Radiance Ch. 88

"Yeah I see them, two hooded figures by the shelves to the right inside," he said and Fuller nodded.

Gregory let out a bird whistle that caught the attention of Malakai who was laid flat a little further down the bank they were all hidden behind and he quickly used hand signals to tell him what they'd seen.

Malakai nodded and gave a thumbs up before relaying the info down the line, moments later Fuller was surprised to see Wisp in her cloud form floating over to the building staying high so as to not be noticed by the two figures who seemed to be moving what looked like a large sack of something deeper into the building, though where they'd emerged from was a bit of a mystery as the building was large and open plan, not a lot of hiding ability or cover in there.

From where he lay Fuller could see Wisp flitting about in the lights and after that made up the high roof in the building, he was beginning to see now how Seven's team had not only managed to say ahead of pursuit for so long but managed to get the drop on the people they had hit.

Each person here brought something very different to the table and they managed to blend all those skills together to make an incredibly effective special forces team, from intel gathering and electronic warfare experts like Wisp to assault and tracking specialists like Ven, they maximized their potential by covering as many avenues as possible while also making use of the natural talents of their members and when you added the fact that they acted like a very odd family into the mix, therefore giving them a very powerful drive to fight it created a very potent mix.

A couple of minutes later Wisp floated back and word came down the line that they were looking at an underground structure of some kind, the entrance to which was hidden in the basement of the building.

Word came down the line that Malakai was going to head in and subdue the two in the back who were still clearly in Fuller's line of site messing about with a series of sacks that were stacked up along the rear of the building and they wanted Fuller to cover him with his long-range rifle as he made his approach.

Fuller gave a thumbs up to indicate he was good to go but in his head, we were wondering how in the name of hell the giant half-spider boy was going to get anywhere near the place without being noticed given his size not to mention his bright white fur.

That's when Fuller found out about one of Malakai's many hidden talents, as he watched through the scope he heard a whoosh to his right and as he glanced he saw Malakai flying through the air with all of his legs compressed together into a point before he began to descend on the side of the building where he fanned them out and made a near silent landing had he just jumped the length of a football pitch in a single leap!?

As Fuller watched in pure amazement Malakai scuttled right up the outer side of the building like was walking on the floor before scuttling his way onto the roof and flipping upside down as he entered stuck fully to the ceiling of the place.

He could feel his mouth fall open as Malakai simply scuttled his way along the ceiling till e was directly over the two clueless hooded figures where he was spinning on the spot seemingly lining himself up while also seemingly doing something with his hands, that's when he dropped something on them.

Both figures were yanked off their feet and up into the air where Malakai caught hold of them and with scary speed and precision he began to wrap them up in his silk after delivering what appeared to be a bite to both of them making them go as limp as boned fish in his hands.

Once he was done he turned on the spot to face Fuller and gave him an upside-down thumbs up to go with the upside-down smile he was wearing on his face.

"He got them and he says the way is clear," Fuller reported.

Ven relayed the message down the line and Wisp gave the order to move up so as like a wave the team got to their feet and began to move cautiously forwards towards the building.

"Are they dead?" Fuller asked tapping one of the human-shaped silk cocoons with his foot and Malakai shook his head.

"Nah gave them a tiny bite, just enough to know them out for a while," Malakai said.

"So I assume that venom of yours can kill a man if need be?" Fuller asked and Malakai nodded.

"Yeah pretty easily actually what I gave them is just enough to coat the tips of my fangs, any more than that and they'd be done for, it's pretty potent stuff," he said and Fuller nodded thoughtfully.

"Should coat some darts with it, be a pretty good knock-out or silent take-down tool," he said and Malakai looked thoughtful.

"Never thought of that, that's a great idea, nice one Fuller thanks," he said his face lighting up.

"Alright before we go any deeper in I want to see what's in those sacks, I already get the feeling I know what we're going to find but I want to be sure, it's gonna confirm what kind of people we're dealing with here," Wisp said walking over to the sack that was on the floor near to the base of the shelves.

But none of them was expecting to see what they did when she opened it, bones, human bones.

There was a full-sized skeleton inside the sack and all of them looked horrified by the grizzly sight, Fuller given his profession gritted his teeth and knelt down next to the skeleton to examine it and what he found not only turned his stomach inside out but set his blood aflame.

"It's a teenage boy alright, no older than eighteen but it gets worse, his flesh has been completely stripped from him with a blade, here look at these marks, those were done where the blade hit the bone, same type a butcher would use to strip the meat from the bone," he said.

"B-B-But why? Why would anyone do this?" Malakai stammered and Fuller looked up at the horrified and rather sick-looking Arachnakai boy with a grim expression plastered on his features.

"Only reason I know of to go to this length and to use these methods is to preserve the flesh in cut form, the only people I have ever seen use these methods are cannibals," he said.

