Project - Prometheus Ch. 40

"This is good! Keep doing what you're doing! The portal is almost ready!" Matthias said excitedly. Gunfire then erupted a few dozen meters away, commanding everyone else's attention.

"Dahrk! Report!" Dagan bellowed into his comms.

"We've got company boss! They walked right up to us, heading straight for you! They didn't see us and we ambushed most of them. The smart ones got into cover and we've got incoming!" the man told his boss.

"Damn! Fall back! Get to the rover now! We're leaving!" Dagan told his men.

"Yes, sir!"

"How long before it's ready to travel through?" Natalya asked.

"Maybe a minute, if the power feed holds!" Matthias told her, straining to make the portal bigger.

"Let me help!" she said as she put up her weapon and drew upon her own Aetheric power. She fed her own power to Matthias, shaping it as Alex had been, helping build the structure of the portal.

"Ladies and gents, these three are our way out! Defend them!!" Korsa all but bellowed, putting herself in a defensive stance as a frontline defender. The rest of them took up defensive positions as Dagan's men arrived at their location. As they set up positions, the group heard lots of shouting. Then gunfire sounded through the air, with rounds screaming in at them, looking to end their lives.

"Return fire!!" Kasumi shouted.

The group did so, with many shots being fired at both ends of the alley, as the Confeds closed in on them. They did what they could, wounding some of their assailants and killing others. It was a stalemate at first, but more and more of these turncoats were joining the fight.

"Status on that portal, kids!! We can't hold them off forever!" Korsa growled as she swung her blades, doing what she could to deflect incoming fire.

"It should be wide enough to accommodate the rover! Someone get in and drive it through!" Matthias shouted.

Thinking fast, Shazza broke cover and dashed to the rover, dodging several incoming shots. She quickly turned the vehicle on and put it into gear, driving it forward towards the portal.

"Everyone get in front of me! The rover can take a beating! You can't!" Shazza called out.

Seeing what she was doing, the rest of the group stopped firing and made for the portal, each one of them stepping through. Once they were in, Shazza drove the vehicle in, going past the Aetheric gateway and into the green area that waited on the other side. Matthias, Alex and Natalya were the last ones through, as they needed to be to close it.

"Slowly let go of your power, letting the connection peter out like a bottle of water emptying," Matthias stated.

Alex and Natalya did so, mentally turning the spigot on their power flow until it was almost a trickle. Once they had reached that point, they let go of their power entirely, and the gateway closed, leaving no trace of it behind. Both Alex and Natalya breathed heavily, like they'd just done a ten-mile run. Though what they had done appeared to be long to them, in the real world, it had only taken a few seconds.

"Damn! That felt like... I had just... done a mini... marathon!" Alex huffed as he brought his breathing back to normal.

"The Aether is like that, the first few times you use it for big things. You just need some time to get used to drawing on that much power. It does get easier, I promise," Matthias told Alex.

"Are you sure this is the place?" Korsa asked as she sheathed her Thuun'tara blade.

"Yeah, I'm pretty sure this is it! Might have to go searching around, though. It is a big place!" Matthias replied.

They found themselves in a factory of sorts, but it was a massive one! It appeared to have once been used for manufacturing, but the machinery was old, rusted and broken down. There were a few holes in the roof where some sunlight was poking in. The thing that was most surprising was the amount of greenery that was pushing through the concrete, which was also wrapped around many of the machines there.

"I sure as hell hope that the rest of your crew is more welcoming than those others who shot at us," Dagan sighed as he drew his hand cannon as the crew moved through the factory.

"They will be!" Matthias scoffed. Inwardly, he hoped that the people who had gotten out weren't so jumpy that they might wind up shooting them on sight before seeing who they were!

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"Boss?" came in a call over the Confeds comms line.

"What is it?" Rod questioned.

"Well, we found some Shadow Dancers. More specifically, we found the group that we thought we'd ended and left stranded in the middle of the city," the man told him.

"And??"

"It looks like Matthias survived. He was there, making a portal for them to go through. Same with those other people who used power like his," the man reported.

"FUCK!!! Keep looking!! I want this whole fucking city turned inside out!! FIND THEM!!" Rod growled and the soldier promptly ended the call to relay those very orders.

