Broker
Chapter 297

It took two portal hops to gather pretty much everyone. As she stepped through the second portal into the windy, snow-choked Tibetan mountainside, she rounded on Blackrazor. He cleared his throat and looked away, hesitating a bit as she gave him an assessing look. She fixed him with her stare for several heartbeats before he finally, reluctantly, turned to meet her gaze. “Where is she?”

He wilted. “America, Mistress.”

She smiled prettily, and he swallowed hard. “And why, pray tell, is Kera off to the US? Because I’m pretty sure we were scheduled for a group raid today!”

“Boss,” Colin said behind her. “Give the guy a break. She’s got a semi-good reason for it.”

Sonya clicked her tongue and turned to her lawyer, raising an eyebrow. “Oh? Can you explain it?”

The only person here close to her size shrugged lazily. “Sure. She didn’t take Charon getting injured well. We know he’s fine, but she still took it pretty personally. She hides it well, but she’s attached to the rest of us.”

Sonya went deadpan and let out an impatient growl, running her fingers through her hair. “So she went alone to New York City?”

“Basically,” Colin said. “You know she knows better than to get into a direct confrontation. She’s fought Otis before, too.”

Sonya grumbled but couldn’t argue the point. She took a moment to reflect on her irritation and decided it was her inner control freak that was reacting more than the villain. A direct response was only called for in a situation like this, and she could turn it to her advantage somehow. She sighed and rolled her shoulders a bit, turning to Barry, who had been quiet the entire time. He was looking around the chilly mountainside without a care in the world.

“Any surprise news for me on your end?” She asked as a blast of wind passed over them.

He shook his head. “Nope,” he said flatly. “Business as usual. Fishmen are hitting trading routes and taking ships that don’t pay the toll. We’re letting the passengers go to tell the tale as planned.” He scratched his chin a little. “I was gonna ask you for a favor, though, if you wouldn’t mind.”

She let out a breath. “Sure, what is it?”

“My lieutenants have been really putting the work in. A few upgrades for them would be nice,” he said.

She raised her eyebrows. “Is that all? Fine, bring them by sometime, and I’ll pick a few abilities out to merge in for them.” She shoved her hands into her pockets as another gust crashed into her, and with a flex of will, blue particles washed over her and her comrades, heavy coats appearing on their bodies. “That’s better,” she sighed. “We’re off.”

The trek to the dungeon portal was short. They had landed within just a few hundred feet of the small cave where it had formed. Amos had started to theorize that geological formations and confined spaces played a role in whether or not a monster or dungeon formed, as the majority of them were in caves, rooms, or some kind of valley. It wasn’t something they’d figured out in the previous timeline, so she didn’t have an answer, but she was pretty sure he was spot on as far as the logic was concerned.

The portal itself was much like the others at first glance. The usual pair of spires jutted up out of the ground, made out of some mysterious material. She wondered what would happen if Amos tried to consume and analyze it. Her thoughts on the matter were quickly shifted, though, when she noticed something a bit off about it. “This wasn’t in the report we intercepted from the Chinese government,” she growled.

The portal was taller than usual, wider, and she could see a current of crackling multicolored light racing up the spires in regular, if distant, pulses. The portal itself seemed stable enough, though occasionally it flashed in a way similar to when a fight against the boss was taking place. Her lips thinned. This isn’t normal.

“Very odd,” Colin muttered, twirling his hat between his fingers.

“I don’t get it,” Barry, who had switched to his smaller Kingshark form, said.

Sonya narrowed her eyes even harder. “I don’t either, but I have a pretty good idea of who does.” They glanced her way, but she was already looking up to the ceiling of the enclosed space. “I know you’re listening! Wanna explain?” She shouted.

The three men froze, their eyes going wide as they glanced around furtively. She crossed her arms and tapped her foot, waiting until she opened her mouth again. “I’ll tell Ishtar you’re ignoring me!”

“Fine!” A disembodied voice snapped, and Sonya turned around to see the ghostly visage of the beautiful Pandora floating over her. The boys jumped, but she just gave the old ghost a deadpan look and jerked her head towards the portal. Pandora sighed and looked at the portal for a heartbeat before looking back at her. “I can’t say much without brushing up against my pact.”

