Joseph and Michael stood in the shadows, outside of the entrance to the loading bay.
Joseph lamented quietly, "Isn't Ken supposed to be here by now? After all, he did tell us to come down here."
Michael said, annoyed as well, "I would think so. Though he has seemed to prove us wrong."
Joseph groaned, "Ugh, and we have to stand out here in this rain. If I slip and fall in the middle of all this and die, I'm haunting him for the rest of his life."
Michael replied, "This shouldn't be that difficult, at least. Even if they don't talk like the rest that we have in custody, we'll at least send a message that we're onto him."
Joseph leaned back on the wall. "I guess. I kind of just want to be done with all of it, though. The police force, to be specific."
Michael turned back to Joseph. "Why so?"
Joseph shrugged, "I would rather not be doing this for all of my life. Sure, I enjoy the job to an extent, but that comes from a place of helping people rather than fighting them. Unfortunately, it seems like fighting people is about all we do these days."
Joseph thought for a second, "I can't say that much, it's not like I don't mind a good fight. Strange how it seems that the police are comprised almost entirely of battle junkies."
Michael said, "In this day and age, it's hard to be a cop in the city without being one. The only reason I don't like this job, apart from some of the reasons you listed, is because I know it's just the type of job my father would want for me."
They remained silent for a bit before Joseph turned to the right, seeing two figures walking to them under a streetlight. When they got fully illuminated, it was clearly Layla and Ken.
Ken said, a bit loudly, "Sorry for taking a bit!"
Layla said, at a much more appropriate volume, "Hi, Michael!"
Joseph said, "Quiet down! They'll hear you from there!"
Ken looked like he was processing that for a second before whispering, "Oh, right!"
Ken and Layla came to Michael and Joseph and stood next to them.
Michael asked, "What's the plan?"
Ken replied, "The meeting should start soon. We can go in there and bust them up. Take a few of them into custody, the works."
Joseph smirked, "Sounds like a plan. What kind of firepower should we prep for?"
Ken said, "Nothing much, at the very most a Mech."
Joseph said, "Awesome! I'll get to use these bad boys!"
Joseph took out a strap of what appeared to be combat knives. However, there was a needle instead of a blade, and the guard was circular, having rune engravings around the needle.
"Whenever you throw this into something, if the guard makes contact and completes its circuit, it'll explode!" Joseph said, looking quite proud of himself.
Michael smiled. "Seems pretty well made!"
Joseph replied, "Thank you! I had to learn how to really make runes to make it. It's a lot harder than I thought."
Ken coughed. "If you both wouldn't mind, could we continue with the mission?"
Layla said with a confused look on her face, "Weren't we the ones late though?"
Ken looked offended and said, "That's not important!"
Eventually, they managed to get their feet through the door. Michael and Ken went first, followed by Layla, who cut in front of Joseph. The place had a beautiful view, at least, of what one would imagine as beautiful, ignoring the weather conditions. The docks connected to the river that ran through the city. There were several small trading ships anchored down, and some gravel strewn about. Further downstream, one could see some navy ships in harbor as well.
Joseph said, "Hey, uhh, Ken? Not to rain on your parade, but nobody's here."
Ken said, "I must've gotten the times wrong then. There's no way..."
Joseph looked around the area, while Ken, Michael, and Layla stood in the middle, looking around on their own. As Joseph looked around, he got a bit angry at the amount of gravel here. It was almost like somebody dropped a bag of it. As a matter of fact, when he looked closer at it, it seemed like somebody did. More than that, the way it was arranged was familiar...
Joseph yelled, "Move!"
Unfortunately, he didn't yell fast enough. The gravel began to shine a bright yellow as chains of magic erupted from it and attached to each person within the gravel, being all of them bar Joseph. The chains dragged them to the ground, putting them on their knees.
In the middle of the confusion, Joseph spotted something. A magic staff, made of metal, seemingly emerged from nowhere. Then a hand. The hand pulled the air itself out of the way, as if it were blinds on a window. What emerged was a man. He had bleached, slicked-back hair that went to the nape and wore a raincoat. Underneath the raincoat, he seemingly had a dress shirt and some dress pants on.
The man said, "Better than I expected."
Joseph replied, "Who the hell comes to a fight in slacks? Are you that doctor guy, because you sure as hell dress like one? Other than the raincoat, of course."
The man shook his head, breaking out of the serious aura he previously had, "No, not at all! I'm just doing some work for that guy. Name's Vahn, I work for the power company in this city."
Joseph had an extremely confused face. "What kind of blue-collar worker does mercenary work on the side? Plus, why'd you tell me that?"
Vahn scratched his cheek. "Because it doesn't pay for crap. The reason why I told you that is because I don't think you'll survive today."
Michael said, "How about you let us out, and we can check that thought."
Vahn turned to Michael with a look of both disgust and fear. "Hell no, you and that guy can beat me up on your own, much less the four of you. Plus, it won't be me doing the killing, I'm just buying time."
Ken took his turn, "Buying time for what?"
Vahn then turned to Ken. "You don't sign my paychecks, I don't have to tell you that."
Joseph said, "There has to be a better way to get paid than this, come on."
Vahn replied, "Nah, man. I'm not financially broke, just mentally broke. All I do in that place is fix some electronics I don't care about or make runes that I could do in my sleep. This work lets me make new runes and spells while also giving me testing environments. All I could want, really."