Rod huffed and growled at this news, more than a little pissed that the leverage he'd hoped to use was now gone. He paced in his room, wondering what he was going to do now. The only thing to do was to do as protocol dictated and call it in to report these failings. Rod didn't like it, but he had to do it and he put the call into Sargol, to relay what had happened. The man picked up on the third ring.

"You better have a damned good reason for calling in at this sensitive time, kid!" Sargol groused as his face materialized on the holoprojector.

"This is a real good reason! While we have control of this zone and position, our leverage over the Shadow Dancers is gone!" Rod reported. He then detailed what had happened earlier that day and how they'd had everyone! But, thanks to Matthias and the meddling of the Darkstrider crew, along with Dagan Min, things had gone to shit.

"What are our orders, sir?" Rod asked his superior with all due respect.

"End them. Find what remains of the Shadow Dancers and end them! Leave no one alive! Not even one single child must be allowed to live!" Sargol told him coldly. "No matter the cost."

"We would, but we have no idea where to find them. If I may offer a suggestion?" Rod asked.

"Go ahead."

"Maybe we ask for help from our... non-Confederate allies to aid us with this. They seem to have a knack for finding people who we lose and have no qualms about killing innocents," Rod smiled evilly.

"A sound plan! Get in contact with them immediately! Let them know who is to be found and that they can do with these people as they see fit! Should they kill each other during the conflict, so much the better!" Sargol cackled with glee.

"I'll do that right now, sir! Over and out!" Rod saluted before he killed the call. He then put a call into his immediate subordinate, Captain Lethaya.

"Yes, sir? What is it?" the woman asked over the comms.

"Tell everyone to gather everything of value and importance. We're leaving and heading to home base," he told her.

"Already?" she asked with an edge of excitement to her voice.

"Yes, Captain. We are in the initial stages of Operation Endgame, so we need to be prepared. Once we get to home base, we will learn all we need to, to continue the operation and expand on our mission here," he told her.

"Sir, yes, sir! I'm on it!" she told him before the line was closed. Rod then went and put another call in, but this one was to someone different. It was to the acting chief of the Death Eagles, and he knew that the boy in charge would relish the opportunity to hunt innocent people down.

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The group moved through the massive factory, searching out the rest of the Shadow Dancers. So far, they had zero luck in locating them and took a beat to rest. It was just then that a voice from the shadows called out.

"Let our friends go and we might let you keep your lives!" the voice said menacingly.

"Curt, knock that shit off! If I was a prisoner, why am I being allowed to move about on my own?" Matthias called out.

"They have their guns out! Which they could turn on you at any moment!" the voice of Curt argued.

"Dude, cut this shit out or I'll hang you upside down and let everyone use whatever they want to paddle your ass! Don't think I won't do it!" Matthias threatened.

A sigh sounded on the air and a small group of people came out of well-concealed hiding places. Alex got to his feet and observed the places they were coming out of. After a moment, he knew they wouldn't have stood a chance if Matthias wasn't with them.

"You were always one for doing humiliating things to anyone who disobeyed your orders," a woman laughed as she approached.

She wove her hands in a complex pattern, with cerulean energy surrounding them. The woman then flung her hands out and the energy washed over everyone there. No one else there saw what she was seeing, but she smiled all the same and gestured for the rest of the Shadow Dancers to lower their guns.

"It's good to see you back and alive, Matty! When I got that transmission, I feared the worst," Gloria stated as she hurried forward and hugged her son.

"It would have been really bad if it weren't for these folks here!" Matthias told her, hugging her back as he gestured at Alex and his ladies.

"Weren't they the ones you were going to ambush originally?" she asked.

"That was the plan, but then some loudmouth decided he's going to gut Matthias and kill everyone else there, us included," Alex told her, catching her attention.

The moment she laid eyes on the man, she stared at him, as though she was transfixed by his presence. The woman walked over, as though she was on autopilot as she moved to Alex. Natalya and Kasumi would have gotten in her way, but they saw how she flared with Aetheric power and didn't wish to challenge her. They didn't know what Gloria's intent was, but they kept their power handy, just in case.