"So a cult and fucking cannibals!? Oh this just went from ten to a hundred in the blink of a fucking eye," Shepherd spat and Fuller nodded and then he looked up at the multitude of sacks lining the shelves.

"And it's about to go from a hundred to a fucking thousand because I don't know about you guys but I ain't about to let this shit continue, this ends here and now," he snarled as anger washed through his veins like liquid flame bubbling through his blood.

"Got that shit right, gonna show these sick fucks exactly what it feels like to get cut limb from limb," Ven snarled flexing his massive claws menacingly.

"Agreed but we need to be smart about this, we have no idea how many of these fuckers are down there and the last thing we want is to wind up as someone's main course, I'm pretty sure if they have no problem eating their own kind then they'll have zero problems serving up a nice roast rump steak of Claw or leg of Arachnakai," Fuller said warningly.

Gregory growled, "Only one ever going to touch Ven's rump is me," he snarled.

"And you'd better believe that Malakai's legs are staying all where they belong any fucker so much as looks at them in a way I don't like is getting their brain turned to mush in their skull," Wisp snarled patting said yellow leg.

"Good and if we want it to stay that way we need to do this smart and by the numbers," Fuller said and Wisp nodded.

"New guy is right, we can't go in there half-cocked running on anger or we'll wind up either getting any hostages they got in there or ourselves killed in the process," Wisp said.

"Yeah the folks at Greentop said this lot swiped six boys from them and said they been hearing that they been hitting a lot of other settlements in the area which means to me that they got some fair numbers in there," Shepherd said.

An idea hit Fuller and he turned to Wisp, "If they are using a bunker or something down there they are going to need airflow, that should mean they need vents in order to breathe so we can use that to infiltrate and spy on them, this should give us the intel of their numbers, defences and hopefully the location of where any hostages they have are located including this mister Valentine you are seeking is located, all we need to do is find those vents and then Wisp can do her sparkly cloud thing," Fuller said.

Wisp nodded thoughtfully scratching her chin and then nodded, "I like the way you think new guy, alright guys set up and watch the entrances I'm going in," Wisp said and with that, she exited her body and began to float around looking for a vent shaft before vanishing through one of the grates in the wall.

The rest of the group moved to where a hidden door that lead down into a basement tunnel that led off into the darkness that was lit only by a load of little candles, so the group took up positions to watch the door.

Wisp was gone for a total of ten minutes before she poured back out of one of the vents above their heads and heading right back into her body which once again made Fuller think of the story of Pinocchio wanting to be a real boy.

"Alright I got the lay of the land and you're not going to fucking believe this, it's a fucking vault, the bastards have a fully functional vault down there and it's just as well you guys with you otherwise you'd never get in, you'd need one of those pip boys like Seven has," she said.

"Do those to have one?" Shepherd asked and Malakai shook his head.

"Nope, I didn't see anything like that," he said.

"So how were they planning to get back in?" Shepherd asked.

"Obviously have someone monitoring the controls so they'll just press the comms and they'll let them in so we are going to have to be prepared for a fight as soon as he breaches the doors," Fuller said.

"Agreed, if we want to effect a stealth entry which we are going to need to do if we are going to reach the remaining twenty hostages that I saw down there we are going to need to do this stealthily," Wisp said.

"I think I have an idea," Malakai said and they all looked at him.

"Well going on what Fuller said to me earlier if I dip some darts or a knife with some of my venom then Gregory should be able to slip right in and silently take down the door guards before they know what's going on," he said and Fuller nodded.

"That's a good idea with that suit you should be able to walk right up to them before they even know you are there, we need to secure the entrance and the hostages should be our first priority, what's their guard situation like?" Fuller asked.

"Six of them all heavily armed around a large bunk room with them stationed outside of it, but there are a lot more deep in, I counted at least thirty of them," she said.

"Alright, so we're outnumbered and in the tight spaces it's going to be difficult to deploy our claws effectively so we need to lure them into a kill box so we need some bait, so I think once we remove the hostages from the situation we need to pull them into the same trap they locked their victims in, now I'm guessing that this Valentine guy given he came out here all on his lonesome to find these guys he'd be more than willing to help out, did you see him at all?" Fuller said and Wisp shook her head.

"No he's the one person I didn't find but that's not to say he's not there there are a few places I didn't have time to search," she said and Fuller nodded.

"Alright we count him out for now but we keep looking if we find him we should pull him in to help, I'm sure he'd make great bait to pull their attention to where we want it," Fuller said.

"Alright then people we got ourselves a plan, lets move like we have a purpose people, time to show Seven that he's not the only one who can pull off this heroic and look damn good doing it," Wisp said with a grin as she flicked her hair and kissed Malakai's cheek, it was rescue time.