Mist of Shadows
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Taylor Hebert Dungeon Girl Part 27
🕑 Added 2018-08-18 16:04:16 +0000 UTC Taylor followed the group into the office then closed and locked the door. “At least the food is good.”“That’s not going to stop Lung from burning it to the ground,” Kevin pointed out as he walked over to the desk and picked up one of the night vision visors.
“I’m aware,” Taylor acknowledged with a touch of annoyance as she thought about what one of the police officers had said when he’d thought she couldn’t hear, ‘There goes another group of independent heroes.’
Richard said, “This would be easier if we had a way to capture him and turn him over to the PRT.”
“We could use a really large net,” Amy said sarcastically.
“I vote we stick him in a pokeball,” Gothic suggested, rather amused with the idea.
Randal shook his head. “I don’t think we have enough armor and magical defenses for exploring a pokemon dungeon, especially if they’re trying to kill us rather than our pokemon. Besides, we’d probably need a master ball to capture a ramped up Lung, assuming it even works on people.”
Kevin grinned as he pictured capturing Lung in a pokeball. “I might be able to make a containment device-”
Amy cut him off, “Not without a backup plan.”
“Fair enough,” Kevin replied with a shrug, not really wanting to mess with Lung.
‘Having some non lethal capture options wouldn’t be a bad thing,’ Taylor mused to herself as she walked over to the bathroom door. “Does anyone need to use the bathroom before we hit the ninjas?”
“Nope,” Gothic and Amy replied at the same time then snickered.
Richard shook his head, having used the restroom at the restaurant.
Kevin smirked. “Iron Man’s internal systems for the win.”
Amy raised her eyebrows. “I don’t want to know, do I?”
“Nope, you really don’t,” Randal replied with amusement, fairly sure that Kevin was joking about setting up waste systems for his suit.
“So, what’s the plan?” Richard asked warily.
Taylor grabbed the bathroom’s doorknob, focused on her TMNT knockoff dungeon and opened the door revealing a dark alleyway with a deep yellow film over it. “The plan is simple, we ignore him and hit the ninja dungeon.”
“Seriously?” Richard asked in disbelief.
Taylor turned to look at Richard. “I doubt the restaurant was the only place Lung sent his goons, if they’re even his goons.”
Randal spoke up, “She’s got a point, I wouldn’t put it past a couple of idiots to try to make a fast buck on their way out of town.”
“They’d have to be pretty stupid,” Kevin muttered as he picked up one of the visors and put it on over his mask. He smirked as he saw the film over the dungeon was dark blue now that he was wearing the visor.
Taylor nodded. “The detective didn’t recognize any of the thugs, which means they probably aren’t that important to Lung. Either way, I’m not going to sit here worrying about a rampaging dragon I can’t deal with when I could be farming skill books or gear that might help me deal with him.”
“On that note, the visors help,” Kevin pointed out smugly.
“Good to know. Do we have a plan?” Randal asked.
Kevin smirked as he pulled one of his elemental pistols out of his bag, pointed it at the wall and squeezed the grip. “Yep.”
Amy stared at the pen point red light on the wall then glanced at Kevin’s elemental pistol. “Did you put a laser sight on your elemental pistol?”
“Hell yeah, you mentioned fighting ninja in the dark, I want at least one ace up my sleeve, and that ace is called head shots.”
“Nifty.” Gothic snickered as she put her visor on then handed out the rest.
Richard pulled his visor on then frowned at the light yellow dungeon film. “It’s still yellow.”
“Light or dark yellow?” Gothic asked as the rest of the group put their visors on.
“Light, which is much better than the almost orange,” he admitted.
“We should have enough firepower that it won’t matter,” Taylor said then stepped into the dungeon and looked around. Everything had a strange greenish cast to it but at least she could see the buildings and the ninja ‘hiding’ on the fire escape holding a sword in each hand. ‘Yeah, they can’t hide worth shit if you can see in the dark or at least this one can’t.’