"By all that is holy... Alex?" she asked, blinking several times, to be sure she wasn't seeing things.

"How do you know my name?" he asked, getting defensive.

"I didn't know whether to expect you in my lifetime, but I knew you would show up someday!" Gloria replied. She then performed another set of gestures like she had before, but aimed it at Alex. Her power came into being and he was quickly hit by it and his own violet energies came into being, manifesting itself around him.

"What... did you do?" he wondered.

"Ensuring that it was you! The color of your energy is as it was described in the journals!" she told him.

"Someone predicted I'd be back?" he asked.

"Not just someone, but the very woman who bore your children. Analisa," she told him. "The woman from whom I am descended."

"Wait, what?? He is who and what now?" Matthias questioned.

"He is our forebear. I mean, look at the man! Many of the features he has are yours as well! You don't think you got all those good looks from only Analisa's side, now do you?" she asked. "Alex here was prophesied to return to us one day. I was unsure of when, but I hoped I would be alive to see it. And I am!"

"You knew he was coming, mom? How?" Matthias asked, wondering how his mother had known.

"If you had taken the time to read Analisa's journals, as you'd been instructed to, then you'd know more about this happening. You might have been more prepared for this if you listened to your dear old mother," she admonished the man.

"OK, fine. You got me there for not doing my due diligence. I'll be sure to correct that soon," he told the woman as he sulked.

"See that you do!" she smirked as she turned her attention back to the rest of the crew.

"While I like the idea of this little reunion, I think maybe we should get out of here? I mean, sure, we outran the Confeds for now. But I get the feeling that they won't stop searching for us," Natalya put in.

"Well, we don't really have anywhere else to go, as we are, for all intents and purposes, homeless," Matthias stated.

"You don't have any backup sites we could go to?" Kasumi wondered, thinking this was bad planning on their part.

"We do, but those sites will be known to those damned traitors! Going to those places would be suicide," Gloria stated.

"What about the town? There are places that we could put the people here up in," Shazza suggested.

"Not with the town the way it is right now. At least, not until we have Sargol in hand and a list of all who are associated with him. Someone gets grabbed by a sleeper agent, and that will screw things up colossally," Alex stated, making that option an automatic no.

"Am I missing something?" Gloria asked and Matthias leaned down and whispered into his mother's ear, bringing her up to speed about things. The look on her face went from confused to serious, and she growled in anger.

"Surprised?" Korsa questioned.

"Yes, and I want to see that rat bastard pay!" she huffed angrily.

"We'll worry about that after we've caught him. Any other ideas for a place to go?" Alex asked.

"I would suggest the ship, with all the surrounding Sentries, to defend the position. But it might be more than a little crowded," Korsa stated.

"Not a bad idea and yes, it would be more than a little crowded," Alex stated, looking over at the hundred or so people that were assembled there.

"Well... I have an idea," Dagan piped up.

"What is it?" Natalya asked, turning her attention to focus on the man.

"The tribe. They are still in that area, at least until tomorrow," the captain told them. "We could ask them to take everyone here in. Temporarily, of course! Once the situation in Tanith's Gully is resolved, then we'd bring them into the town proper."

"Do you really think they'd take us in? I mean, the Children of the Wolf are great as trading partners, but taking in people to keep them safe?" Matthias questioned.

"It's the best available option to us. While it's not ideal, I'm sure they wouldn't mind. Especially with all that stuff you've got there, which they would accept as a means of something to barter and trade with, in return for your safety," Alex stated, indicating the pile of supplies that was stacked behind them all.

"Alex is right. It is the best chance you've all got," Kasumi agreed. "Besides, you'll be with the tribe. It will be the last place that the Confeds would think to look."

There were many nods at this, as the people understood that this was the best chance they had at the moment. They were all aware that it was just a temporary fix until they could get into the town. Everyone then sat down and hashed out the details about what would happen and how things would go. There were a few disagreements, of course, but everyone did agree that this was the best way forward.

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In a cleaner district of Tanith's Gully, a group of men who were members of Dagan's crew hurried along the alleys. Their movements were covered by Taal'ani's algorithm, as they closed in on a particular residence in the district. Inari led these men, as this group was closing in on the place that was Sargol's base of operations.

