The Six Guns - 21 Chapter Twenty One

The night passed by slowly, and the next day eventually fell upon the crew. The Ueda sisters had left before anyone to find a place to sing while also not being in the open to avoid any interruptions for their performance. Holly stayed at the hotel and the rest of the group went traveling around town trying to blend in. When evening fell upon them, as the sun began to set, all of the volumetric displays shut off simultaneously. The crowd of people on the street nearly froze in place as there was lots of mumbling and light bustling amongst the crowd in panic. After a while, the Ueda sisters appeared in every display in town. Through the displays, the Ueda sister’s voices could be heard. As both of them raised one fist in the air they said “Good evening, Shibuya!”.

The crowd grew silent, and after just a few seconds that felt like a few minutes amidst all the panic, they began to sing their first song. The group couldn’t understand what the Ueda sisters were singing about at all, since they sang in Japanese and none of them understand Japanese. At least none of them understood Japanese well enough to know what they were singing about. The crowd seemed unmoving, but fixated on the sisters. The crowd seemed to still be worried about what was happening.

After inspecting the crowd’s reactions, Alex crosses his arms and says “They’re not bad, but I don’t think they’re doing well enough to get the reactions we need”.

“Maybe our approach was way too aggressive” Rose adds.

Looking over his shoulder in surprise, Alex says to Rose “That’s the most sense you’ve ever made”.

“Rude!” Rose says in a pouting manner.

After a while of standing in the street with the crowd, the first song ended and the next song began. Few people in the crowd began cheering as the Ueda sisters began their next song. One by one, the rest of the crowd began to join in. Suddenly, the crowd all seemed to be enjoying their performance.

Now impressed, Finn says “They’re actually pulling it off! Maybe, for once, just maybe things will go as planned”.

“They’re pretty good for people who started off with just singing karaoke” Alex says. “By the way, did they write this song or is this more karaoke?”.

Thinking to himself for a moment, Siran replies “I have no idea, but I like it”.

After a while of listening to music with the crowd, The Six Guns crew found themselves enjoying the show with the rest of the crowd. For a while, everything seemed to be doing just fine. After the fourth song ended, and the fifth song began, suddenly all the volumetric displays shut off again. Everyone fell silent again. Eventually, the crowd began mumbling again, until the crew noticed that a lot of people were running from the south side of town. They saw people running out of the streets in a hurry. As the crowd grew more and more thin, the sound of a megaphone turning on could be heard over the subtle panic.

“Go to your homes” the voice over the megaphone said, “this is not a drill. We have a security clearance level nine, cyber terrorism attack, operation in motion”.

As the crowd nearly completely dispersed, the crew could see a line of soldiers walking down the street with a megaphone in one of their hands. Ly’Lum soldiers. Lightly pushing the others out of the streets and towards the direction of the hotel, Siran said “Come on, we need to go”.

As the crew hurried along, Rose asks “What’s going on? The show wasn’t supposed to end so soon, was it?”.

“No” Alex replies, “it wasn’t. It was supposed to go on for a little longer. This is also a strange reaction to a cyber attack, if this situation can even be considered as such”.

Once again, the soldier with the megaphone could be heard over the crowd, saying “We have reason to believe the attack is from a local area. Wait in your homes until further update on the situation. This is for your safety!”.

Suddenly stopping, Zia begins to panic. “We need to go find the Ueda sisters before they do!” She says. “If they know this operation is being pulled from inside the city, they could be in danger”.

“You’re right” Siran replies. “Their faces will be known because they projected themselves on the volumetric displays. They basically just gave the military an animated wanted poster”.

Alex suddenly getting more worried, which already seemed alarming to the rest of the group, asks “Do you know where they went?”.

“No” Siran replies, “but Holly does. We have to hurry to the hotel!”.

As they got close to the hotel, the ran into Holly not far from the hotel. Holly had ran outside to find them as well. After running towards the group, Holly fixes her glasses on her face and asks “What happened? This all went down before I planned on shutting down the servers. Why aren’t any of the displays responding?”. As she talked, she folded her gun into a case for her laptop, and attached her case to the back of her belt. Letting the computer rest on the small of her back.