Randal walked into the dungeon then glanced around. He smiled as he spotted the ninja on the fire escape that was probably waiting to ambush them until they got closer. ‘I wonder if their placement is random, someone with ninja stars or a blowgun would have been more effective.’
Taylor waited until the rest of the group came through then whispered, “Ninja on the fire escape.”
Kevin smirked as he raised his pistol, squeezed the grip and put a little red dot on the ninja’s chest. “Light him up.”
Taylor blinked as everyone in the group started blasting the shit out of the ninja without a touch of hesitation. “Yeah, this is working better.”
Gothic grinned as the ninja turned into pixels and dropped a book. “Who wants to climb the fire escape?”
“I’ll do it,” Taylor replied as she got a running start then jumped up to the second story landing without a problem.
“Cheater,” Richard muttered with amusement.
“If you’re not cheating, you’re not trying,” Kevin pointed out as he scanned the rest of the alley.
“How many ninja were in the alley last time?” Randal asked in a whisper.
“We were attacked twice last time but we weren’t exactly quiet,” Amy replied in a whisper.
Gothic snickered. “At least they die when they’re not dodging like kangaroos on crack.”
Taylor picked up the book then jumped back down close to the group, trusting her ring to keep her from getting hurt. “Two weapon fighting, who wants it?”
Randal raised his hand slightly. “Sounds useful.”
Taylor handed him the book. “Go for it.”
Randal focused on being able to fight with two weapons at the same time and let his power fill in the details then opened the book and smirked when his experience bar quickly filled and emptied only to repeat the cycle another fourteen times leaving him with fifteen levels of skill in dual wielding. “Skill level fifteen.”
“Yeah, because that’s not cheating,” Amy muttered.
Randal let his power drop and smirked as the skill level didn’t drop. “At least we know the computer and running skills weren’t flukes.”
Gothic snickered. “Awesome, in the unlikely event that someone has to fight the ninjas in hand to hand combat, I nominate Randal.”
“Fair enough,” Randal admitted as the group headed for the entrance to the alley.
Taylor frowned slightly as she reached the edge of the alley and noticed the light post didn’t have a ninja on it, unlike the previous instance of this dungeon. She smirked slightly as she looked around and saw the various ninjas ‘hiding’ around the street. “I can see why the difficulty dropped with the visors.”
“Let’s start with the closest. I’ll light them up with the laser sight then we’ll shoot them.”
“Sounds good,” Taylor agreed as the group used what they could for cover as Kevin setup his shot then centered his laser sight on the first ninja.
“Now,” Kevin whispered as he pulled the trigger.
Taylor grinned as she pulled the trigger on her frost pistol. She was rather impressed by how quickly the first ninja dropped. “Much easier when they don’t have time to dodge.”
Richard grinned as he looked at the book and sai the ninja had dropped. “Is it just me or are they dropping a lot of books?”
“Hush, don’t jinx it,” Gothic objected as she kept her attention on the next ninja so she didn’t miss Kevin’s laser sight.
“Next,” Kevin whispered as he lined up his next shot. “Like shooting fish in a barrel.”
“Poor fish,” Amy replied sarcastically.
Taylor kept half her attention on the rest of the ninja she could see, wanting to make sure they didn’t get rushed or lured into a false sense of security.
0o0o0
Director Piggot looked up from her paperwork as Carlos and Dean walked into her office. She focused on Dean. “What can you tell me about Neverland’s group?”
“Just what’s in the report, Ma’am,” Dean replied as politely as he could, he could ‘see’ the frustration pouring off the director.
“I find that strange considering how short your report was and the fact that your girlfriend’s sister has been seen with Neverland on multiple occasions.”
“I asked Vicky about Amy’s possible twin after I saw the PHO post about her, I was told to ask Amy. I haven’t had a chance to talk to Amy in a secure location, but I doubt she’ll tell me the truth anyways.”
