Interlude - Electric Rat Part Two

  "Quiet," Deadline murmured. She carefully pulled a sharp bit of glass out of the bottom of the window-frame, then reached into the little backpack she was carrying to pull out a bundle of cloth that she draped over the will.

  She was the first in, moving as if she broke into homes every morning.

  Becky glanced over to Fran, then grinned before moving up to help her. "Need a hand, my'lady?"

  "Thank you," Fran replied. She took Becky's hand, then just casually bent her way through the window while holding onto her cloak so that it wouldn't snag.

  Becky found herself outside, alone, and feeling a little... annoyed? Deadline and Fran were so flexible. Did they do yoga or something? That wasn't fair. Now she'd have to do like, stretches and shit to keep up.

  Grumbling, she shoved her way through the window, aware the entire time that she was nowhere as graceful as the other two.

  Once inside, Deadline flicked on a little light and splashed it around a dusty old office. "This way," she muttered. "Since we're late, there might be kobolds already. Keep an eye open."

  "Got it," Becky replied.

  Fran shouldered a small bullpup rifle thing to her shoulder and nodded once. The princess looked so damned serious with her cap and her all-black uniform.

  Becky wondered why her gacha games didn't include more black-ops princesses. It was a serious blindspot.

  She followed Deadline ahead and into the next room over, her magic starting to prime up in her core even as she fumbled her handgun out and checked the safety. She looked at her gun, then the piece that Deadline was carrying. She was feeling kind of... what was the word? Self-conscious? Yeah, that. She was feeling a little lame, basically.

  Felt like she was the uncool kid being dragged along for fun. She wasn't sure she liked that, but she was also not sure if she should actually give a shit.

  Deadline raised a hand, three fingers splayed, then she gestured deeper in and made a 'two.'

  She nodded, then moved over to the side of the door Deadline was at and peeked in. Yeah, there were three kobolds or whatever just inside, then she made out movement further in. "I'll take the three that are close," she muttered.

  "Fine. Conserve your energy if you can," Deadline said.

  "Kay."

  Becky stepped into the room like a bad bitch in a bad mood. "Sup, dogbreath!" she called out.

  The kobolds looked up. The room was dark, only a bit of light coming in from some grimey windows and one of those old red exit lights. It was barely enough for her to see by. Then she changed that with a smile and about a million watts of magic-fed electricity.

  Becky laughed as she went full sith-lord on the three nearest kobolds.

  It helped. Her magic was the spark, but the spark was fed by attention, and some people just didn't get that. It was why Mouse didn't have a normal job, even if she was a C-ranker and could get a job anywhere. Like her, Becky needed that spark, that weird bit of like... curiosity or whatever.

  It made her zaps zappier.

  Lately, she'd been having a whole lot of that with the princess and Deadline.

  Deadline's gun barked twice and the kobolds at the end of the room crumpled, very dead. Then she shot the three that Becky had been zapping.

  "Damn, cold," Becky said as she let the lightning go. Her fingers were tingly.

  "It's efficient," Deadline said. "Portal's right there. We should move quickly. We're on a bit of a short timeframe, here."

  "I can go fast," Becky said.

  "Oh, I know," Deadline replied.

  Becky felt her face warming up. Wait, was that a reference to.... Uh, what happened the other day? God, she hoped not.

  They entered the portal, and pretty much immediately started messing up the kobolds within. Deadline's trick with the masks and pepper spray made it surprisingly easy to take the kobolds out, though Becky wasn't fond of the goggles and the mask. Some amount of the spray still got in, and she was fighting back coughs as they pushed through the first corridor.

  Still, they were moving.

  Deadline set the pace, moving like she knew the place as she ducked from cover to cover, occasionally flicking out one of her little shadow ball attack things to flinch a kobold, but most of the time she took them out with a roar from that big revolver of hers.

  Becky was in the middle, flinging magic out like it was going out of style, and Fran took up the rear. Honestly, Becky was kind of happy that Fran didn't have too much to do. It made her feel useful. That was a nice feeling.

