorn, don't get me wrong. But you don't get  to lecture me. That's not the life we live. Danger is something every  hero deals with, and I believe my reasons for doing so are good."

The  F ranker's shoulders were tense, but she clearly knew this wouldn't go  anywhere. They both had a point honestly, but Callie's point was 'fuck  you keep your nose out of my business' and Shadowthorn's was based on  concern for her former friend and current stepdaughter. I stepped  forward. "This is a moot point anyway. We didn't come here looking for  this. It was a recon mission that went sideways. Regardless of what you  might think we aren't idiots. That said Nightstrike is right, they have  information on missing kids and we should use this chance to question  them."

It  wouldn't do any good as far as getting info from them went, but it was  possible the handler would let something slip. She exhaled a bit once I  explained. "That...is different. Recon was a sensible choice here,  getting caught is...unfortunate, but I'm guessing the scale of this  place is a bit more than you expected. Now tell me about these children  you mentioned? Why have they been taken, how did you find out? This  seems like something the Unity should have been apprised of, recon only  or not."

I  shook my head. "This started out as us tracking down a threat that was  made against me. We only found out about the kids tonight. During our  search we met a bounty hunter looking for his little sister. We didn't  know it was related until we ended up here. Apparently they've been  taking kids for years, though we don't know why. The group has some bad  blood with my father and they were threatening me over that."

There  wasn't really a need to elaborate on that issue. They knew from my  starting stats I probably had at least one high ranked parent, but  social convention (and self preservation) forbid them from asking too  much about it. Regardless is was perfectly reasonable as far as excuses  went. She made a small sound of understanding before nodding to herself.  "That...sounds like a mess. But those kinds of things aren't uncommon,  nor is a situation spiraling out of control. I...I'm sorry. I jumped to  conclusions."

I  expected Callie to be pissed or make a dig, but she just shook her  head. "You were worried. We may not be ok, may never be ok again, but  I'm not enough of a bitch to bite your head off because you were  concerned for me. Just don't show up and snap at me without asking what  happened again and it's bygones." Her tone was...not soft or  compassionate, but less harsh than it could have been. Despite their  relationship Callie was a good person, she knew when to go on the  attack.

Glancing  at the captives, I waited a minute before cutting in. "In any case  maybe we should get Cark back in here. He might have information that  could help us uncover something." I wished I could hand the bastards  over to Zeke. I was positive a B ranker would have some way of bypassing  their hypnosis, but sadly that wasn't an option because of my dad's  geas. Even if they didn't talk though, it would make Cark feel better to  have the chance to question them, and we owed him that. He's protected  Benny and Jessie when he hadn't had to because he trusted us, and I'd be  damned if I didn't pay that back.

A  quick call to Benny on the scan ring had them heading back. As they  returned I considered how to handle this. I was pretty sure they  wouldn't say more about me, especially since they wouldn't say more  about me TO me when I'd asked. I could theoretically ask for help from  the Unity with this whole mess, but after weighing the pros and cons  again it still felt...wrong. I could just feel that it would end badly.

Aside  from the obvious fact that them more involved they got the more  possibility my position would leak, the Unity was a MASSIVE  organization. There were so many places that a sleeper could easily hide  themselves in their ranks it was crazy. Opening up this issue to that  level of bureaucracy was just asking for holes in our information  security, not to mention the possibility of sleepers being used to feed  us false information or deploy us into a trap somewhere. Granted those  options still technically existed, but we weren't really operating under  their aegis, not like we would if we were part of an official operation  aimed at rooting out the Heartrippers.

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It  came down to trust, and honestly I just didn't. I didn't trust the  Unity to have my best interests at heart. Hell I didn't trust the WCP  either, though I did trust Zeke. The fact was that at the moment I was a  nonentity to any of these forces. I didn't have a major impact on the  way something on the scale of an entire faction would operate, and I  could accept that. I needed to keep that in mind as I moved forward.

It  would be easy to look at my abilities and decide that I was special,  that I should run to the Unity and tell them everything and become their  new golden boy. But that would be stupid. The Unity was a big faction.  Assuming the boss decided I was an asset, which was far from assured,  there were still dozens of competing interests within the guild that  would benefit from me disappearing quietly.

There  was a reason Zeke had told me that at the lower levels anonymity would  be my best defense. Granted most people wouldn't mess with me, but even  aside form other candidates who could and would just kill me off to get  rid of the competition there were bound to be powerful groups stupid or  crazy enough to snatch me up and shove me in a box so they could get  their hands on a private wish granting machine. Even if the WCP came and  sprung me later on (assuming whoever showed up wasn't someone who might  benefit if I quietly disappeared) I could spend potentially centuries  stuck in a prison being forced to do who knew what. Ascendants didn't  need to rush, they had all the time in the world.

All  of this was going through my head when I made the decision not to  involve Shadowthorn more than I absolutely needed to. Having her help  would be damn useful as this little encounter showed, but it wouldn't be  for free. It would come with strings, and ones I wasn't comfortable  tying on because I wasn't sure I could get them off. She could help with  the questioning because we needed her, but once we left here we would  be back to doing this on our own. Any other way wouldn't be worth the  risk.

Cark  finally arrived, looking tense and nearly shaking with anticipation. As  he dropped down to the floor of the arena to meet up with us he shot me a  grateful nod as he passed, clearly aware I was the one who had asked to  bring him into this. But his eyes didn't linger on me long. Flicking  past to settle on the trapped sleepers, unmoving and unnaturally quiet  as the stared at us blankly. He stalked up to the edge of the pit,  looking up at the sleeper closest to him. "You know who I am?"

So  many possible outcomes flashed through my head, with the most prevalent  being that he would just be ignored, but the one I least expected was  for the sleeper to crane it's head slightly and speak. "You are blood of  the chosen. You seek to undo the honor bestowed. You will not succeed.  She is in her proper place now. You attempts to undermine destiny are  futile." The voice was clinical, as the others had been, clearly  responding based on orders from someone else and with no real thought or  emotion of it's own.

The  question had to be asked then, how much of this was the handler and how  much was just the brainwashing software responding to orders given. I  got the impression we weren't hearing someone talk through them like a  scan ring call, this was more like someone relaying a message. But how  much of this pompous fanaticism was the software and how much of it was  the puppet master themselves. Were they a brainwashed lunatic too?  Someone with a more permanent mental warping?

For  his part, Cark didn't seem to care, he just snarled at the sleeper.  "You can bet your ass I'll succeed. What did you take her for? Where did  you take her? I'm giving you this one chance. I'm going to come and get  my sister, there's nothing you can do to stop it. Cassidy is coming  home no matter what you say. If you return her right now I won't make  sure you all burn to death in the process. I wont come to your places of  worship and your homes and set them ablaze while you're still inside.  If you don't give her back I will hunt you down to the ends of the  world. You don't want to play with me."

Something  changed. It wasn't the face because that was covered, it was something  about the body language, something about the sleeper became  more...fluid. More real. Less like a meat robot. The eyes behind the  mask focused on Cark for the first time, and I heard malicious glee in  the voice as it echoed into the pit. "Ah, but I do. So by all means,  undertake your hunt, and let the games begin." And then the heads of  every single one of the sleepers exploded in a rain of gore and brain  matter. We all stared in shock for a second before I cursed internally.  Well, there went our only lead.

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