Barely half an hour ago, the Fel'caan hacker had narrowed down the man's location to within a few feet. Once she had cross-referenced all the residences in the area, they noted that this one was unoccupied. Upon further inspection of the property, it appeared to have new, state-of-the-art intrusion measures that Taal'ani had detected. After some quick deductions, Inari had marshaled Dagan's men to storm the place.

"Talon, we good?" Inari whispered into her comms, staying as quiet as possible.

"Yeah! All of his detection systems are dark! I've picked up nothing as far as traps go, so you're good to go!" Taal'ani told her friend.

Turning and nodding to the men on either side of her, Inari walked forward and kicked the door down. The level of force was enough to tear the door off its hinges and they swarmed the residence. Most of the place was empty, with maybe a few pieces of furniture that had been dusted off. The men followed her lead as they went from room to room, checking every nook and cranny for anything.

"Clear!" called a group of men from the bedroom. Similar call outs were made throughout the house, with both floors being cleared as they were checked.

"Damn! We missed him!" Inari griped as she walked into the den.

"Ma'am? Any idea what is going on?" one of the men questioned, as he gestured to a computer that was still on.

"Shit! Give me a link beacon, boss! Hurry!!" Taal'ani told her. Inari snapped into action, pulling such a beacon and setting it on the table next to the computer as she activated it.

"You good, Talon?" Inari asked.

"Yeah! I managed to stop the purge program from finishing its run! Initiating download of all files!" Taal'ani replied.

"The son of a bitch was just here! No way we would have caught this being purged if he was long gone!" Inari huffed.

"I can attest to that!" came Priya's voice from the vicinity of the kitchen.

"What did you find?" Inari wondered as she bolted over to where her girlfriend was.

"Looks like he was getting ready to have himself something to eat! It's still warm!" Priya said, gesturing at a bowl of steaming stew.

"Fuck!! He was just here! The bastard slipped away again!!" Inari fumed, growling in frustration that her chance for revenge was being denied.

"Don't worry, love! Yeah, he got away, but we are tightening the noose on him! Sooner or later, it will cinch up to the point where we will hear the fucker's neck snap," Priya assuaged her lady.

"I know! I just really hoped we'd catch him here!" Inari huffed in frustration. "Taal'ani, you get anything useful from that terminal we found?"

"Can't say for sure just yet. Looks like Sargol used a heavy military grade encryption to keep the files safe. It will take me some time before I crack them and even then, we may not have everything," Taal'ani responded.

"How much did you get?" Priya asked, curious about the amount of data that had already been wiped.

"Less than a third of all the data on that terminal was what I was able to recover. The rest of it was either deleted or too corrupt to salvage," the Fel'caan woman informed them.

"All right! Keep us posted!" Inari told her before killing the line.

"There has to be some way that he got out of here without us noticing him!" Willem huffed, looking around in the den. "There has to be..."

The boy didn't get a chance to finish that sentence, as he tripped over an uneven floorboard. Willem screamed and reached out to try and break his fall and grabbed onto the only thing that could break his fall, an old wooden chair. As he caught it with his hands, his fall was halted and he was hanging in the air awkwardly.

"Willem! Are you..." Inari asked as she and Priya raced into the room and saw him hanging there.

What really caught their attention was the curved metal piece that was attached to the floor via a chair leg. They then heard a creaking sound and looked over to one of the walls, where a hidden door had just opened. Everyone then turned to what was revealed and then back at the chair Willem had grabbed.

Hidden switches like that were old as time, but they had to admit that it was rather clever, using a chair as a switch. While smaller objects and everyday items were often thought of as possible switches, no one would think a chair would be one. After helping Willem to his feet, Inari approached the open panel and smirked before turning to face Priya.

"Tightening the noose, indeed!" Inari exulted, as she drew her hand cannon and cocked the hammer. She walked into the hidden door, leading the way down to the sewers of Tanith's Gully.

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Sargol breathed heavily, not used to running like this and not in such a fetid environment. He was almost caught and if it hadn't been for that old school trip plate system he installed around the house, he would have been! He couldn't stop yet, as he was far from safe while here in these sewers. Sargol focused on putting as much distance between him and his main hideout as possible.