“Just give me what you can,” Sonya said.

“The seals are weakening. With the White Seal gone, holes have formed in the others. Small ones, specifically in the Red Seal in this case,” she sighed. “Even the White Seal had problems, admittedly.”

“Problems?” Sonya demanded.

Pandora crossed her arms. “Excuse me for not doing a perfect job. It was a tense situation, and I did the best with what I could. Also, our legal concepts back at the time didn’t have the same complex wording and fallbacks that you do now. Loopholes were common, and the rules I set couldn’t cover everything.”

Sonya blanched and rubbed her neck. “Right, fair point.” She crossed her arms thoughtfully and squinted at the portal for a moment before looking back at Pandora. “So you’re saying that there were people who awakened before their time after the flash?”

Pandora opened her mouth before shutting it and closing her eyes, her ghostly form flickering once. “That’s pushing it, I guess. Fine. I’ll leave that particular thread there for now,” she sighed and turned to the portal. “So what’s happening here?”

“You know exactly what is happening, Sonya,” Pandora said.

Sonya stared hard at the swirling mass and felt a chill run up her spine. As if on cue, the crackling energy working along the spires flashed, and the spires increased in size, spreading wider as the portal swirled angrily. It shuddered once before stabilizing. Sonya didn’t need a built-in Carter Radar to know what she was looking at now. It’s too soon. Way too soon. This is a huge problem. So this is the consequence of breaking the seal. The Red Seal must be restraining dungeon formation.

Her eyes narrowed. “The other two wouldn’t happen to be Black and, oh, I don’t know, Pale, like the light of the flash?”

Pandora hesitated. “How did you know there were four?”

Sonya groaned. “Wild guess. Look up apocalypse theology with Ishtar next time you have a date. You might be surprised.”

She turned to the old ghost but found she was gone. Sonya turned to her friends and put her hands on her hips. “This one isn’t going to be all fun and games like the Epic you hit last time,” she said and pointed at the portal. “That is a Heroic dungeon.”

The three men looked at one another before looking back at her. Kingshark’s skin darkened, and scales formed on it. His eyes sunk into his head, and his muscles expanded as thick claws formed on his fingertips. Blackrazor’s body darkened just a little bit, his hair suddenly caught in an unseen wind. Blades extended from his palms and took shape while a corona of black bolts formed around his head. 

Colin’s change was the most dramatic; she’d actually not seen it before. His mass didn’t increase, nor did his height. His skin color turned to that of iron or lead. Lines formed on his face that began to glow with an eerie dark-red light, and his brown hair ripped free of the bow at the end, turning into long, elegant strands of glimmering obsidian. He raised a hand and popped his knuckles one at a time.

“Got it. No holding back,” Mephisto said with a wicked razorblade smile.

Sonya was about to conjure up her Regalia as well when an idea hit her. She pulled up her phone in her HUD and dialed out. There was a brief pause before the other end picked up. Kera’s voice came through a bit hesitantly, <“Oh! H-hi boss! I, uh… I can explain.”>

Sonya snorted and started speaking aloud. “It’s fine. I want you to test a theory for me since I doubt the only other person who can confirm it won’t answer the question. No harm if you don’t pull it off. I know what you’re up against.”

<”I’m all ears.”>

“Your priority is to kill Riot. I know you want to hurt Felwinter, but I want Otis to know that I know what he did.” Sonya snarled, and the armor began to form around her body. “The gloves are off, Kerauna. Smite them with everything you have and then retreat. Don’t give them time to respond.”

Kera laughed. <”Yes ma’am!”>

Sonya ended the call. “That one’s for you, Val,” she said softly. She looked up at the others as her helmet finished forming “Let’s go,” she said. “We have a world’s first Heroic Dungeon to clear.” They nodded, and as one they turned to the portal, stepping inside.