“Why?” Piggot asked.
Dean sighed. “Because it’s none of my business and because I work for the Protectorate.”
Piggot glared at Dean. “If someone can clone capes then we need to know.”
Aegis briefly considered telling her that she didn’t have a leg to stand on legally but figured there was no point in shooting himself in the foot, she’d been in a bad mood since the mess with Shadow Stalker.
“It’s possible that Gothic is Amy’s sister.” Dean shrugged. “It’s also possible that Gothic is a trump, a blaster and a changer. As for Vicky, she hasn’t said much of anything about Neverland’s crew, at least not to me. I’ll admit to being curious about their powers but I don’t have any more information than I’ve seen on PHO.”
“Have they put together any useful theories?” Piggot asked, curious if the boards had come up with something more useful than the PRT’s overpaid analysts who had basically claimed their gear was tinkertech, never mind that Armsmaster said it wasn’t.
“If we ignore the tinkertech theories, the best guess is that one of their capes has a variation of Dauntless’ power where he or she can imbue certain items with energy.”
“Anything else?”
“The idea that they have a trump that can grant lightning is growing in popularity.”
Aegis spoke up, “You forgot to mention the theory that several of Myrddin’s followers are pushing, that Neverland can make magical items.”
Dean had to resist the urge to laugh as he saw the Director’s face twitch. ‘It’s probably just as well the Director doesn’t know about all of Dennis’ additional accounts.’
“Just what we need, another crazy cape that thinks they’re a wizard,” Piggot muttered. “Do they have any solid leads on the rest of the capes in Neverland’s group?”
Aegis sighed. “Not really, Gothic is known to be able to heal, at least while she’s near Panacea. Other than that, nothing, if they have powers, they’re either subtle or they’re holding them back.”
Dean frowned slightly as he considered the various clips he’d seen. “Considering how durable their armor is, we probably wouldn’t even notice if they were low end brutes.”
Piggot resisted the urge to yawn as it had already been a long day. “See what you can find out from Victoria and Amy, if nothing else ask if they’re selling their armor and how much maintenance it needs. Dismissed.”
“I doubt they’ll tell me anything but I’ll try,” Dean replied as he turned and headed for the door. He wasn’t planning on trying very hard but he’d try.
0o0o0
Amy scowled as she finished healing Gothic’s shoulder where a poisoned ninja star had pierced her armor. “You’re lucky we brought a bunch of cure poison potions.”
“I’m not walking into a ninja dungeon without them,” Gothic said firmly as she wiggled her arm. “We dealt with enough of that shit in the game.”
Kevin shrugged. “It would have been worse without the flash bang grenade.”
Randal said, “At least it didn’t draw every ninja in the city.”
“To be fair, we got out of there pretty quickly,” Taylor pointed out quietly as she peeked around the truck they were using as cover. She frowned as she gazed down the seemingly empty street at the warehouse with glowing windows she could see at the end of the street. While the five ninjas openly hanging out in front of the warehouse was slightly worrying, the main issue that sent a shiver down her spine was that she couldn’t see any other ninjas. “I think we’ve got a problem.”
“Why?” Richard asked in a whisper as he knelt down so he could look under the truck. “Looks like clear sailing to me.”
“That’s the problem,” Taylor complained as she tried to spot anything else out of place.
“Give me a second.” Amy pulled one of her infravision scrolls out of her bag and used it. She twitched as she could suddenly sense over a dozen ninjas hiding in the relatively short range of her scroll. “Shit, they’ve learned to hide.”
Kevin said, “It was bound to happen eventually, the starting area in the game is pretty easy... then it gets harder.”
“How do we want to do this?” Gothic asked in a whisper.
“We could always leave, we’ve picked up enough books to get everyone the basic skills,” Amy pointed out.
“I’d suggest sneaking but I don’t think my skill is high enough even with all the practice I’ve gotten recently,” Richard admitted.