“No idea” Siran says in a panic, “but the Ueda sisters might be in danger. We need to go find them, immediately!”.

“Understood” Holly says, “follow behind me”. As Holly runs, the rest follow behind her. Trying to stay out of the streets so they don’t get spotted by the soldiers, they run through alleys and fields. Arriving at a small entrance to a building that looked like a recently shut down business in a shopping complex, they stop outside to listen at first. Holly lightly pressed her ear to the door, but couldn’t hear anything inside. Eventually, the crew quietly enters the building, closing the door as quietly as possible after they all enter. They come to the room where the Ueda sisters should’ve been, with several cameras standing in the room with a green screen behind them. The room was empty besides the cameras. The Ueda sisters were nowhere to be found. Starting to worry even more, Holly pulls her laptop back out and uses it to call Satomi’s phone again. The room fell dead silent and still as they all waited for someone to pick up. Unfortunately, no one ever answered the phone. Visibly panicking more, Holly says in a harsh whisper to herself “Shit!” as she tracks down both Satomi’s and Mikoto’s phones. After a while of inspecting the screen, without saying a word, Holly shows the rest of the crew her laptop.

“We have several problems right now” Holly says. “Luckily, they’re together, but they’re traveling fast. They’re either in a car or worse”.

“Worse how!?” Alex demands.

Looking at her laptop again and squinting her eyes as if she’s focusing more than before, Holly says “Their travel pattern isn’t following any of the streets. They’d either have to be in the air or underground, and I didn’t see any planes or helicopters before coming inside. I also didn’t see them with a car before today, so I’m assuming they’re not driving and most certainly not getting the VIP treatment”.

After thinking to himself, Alex looks up and asks Holly “Can you try tracking them over a map of the subway lines?”.

Still staring at her laptop, Holly replies “Already working on that but I’m not having any luck. This either means we didn’t pay enough attention to the sky, or they’re in the military subway lines. Worst case scenario, they’re in the military subway lines, which are old subway lines that were shut down long ago”.

Jumping to the conclusion, Rose proposes “Then we have to go to the subway and follow them!”.

“Only problem with that is” Holly interrupts, “I have no idea how we can get in, and we can’t get there through the regular subway system. Those tunnels would’ve been walled off long ago”.

Turning around and approaching the door, Siran gets ready to leave. As he starts walking towards the door, he says “Then we follow the signal from above ground. We get there and find out where they’re going. We still don’t know for sure whether or not they’ve been taken or if they just had an escape route we didn’t know about”. Holly nods her head in agreement, and then runs ahead of the group to lead them. As the rest of the group follows behind Holly, they notice that the signal from their phones is getting farther and farther away. The Six Guns frantically followed the signals to the south. Eventually the signals stopped moving. After finally getting close to the signals, the crew came across a group of buildings that looked like CEO offices for big businesses. However, the buildings had tall gates surrounding the entire area and soldiers everywhere. It was clear to them that this was what The Ly’Lum were using as a base here in Shibuya. One look at Holly’s laptop would make it obvious the phone signals were coming from inside that base, however, the phone signals eventually stopped as they seemed to completely drop off the radar. As if the situation weren’t bad enough for them, they all now feared the worst was coming for the Ueda sisters.

The crew froze with fear for their friends. Eventually, Rose spoke up through a shaky voice. “We have to go in there somehow” she says.

“How?” Finn asks, “are we supposed to just walk up there and knock on their front door? Yes, hello, sorry our friends got captured by you. We were wondering, if by any chance, can we have them back!?”.

Clenching his fists, Siran says in a low voice “If that’s what it takes, I’ll open their damn door myself!”.

The crew fell silent for a moment until Finn began to panic. “Whoa, whoa, whoa” he exclaims, “hold your horses! I know you’re a little crazy, but think more realistically here!”.

As if ignoring Finn, Siran turns to Holly and asks “Which direction did their phone signals last show before they went off the radar?”.

“Directly south east of here” Holly says in an almost calm voice. “If you go there, you’ll need to look for any room that could block a phone signal. Thick concrete walls, near a radio jammer, anything”.