Joseph said, "Alright, man, I get it. Doesn't change the fact that you've locked my friends up."
Vahn said, "Didn't expect it to. So, you wanna get this fight started or what? I get paid by the minute, so if you just wanna keep chatting forever, I'm down."
Layla glared at Vahn as Joseph said, "Let's do this."
Both immediately readied themselves, Joseph reaching for his gun and Vahn repositioning his staff as a spear. Joseph flicked his gun up and began to empty it into Vahn, who was able to use his staff to block some, with only one hitting in a non-vital spot. Vahn lunged at Joseph with his staff. Joseph narrowly evaded him as Vahn slammed the staff into the ground, causing a decently large dent in it. Using the opportunity, Joseph threw a punch at Vahn. It hit, but not before Vahn got his staff out of the ground, slashing upwards with it, and in so doing launching Joseph up. As Joseph was airborne, Vahn tried to grab his legs but instead got kicked in the face by Joseph.
Both combatants fell to the ground, with Vahn saying, "You got some style!"
Joseph was barely able to get up first, but it was ultimately meaningless, as the ground began to rumble. Joseph turned to where Vahn had been previously and saw a half-assed rune there. Joseph tried to keep his ground, while Vahn stabbed his staff into the ground and stood on it, looking entirely unaffected.
Joseph grunted, "That's some impressive rune work you got there!"
Vahn replied, "Oh, a connoisseur? What's your favorite type of rune? I have to say, I adore the ambient mana runes."
Joseph said, "Mine's the type that gets me out of these situations."
Joseph quickly switched his ammo before he lunged forward onto the ground, barely making it that far due to the effect of the rune.
Vahn sighed, "That's not a rune. You're just flailing."
Suddenly, the ground stopped shaking. That's because the ground was no longer there. Joseph and Vahn were both sent flying upwards as a result of Joseph's previously mentioned explosive.
Vahn said, ecstatic, "That's some tight stuff! I was wondering what those things did!'
Joseph threw a kick in midair, which was met with Vahn's staff. They exchanged hits in the air, dealing an equal amount of damage to each other. Joseph was able to land a good kick, which sent Vahn plummeting downwards. Joseph followed this up by firing some shots, then delivering a solid punch to the chest as he landed, hitting Vahn with a flurry of fists. This combo would end, however, as the end of Vahn's staff suddenly glowed. A bolt of mana came out and hit Joseph, sending him flying temporarily. This flight was ended as Vahn quickly stabbed his staff into Joseph's arm, hooking him, and then proceeded to slam Joseph into the ground.
Vahn exclaimed, "What are you doing! You just emptied a few rounds and hit nothing! Why do you even have a gun?"
As Vahn readied his staff to fire another bolt, Joseph started to stand up in spite of it. It fired the bolt, getting to mere inches from his face before what was seemingly a pane of glass appeared out of nowhere, completely negating the bolt. Vahn looked over to where the rest were chained, seeing that the girl was unchained now. The places where the chains sprouted from the ground around her had nothing but smoke.
Joseph smugly said, "Thing is about your little ambient mana is that they get completely negated if the ambient mana is modified. Say, by a mana-infused bullet, perchance."
Vahn said, "Not gonna lie, you got my ass."
As Vahn stood there, he suddenly got a sense of immense danger. Narrowly jumping out of the way, a similarly glass-pane-looking object emerged from the ground, almost like a spike.
Vahn turned to Layla and said, "You know Barrier Magic?"
Layla replied, "Yeah, obviously."
Vahn raised his hands up in mock offense, "Cool down! I just wanted to say how tight that move was!"
Vahn then quickly scribbled another rune into the ground, and another mini-earthquake began. However, this time, rocks began to fly in the air, and with the flick of a finger, they began to hurl themselves at Joseph. Unfortunately, this was negated by the barriers that Layla quickly fabricated, stopping them in their tracks. Layla then made a platform out of the barrier above the ground, and both she and Joseph jumped on it. They began to dash at him and were about to land several hits on them before smoke began to fill the area. As the smoke cleared, they saw Vahn standing there. Both Vahn and Joseph were about the same level of injured.
"That was some nice fighting, I won't lie. Though, since this is a two-versus-one now, I'd rather not drag it out. Besides, it's about time for you all to go back to your real mission." Vahn said, raising his hand, and breaking the rune that still chained Michael and Ken.
Joseph shrugged, "Yeah, it was a fun fight in the end."
Ken yelled out, "What real mission are you talking about?"
Vahn began to walk backwards. "You'll find out in a few. Also, to the girl? I forgot about something."
A rune suddenly activated, entirely unnoticed by everyone. A stone tendril erupted from the ground, holding a syringe with a golden liquid inside of it. Faster than Layla could respond, it jammed the syringe into her arm, emptying it.
Layla screamed, "What is this?!"
Vahn laughed, "Zero clue. That's all, by the way. If you all stay alive, I promise a rematch!"
He then fell into the water.
Michael said, "What does he mean by 'few'? A few minutes, hours, or days?"
It became apparently created what 'few' meant, as suddenly, they heard a roar erupt from where the navy ships were anchored down at. Looking over, the batteries of the ship lit up as shells rocketed out, aiming for the city itself.
The entire group began to run as fast as they could.