Chapter 43: Gravitas

Fal, Yr'Arl and I stood in the main courtyard of the Guard headquarters. 

While previously we had been the leaders of this mission, the only ones tracking the new Null Space horrors that had somehow managed to invade Prespian city, we were now just three people in a crowd of around fifty aliens. 

Standing at the head of that crowd, floating a few feet in the air so that we could all see him as he gave his announcement, was Clan Leader Belana. 

I had been worried that he was going to pull me aside again, give me another verbal smackdown ending in him telling me that once this was all over he was going to have me put to trial due to not sticking to our previously struck gambit of fixing the situation. But he seemed to have gotten the hint that this was just a little bit bigger than any of us had been expecting. 

At least for now he was going to put aside his anti-human prejudice and allow me to work as part of the larger group. 

That didn't stop some of the suit-wearing aliens around me from stealing furtive glances at me, worry clear on each of their faces. Clearly, they weren't entirely happy with having to fight alongside one of the dreaded human scourge. 

Luckily for me, Fal and Yr'Arl had no such qualms and were standing close enough to me that it was clear we had become somewhat of a three-person squad of our own. 

"We stand on the edge of a precipice," Squadron Leader Belana began, his voice boomed across the complex with gravitas. Everyone there immediately stopped their own conversations and gave the man their full attention. 

"For years we have been trying to discover the hidden bases of the three gangs that run rampant throughout this city. Now, today, we may have finally had a breakthrough in that search. The base of Clan Pren has been identified, sitting below the waves of our planet, protected by the crushing forces of the ocean's pressure by our very own manna shield!

Today, fellow Guard members, we are going to take the fight to them! We shall descend below the waves ourselves and finally extinguish one of the problems that this city has been faced with for decades. 

But, my friends and associates, we must be cautious in this endeavour. Thanks to the hard work by three Guard members, we have discovered that the Clan are operating with a new and powerful threat. They have brought Null Space Invaders to Prespian City!" 

The crowd gasped audibly at that and began muttering among themselves. They couldn't believe it, the idea that their most hated enemy had somehow appeared on one of their most well-protected worlds. It was the worst of the worst possible news, the ultimate in disasters. 

"We do not yet know how Clan Pren has managed to wrangle these invaders, or who managed to bring them to the City itself. All we do know is that we have to stop them before damage can be done to the megabuildings or their population. 

This is going to be the fight of your lives, it's exactly what you've trained for and exactly what you signed up for when you became a part of the Guard. 

We're the last line of defence, and defend is exactly what we're going to do!" 

The crowd raised their fists, tentacles and other various appendages and cheered as loud as they could. 

<Whether you like him or not, he certainly knows how to rile up a crowd,> BB said. 

He was right, but I was also worried. He was so insistent that Clan Pren were the ones behind all of this when we had told him straight to his face that the assassin had said that Clan Pren were only being used as an intermediary between them and someone else. I couldn't help but think that we were being led into some sort of trap, like lambs into an abattoir. 

<Look kiddo, whether it was all done by Clan Pren or not, we're still going to be doing something good today. The Clan is a scourge on the city, as are the other two ganks, so getting rid of one of them can only be a good thing, okay?>

He was right about that, at least. Whether we were actually going to go and do battle with the masterminds behind the plot to smuggle Null Space Invaders or not we would still be dealing a major blow to one of the biggest threats to the city, if not wiping it out completely. I quite liked that idea. 

What I didn't understand was how we were going to get down underneath the waves of the city safely. I knew that some sort of teleportation technology existed to get things down onto the city itself, past all the tidal defenses, but I didn't know how flexible that technology was. Did it require a start and an end point or could the tech be leveraged to get us anywhere in an instant?

<You're way too stuck in your Star Trek,> BB snorted. <We're not going to be using any sort of teleportation technology. We're going to be using magic, obviously.>

Well of course we were going to be using magic, and yes that was obvious, I didn't need some snarky AI who was living rent free in my head to tell me that. 

<What you may not have realised yet because of all your overwhelming power and weird secondary system is that most people have certain manna specialities, kind of like your job system but with less choice and weirdness,> BB explained. 

<Squadron Leader Belana up there has a special affinity for movement magic. That includes, but is certainly not limited to, the ability to generate portals between two places. In other words, he is going to portal us right onto their doorstep.>

Right on queue, just as BB had finished explaining the situation to me, a series of runes sprung up into life below all of us. I hadn't noticed that the Squadron Leader had already been chanting under his breath. 

The fight was about to begin. 

Hopefully, we'd finally be able to rescue Akash and Pax.