Now taking off his sunglasses, and exposing his eyes squinting in anger, Siran says “Then I have a Plan B. We’ll split into three groups, one distraction, one extraction, and one group to locate the Ueda sisters. The distraction squad will need to be better at defense than anything, so I’ll need Holly and Alex to do that. They’ll keep the enemy occupied, and fighting back won’t be necessary. We just need them occupied”.

“What about me?” Finn asks, turning to Siran. “My illusion magic can distract them pretty well, so don’t you think that’ll be better?”.

Still focusing hard on the base in front of them, Siran replies “I’ll need you and Rose for extraction. Locate vehicles and steal a getaway vehicle for us. With your ability as a thief, you should be able to pull that off as you have Rose blinding enemies to getaway. Store the vehicle at the northern gate and we’ll escape through here. Zia and I will locate the Ueda sisters and meet with you ASAP”.

“A little constructive criticism?” Alex asks as he turns to Siran.

Siran puts his sunglasses in his pocket and says “No. Now get ready, we’re going in now and I’m going to make this quick”.

Preparing herself for a fight, Zia asks Siran “What do you need me to do?”.

Looking over his shoulder, Siran responds “I’ll need you to help knock out anyone in our way as quietly as possible. You’ll also need to use stability and speed buff spells to keep up. We’re making this job a quick one”.

Zia nods her head, then Finn starts to panic. “Wait, now?” He asks. “As in RIGHT NOW!?”.

After Finn asked his questions, Siran raises his gun and shoots a large hole into the gates where a lock would be. He and Zia go charging in quickly as Alex and Holly follow behind them. Before Finn could respond, an alarm in the base starts to go off. Finn looks over at Rose and says “This is too crazy, even for me”.

As if understanding why Siran is too eager to save a friend, Rose says to Finn “Maybe he’s just afraid of losing anyone he considers a friend. I can understand feeling like that too, I’m worried about them as well”.

Finn scratches the back of his head as he says “Yeah… I guess. Come on, we’ve got a job to do too”.

As Finn and Rose caught up with the rest, both of the other groups were waiting together. There is a large wave of soldiers in front of them and Holly is shielding them from attacks as Alex fights off anyone who gets close. Siran nods to Alex as if they had come to an agreement over something. Alex then throws a large wave of fire off to their right side, then Siran and Zia run along the fire. As they ran, they hid behind the flames, out of the view of the soldiers. Finn and Rose followed behind them. When both of their groups arrived at an entrance to the large buildings, they split up. Siran and Zia ran inside the building as Finn and Rose ran around the outside in search for a vehicle.

As Siran as Zia dashed through the building, they avoided visual contact with as many soldiers as possible. They only took out the ones that were absolutely necessary. Quickly heading south east, going up and down flights of stairs, they came across a room with thick concrete walls after a short while of searching. Instead of charging in Siran pressed his ear against the door to try to listen for voices. Unfortunately, the door was too thick to listen through. Zia lightly taps Siran’s shoulder, telling him to back away from the door without using words. After Siran back ups, Zia pulls out a paper charm and holds it against the door. She makes a rectangle with both of her thumbs and index fingers, as if she were taking a picture with her hands, and Zia’s one white eye starts to glow as the same magic charm that’s on the paper glows from within her eye as well. A clairvoyance spell, one of the forbidden magics that the Mahina clan specializes in.

Not long thereafter, Zia turns to Siran and says “The Ueda sisters are in there, but I see someone else in there. It looks like… Amelia Reese of The Mages Guild?”.

In a shock, Siran says in a harsh whisper “One of THE Mages are here!?”.

Looking back at the door, Zia says “Looks like it, but we don’t have the time to fight one of the strongest people on the planet. You’ll have to make this quick”.