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  They paused halfway through for a quick water break. Deadline insisted that they eat something, even if it was just these dried-up granola bars and some meat jerky she'd bought at a hardware store. That, and some water, as well as cans of energy drinks with extra sugar.

  "We're burning a lot of calories doing this. Lots of energy," Deadline said. "You don't want to be hit by a wave of tiredness when it counts most."

  "Said by the woman fresh out of an operation," Fran replied, her tone dry.

  "An operation?" Becky asked.

  Deadline shrugged one shoulder. "New cyberware," she replied easily with a vague gesture to her face. "Eyes are new. Plus some biomods and ears."

  "Wait, that sounds like a lot," Becky said. "Aren't you supposed to sleep after that? Take some time off?"

  "Normally, yes. But it's not every day that you get to tackle two portals in a row," Deadline said. "They might just be E and D-ranks, but that's still a decent boost."

  "It's more than decent," Fran said. "Even the most growth-focused of corporate teams won't hit more than two portals a week. Though they might push for one grade higher if they can secure a team that can mitigate some of the risk."

  "Yeah," Becky said. She was out of her depth, but nodded all the same.

  It wasn't long that they were pushing ahead again. This time, Fran stepped up and plinked away at a few kobolds. She was obviously not that good with guns. Not at the same level as Deadline, but she wasn't bad.

  Becky supported her with the occasional zap, and when a bigger kobold rushed across a room, bullets pinging off of a thick metal shield, Fran casually danced around him and cut his leg off with a single swipe of her absolutely-not-a-lightsaber.

  It was so fucking cool.

  It wasn't much longer before they were standing before the closed doors of the boss room. Big imposing things, made of rusted metal and encased in a stone wall.

  "I don't know what to expect in there," Deadline said.

  "Did you know what to expect the rest of the way over?" Becky asked.

  "...No?"

  Becky eyed Deadline for a moment, then shrugged. Deadline was totally up to something, but it wasn't her place to figure that out. Instead, she focused on pulling in as much ambient magical energy as she could into her core until it felt like it was crackling with energy.

  There was a lot to be said about traditional magic stuff. Forming spells and all that. It meant casting shit with weird effects and with a lot of efficiency. It was, objectively, the better way to do magic. All it cost was a lot of money and for someone to spend years researching and refining spells into something anyone with the right feel could use, as long as they, in turn, had the time to carve the spell out.

  Becky always felt like it wasn't fair to compare that kind of thing to freeform magic.

  It was like... comparing someone on a motorcycle to someone running on foot. Yeah, the bike was faster, no shit. But the bike couldn't parkour up a wall, could it?

  They kicked the door open and Becky cackled as she cast on the first boss-shaped thing she saw. A big, muscle-y kobold that was carrying a weird staff with an animal's head on it.

  It raised a hand and summoned a shield.

  Her magic stopped in mid-air, then with a grunt, she forced it to come back her way, shoot up, then come around the shield to stab into the boss. Try doing that with a pre-built spell!

  The boss flinched, and that popped his shield. Cute trick, but not good enough!

  Deadline popped three rounds into his head, and that was that.

  "Wooo, we are awesome!" Becky cheered. "Fuck yeah! We should kiss!"

  Deadline snorted. "Maybe after," she replied.

  Aww... But it wasn't a no!

  She was smiling like the rat who'd discovered the pizza when she moved over to the old chest in the corner of the room and started to rummage through it. There was a short spear, with a glass head, and a sort of old, old looking book with thick leathery paper and like, feathers and stuff in it.

  "A grimoire," Fran said. "I'll take that."

  "Sure," Deadline replied. "We should... do you hear that?"

  It was a while before Becky picked it up, but yeah, there was noise from deeper in the dungeon, from where they'd come. Gunshots and... people talking?

  "Let's jump out," Deadline said. "We're not alone in here."

  ***