–

Nietz stepped out of the building and whipped his hands down, trying to get some of the blood off. It wasn’t going anywhere, unfortunately. He frowned when he felt the tickle of a little on his chin and grumbled only to get a splash of water in the face from nearby. He spluttered and turned to see Hammond standing there with a floating water nymph at his side. The feminine creature was comprised entirely of living water and danced slowly in the air as it laughed at him.

“S-sorry. She figured you needed a wash,” Hammond said with a chuckle.

“Har har,” Nietz grunted and looked down the street. There, a door and the wall around it flew into the street. A lurker was sandwiched between it and Kong, who was raining a flurry of blows upon the beast until it stopped moving a moment later. “You good?” Nietz shouted.

Kong raised a thumbs-up and sauntered over as the sound of a battle nearby picked up, booms and roars announcing the latest fighting since they entered the city. “Are we sure about this strategy?” Kong asked, brushing his hands off on his gi and giving Cascade, the water nymph, a hesitant look.

“We aren’t clearing all of them,” Nietz said. “Just the lurkers mostly. We want to make it easier for the lower-tier heroes to catch up with us once the bigger fights happen. This is about teamwork, even if it wasn’t arranged.”

Kong nodded slowly. “I get the logic, and it should get us bonus points. I just don’t like being behind others who are in more of a rush.”

Nietz glanced at the pulverized lurker. “I know you’re angry. You said you’re from here. Have you seen your home yet?”

Kong’s slight grin finally vaporized into a frown. “Yes. A few blocks back, but I didn’t want to make a big deal about it. There’s nothing left there.” He exhaled and then put his hands on his hips, looking Neitz up and down. “You’re short again.”

“My enhanced form doesn’t last forever. It needs to cool down a bit. The big wave of monsters was a good use for it, but a bunch of small groups? Nah, I can handle that without it,” Nietz said dismissively and held up his hand, where a cut was already closing. “See?”

Kong grinned. “Fair enough! Looking forward to seeing it again. It’s one weird power.”

“Says the guy who shoots magic bullets out of his feet,” Neitz countered as they started walking.

Hammond hurried up alongside them and caught an amber sphere in his hand, Cascade having disappeared into it to recover from use. He reached into his bag and pulled out two more ambers and readied them with a small pulse of mana. Nietz turned back to where they were going and glanced down at his wrist. The little tracker they had each received didn’t display a score or anything, which was a little annoying, but he understood the reasoning. They want us to focus on doing our job rather than points. Still, it would be nice.

Another blast rang out, and he looked up to see three heroes running across their path, a trio of brutes following in their wake. One of them turned and fired off a volley of shots from a gun that appeared in his hand, while the other two kept moving. The lead brute shrugged off the shots and roared, raising its hands over its head.

“Back to it!” Nietz shouted and kicked off the ground at max speed in his normal form. He shot across the distance and collided with the Brute, driving a fist into the side of its head. Bone crumbled beneath his knuckles, and a follow-up kick sent it into a nearby building, where it didn’t get up. He landed and turned to face the other two Brutes. “Keep going!” he shouted to the hero behind him.

“Thanks! We’ll repay the favor!” The hero shouted back and kept moving.

Kong appeared next, his body moving so fast and fluidly it looked like a series of afterimages. He dove past one of the brutes and landed, stepped back and down before throwing his fist up into an uppercut. The brute soared into the air as its head separated from its body with a small snap-crack of force. The final brute’s eyes widened as Nietz appeared in front of it. He pulled his arm back, and in a flash of concentration, his body changed. Evolutionary imperative drove him further, constantly searching for faster ways to put his target down.

His nails turned razor sharp, and his fingertips darkened. He punctured its chest and then its head in two quick snaps, and it collapsed to its knees. He landed and whipped his hand down again. “Puncturing is just a hair’s breadth faster,” he muttered and examined his glistening hand. “Changing is getting easier too. I’m starting to really get it.”

“Nice!” Kong laughed as he walked over. “I think I’ve got you figured out, though!”

Nietz laughed. “Oh really? What-”

SPLOOSH

The two men blinked as water poured over them, and they turned to Hammond, who shrugged. “G-gotta get the blood off.”

They laughed.