Standing back and closing his eyes, Siran focuses for a few seconds. The air pressure around him seemed to increase substantially, as he opens his eyes again and says “Don’t worry, I didn’t plan on sticking around for long. I’ll be in and out in a matter of seconds”. Siran gets in a position that seems like he’s about to run, but as he takes his first step, he disappears. What looked like a tiny lightning bolt passes through the door as Siran appears on the other side. A spell called rift walking, another distortion spell. Zia backs away from the door, as Siran appears in front of a rather intimidating audience. On the other side of the door, Siran grabs both Satomi and Mikoto by the arms and stands them up. He snaps his fingers and the handcuffs that were previously on the Ueda sisters cracked and fell into pieces. He looks right at the woman wearing a well tailored suit, smiles, bows his head, then shoots open the door. Zia grabs Mikoto and carries her on her back as Siran picks up Satomi and they both run off with an incredible speed. The room fell silent and dumbfounded for two seconds until the woman in the suit, Amelia Reese shouts “Don’t just stand there! We don’t pay you to be stupid, after them!”. But by the time everyone ran outside the room, neither Siran nor Zia were anywhere in sight.

Siran and Zia ran back towards the northern gate. Unfortunately for them, they were on the third floor and had to avoid the stairs because there were too many soldiers blocking their path. Ahead of them were some windows, and Siran broke them from a great distance by using distortion magic to punch them from a distance. As they ran towards the windows, Siran says to Zia “Get Satomi off of your back. We’re going to need to increase our stability buff spell to the point to where we can endure jumping from this height. If we jump with them on our backs, they’ll still feel the impact and it could kill them”.

Zia nods her head as they both take the Ueda sisters off of their backs and cradle them in their arms. They jump out of the window and land on the concrete below them with a loud cracking sound. The ground beneath them cracked and nearly shattered, but they were both fine from the jump. As they look up, a truck pulls out in front of them. Rose is sitting in the back and she gestures with her hands as she shouts “Get in! Quick!”. They all got in the truck and they drove ahead to pick up Holly and Alex as well. As Alex and Holly get in, Holly was shielding the truck from damage. But a particularly strong spell hit Holly’s digital shield. As they all look up, Reese was chasing them on foot, and she was catching up.

As if by natural reaction, Rose stood up and threw a knife at high speed towards Reese. However, Reese caught the knife in mid flight, and threw it back at an even faster speed. As the knife flew, a charm on the back of the knife grew increasingly brighter. The team covered their face as the shield shattered, except for Rose who pulled out another knife and tried to block with it. Rose barely managed to block the knife from hitting her in the face, but while she was focusing too hard on the knife flying at her, the blinding spell went off in her own face. Rose fell to the ground, writhing in great pain.

As everyone panics, Alex shouts to Finn “DRIVE! JUST DRIVE RIGHT NOW!”. They took off and eventually lost sight of Amelia Reese. After a while, it was quiet in the truck as Rose, Satomi and Mikoto were all breathing very weakly. Satomi and Mikoto had several bruises on their faces and a lot of blood coming out of their noses. Satomi was bleeding out of the side of her head, and Mikoto had bruises in the shape of a hand on her throat. Both of the Ueda sisters were knocked unconscious.

After a while, Rose finally uncovers her eyes. She seems to finally come back to her senses as she asks in a weak voice “Why can’t I open my eyes?”.

Zia looks over and asks “What do you mean?”.

“No matter how hard I try” Rose says, “I can’t open my eyes!”.

“Your eyes ARE open” Alex says as he looks at Rose.

Zia looks closer at Rose’s eyes and sees that her cornea looked like they were burned by the intense light. Zia raises her hand while pointing two fingers up and asks “How many fingers am I holding up?”.

Getting frustrated, Rose replies “I don’t know! I can’t see!”.

Once again it got quiet for a while. Rose seems to be coming to a realization as she says “Wait… don’t tell me”.

“Oh no” Siran says as rubs the bridge of his nose in frustration.

“Am I…” Rose begins to ask as her voice cracks from sheer fear alone. It takes her a while to build up the courage to finish asking her question before she finally asks “… am I blind?”.

Siran lets out a deep sigh in sorrow, then says “I’m afraid so. I’m sorry, it’s all my fault, if only I-“

Zia interrupts Siran and says “No it’s not. Besides, it might not even be permanent! Her eyes can heal over time”.

“I can get my vision back then?” Rose asks in a shaky tone.

“I’ll make sure you get your vision back” Siran responds, still feeling guilty for her blindness. “I’m not yet sure how, but I will. I promise”.
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