Randal smirked as he glanced up at the roof line. “I think we’re forgetting that we can jump like anime ninja, there are probably less ninja on the roofs.”
“Or more,” Amy replied as she glanced up at the several ninja she could feel on the roof of the next building that were probably waiting to jump down at them.
“As long as we can take them out one or two at a time, we should be fine.” Randal turned to look at Taylor. “The warehouse looks like the ninja training camp from the game which means we might be able to ‘sneak’ in if we can get to the side entrance.”
Taylor pulled her head back and looked at Randal. “Ninja training camp? I don’t remember that.”
Randal whispered, “It’s later in the game, you can either fight your way in or run around collecting parts of a disguise so the ninja don’t know you’re a mutant raccoon.”
“Considering we’re human, it should be easier, at least in theory,” Kevin pointed out as he checked on his supply of potions.
Amy frowned as she studied the area where the closest ninja she could feel was hiding, she wasn’t sure how the ninja had managed to hide behind a mailbox but that was the only thing she could see in the area that he could be hiding behind. “I’m starting to hate ninja.”
Richard said, “At least almost all of them drop books.”
“Good thing,” Taylor muttered as she turned to look at the two story buildings behind her. “How many ninja do you think are on the roof?”
Amy turned to look at the buildings. “At least two that I can sense which is probably better than walking down the street.”
“In that case, let’s head to the roofs and work our way toward the warehouse.” Taylor took a running jump then leapt up onto the roof. She blinked and nearly screamed as a ninja flipped out from behind a roof vent and kicked her off the building.
Gothic winced as Taylor flew off the roof backwards and landed on the top of the truck flat on her back with barely a sound. “Shit.”
Randal shot the ninja on the roof in the eye with his fire pistol which caused him to duck back from the edge. “Shit,” he agreed.
“Grenade!” Taylor shouted as she rolled off the truck as she saw a small pinecone sized object fly over the edge of the roof toward them.
Amy squealed as the group scattered, trying to get out of the blast radius.
Richard screamed as the blast tossed him off his feet and sending him tumbling.
Kevin scowled as the blast managed to cause him to take a step back to brace himself. ‘Power armor for the win.’ He pulled a flash bang out of his bag, pulled the pin and tossed it up on the roof. “Fucker.”
Randal tried to ignore the spike of pain as he rolled onto his back so he could try to shoot the ninja jumping down from the roof. He stared in disbelief as the ninja blocked his first three shots with his katana while in the air, the blade glowing red hot. “Da’ fuck?”
The ninja caved in the roof of the truck as he landed on it like a couple sacks of concrete then raised his sword slightly and jumped at Amy. He almost casually deflected the first two shots from the group then twisted out of the way of the third from behind him which caused Amy to get hit on her shoulder by Richard’s laser pistol.
Amy screamed and tried to dodge out of the path as the beam burned into her arm despite her armor, ring of thievery and resistances.
“Shit, sorry!” Richard quickly stopped trying to shoot the ninja as he realized the bastard was just going to dodge it.
Gothic raised her hands and tossed lightning at the ninja then scowled as the ninja flipped out of the way, bounced off of the truck which rocked sideways then jumped at her while deflecting a blast from Randal with his sword. She screamed and went flying as the ninja hit her with a side kick that felt like she imagined getting kicked by a horse probably felt like.
Amy felt her life flash before her eyes as the ninja brought his sword up to cut her down as he lunged at her.
Kevin lunged forward and grabbed the ninja’s sword arm as he lunged at Amy. “Nope!” He ignored the ninja’s backhand as he grabbed the ninja’s other arm and pulled.
Richard shivered as Kevin used his power armor enhanced strength to rip the ninja’s arms off with the sound of tortured metal. ‘Fucking hell, it’s an android.’
