The Legion of Nothing

Cassie looked down at the ground and then back down the hallway, "That's what the muddy footprints were? That's so gross."

Then she said, "Who wants to get the door?"

Marcus shifted into a pile of goo that seeped in the door's direction but stopped just in front, asking, "Is it booby trapped?"

Daniel frowned, "I can't tell."

Amy stepped forward, holding her spear, "Not with magic, but they've had people in here, and they've got at least one full-time wizard because there are bits of magic everywhere. Even with the cameras out, I would bet that they see us, invisible or not."

Rachel floated through the door. "I don't see anything, but damn, it's a long stairway. They have a lot of time to take a shot at us if they want to."

"Alright," Marcus said, "I'm taking down the doors. Back up, if you want."

Then he squeezed into the cracks under and between the doors, expanding until the metal frames of the doors buckled and bent. The black marble veneers cracked and shattered.

As he'd done that, he'd also expanded into the cracks that opened up between the door and door frame on the outside of the door, ripping out the hinges along with the door.

He reformed into himself, hidden within his camouflaged suit, within the rubble.

"Nice," Jaclyn said. "I should have guessed that you could do that."

Marcus shrugged. "If it were me, I would have slid under the door.

We all walked into the stairwell—the stairway wound round and round as far as I could see. Vaughn stepped up to the edge and stared down, leaning over the railing. "Whoa. That's a long way down. I mean, we'd hit terminal velocity long before we hit the ground without the gravity packs and stuff. If everyone floats, I can have my wind blow us to the bottom. It'll be faster letting the anti-grav packs drop us at a safe speed."

Marcus extended his neck out over the void. "You guys think they might have trapped the stairway?"

This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

"In their position, I would," Haley said, looking downward, "but they wouldn't do bombs or they'd be imprisoning themselves down there."

Jaclyn stopped next to Marcus and shook her head. "If they have a teleporter down there, maybe that wouldn't matter, but it would be a last resort. They put a lot of money into this base."

"I think you're right." Haley stepped back from the edge to examine the walls, then walked over to the beginning of the stairway and squatted, checking the walls on the next level down. "There are holes in the walls. They might be gun barrels. They might be gas. I think I see spots where panels might slide in, so something else can slide out."

She pointed them out, and I squatted next to her, aiming my HUD toward the spots. The line around the panels was only barely visible, but it was there. Otherwise, it matched the concrete.

I could see more of the same, as well as round holes for the next two levels—as far as I could see without flying.

Daniel shook his head. "All I get is a vague sense of danger. I'm not going to be predicting anything until it's too late to act."

Cassie walked up to the stairway, "Do you want me to go down? It'll hurt, but I'll be okay, and at least we'll know."

"You might not be okay," Jaclyn said as she stood next to her.

"I've got an idea," I said, "but it's going to sound a little silly."

Jaclyn raised an eyebrow, "I hate it already, but let's hear it."

"We all float, right? Also, we all have goo guns. None of us can move anywhere near as fast as Accelerando, but Accelerando's also really strong. She could carry all of us and barely notice. So, what we do is float, shoot a line to her back, and she runs down the whole way as fast as she can, dragging us behind her like balloons."

Jaclyn started laughing. "That's worse than I imagined, but why not?"

Rachel glanced over at Amy, "What about Bloodmaiden? She isn't using one of your suits."

Shaking her head, Amy said, "It's okay. I can fly, and I've got a rope spell I can use."

Turning away from the railing, Vaughn said, "Blood rope?"

Amy rolled her eyes and gave him the finger.

"My only worry—" I began.

Cassie said, "Here it comes."

"—is that your speed will be predictable. I'd set up a system that accounted for a speedster if it were me."

Jaclyn grinned, "Nope. I've got it. I'll use my implant to calculate the least predictable route. I've set it to notice the holes and panels. The implant says we can link up to it, and it can access data from all of you. It'll adjust based on that."

I confirmed it with my implant, and we all linked up. It was standard Xiniti operating procedure in fights. Mine had offered me the option of letting it improve my body once when I got hurt. That would probably make it work better.

As we all began to float and fired off lines of goo at Jaclyn's back, I wondered how long we'd hold out on that.

From the edge of the stair, Jaclyn said, "Everyone ready? We're going down as fast as we can. I hope the goo can handle it. The goo and whatever that it is."

A glowing dark red line reminiscent of dried blood led from Amy to Jaclyn's back.

Sean and Dayton looked at each other and then Vaughn.

"That's what I said," Vaughn muttered. "Blood rope."

Forestalling further conversation, Jaclyn ran.