Kevin smirked as the armless ninja robot tried to kick him in the nuts. He punched the ninja or at least tried as the ninja dodged out of the way then jumped for his fallen blade. “Seriously?” His smirk slipped off his face as the ninja flipped the blade up with his foot then kicked the prommel sending the sword flying through the air into Taylor’s leg as she came around the truck to help. “Fucking bullshit!”
Taylor twitched as the sword twisted at the last second so that it glanced off her armor rather than sinking in. She brought her hands up and tossed a stream of lightning at the armless ninja robot. “Stop dodging!”
Randal brought his fire pistol up and shot the ninja in the back of the head while he was focused on dodging Taylor and Gothic’s lightning.
Gothic grinned triumphantly as the Randal’s shot managed to distract the ninja enough that her stream of lightning connected with the ninja, causing one of its legs to lock up which ruined its dodge. ”Crackle Pop!”
Taylor stopped spewing lightning from her gloves as the ninja turned into pixels and dropped a mechanical left leg and right foot, a black ninja mask, and two grenades. “Please tell me that fucker was a mini boss.”
Gothic ran over to check on Amy. “Stop scaring me.”
“I think we just switched zones,” Kevin complained as he walked over to check on Randal.
“I wasn’t trying to, I think we need more fire resistance,” Amy grumbled as Gothic healed her shoulder, more than a little annoyed that her defenses had only blunted the damage from Richard’s laser pistol.
Randal ignored Richard’s apology as he tried to sit up and felt something twitch rather painfully in his shoulder. “Medic?”
“I don’t see any bones sticking out or blood leaking out of your suit so you’ll probably live,” Kevin said ‘helpfully’ as Gothic helped Amy to her feet.
Randal snorted as he tried to keep from laughing. “I probably deserved that, but fuck you, man.”
“Not a chance,” Kevin replied with amusement as he opened his engineering window and dropped one of the arms in. “Sweet, I got a left and a right arm pattern.”
“Nice.” Taylor cast her healing spell on Randal then helped him to his feet. “Better?”
Randal shrugged his shoulders then stretched to make sure he wasn’t injured anywhere else. “Yeah, thanks.”
Gothic grinned. “Sweet, we can make robot guards.”
“Sounds like a good idea.” Kevin handed Taylor the robotic arm. “You might as well salvage it.”
Taylor opened her engineering menu and tossed the damaged arm in the salvage box then hit salvage and looked at the list of components she’d need to make another arm. “Could be worse.”
Taylor glanced around warily for additional ninja then walked over and picked up the mechanical leg with a touch of difficulty thanks to the weight then used her scan option to get a pattern. “Here, you can carry it, since you’re in power armor.” She handed Kevin the leg then picked up the foot and scanned it.
“I see how it is,” Kevin grinned as he scanned the leg pattern.
“Are we going to be able to build robot minions of doom?” Gothic asked curious if they could use the ninja to keep the garage safe.
“We’d need a torso and head but it seems possible.” Taylor handed the foot to Kevin then picked up the ninja mask. “Nice mask, it’s armored and boosts evasion which should be useful considering how well he was dodging everything.”
“Let’s hope the rest of them don’t have the same masks,” Amy grumbled.
“We can hope,” Taylor replied as she opened her tailoring menu and dropped the mask into her salvage bin then hit accept. She looked at the pattern and smiled when she noticed something. “It looks like it scales with the metal and cloth you use to make it.”
“Good to know,” Amy replied as she glanced toward the warehouse at the end of the street. “As much as I hate to say it because of how much we bled getting here, let’s head back and hit Winslow until we can get our skills up.”
Randal spoke up, “I’ll second that. We need better gear before we can reliably deal with the robot ninjas and we’ve already gotten enough books from the normal ninjas to cover Danny, Vicky and half a dozen more teammates, so I think we’re good.”
“I’m fine with that,” Taylor agreed as she started heading back to the exit. “It gives me a chance to work on the magazines for my elemental pistols and a couple other ideas I had.”
Gothic grinned as she headed after Taylor. “That’s the spirit.”
