B&E
Borin guided the Shadow Talons along the grass walls, and soon they reached the place where the old entrance was located. Now it was just a massive wall with no windows. Anyone looking at the lab from the outside would just see a massive block of stone and not a building.
He confirmed that no one was around and used the same tool to make the cameras on the back be stuck on a loop. Then he left the grass walls and walked with his team towards the back of the building. Without saying a word, Korrin approached the structure and closed his eyes, using a couple of skills and a spell to confirm if there was any kind of trap or sensor that could see them. With a thumbs up, he confirmed his team that they were good to go. Syrinx was next, she opened her mouth with a silent word. The sound wave washed over the building like water hitting a sponge and was quickly absorbed by it. After a few moments she walked to the left, staying not exactly in the middle of this wall but just a bit off center, and used the air currents to draw a large rectangle against the structure.
Without saying a word, Liraelle stepped forward. She closed her eyes for a moment and placed one finger in the marked area. To anyone watching, nothing happened, but that was only on the outside. The elf had a particularly nasty skill that, in essence, reversed the clock on objects. It wasn't a finely tuned process that could resharpen an axe. Or one that could remove dirt and grime from it. Her power was more akin to unbaking a cake from the inside. The ingredients would break down, returning to their raw form while maintaining all the effects that brought the object to its current state. For a cake, the eggs would still have been heated, broken, crushed and mixed, and so would the flour, butter and sugar. But for those materials, that would have happened individually, not in a mixture. The eggs would become scrambled, and the sugar caramelize, the butter melt, and the flour ignite. Doing this with the wall had the same effect. Together, the different pieces of the mixture that created the structure were strong, but if the same degree of heat, mix, and grinding was applied to each individual component, that would change very quickly.
The unfortunate part was that this took a while. A full minute passed before Liraelle could feel the insides of the wall changing. Only after five minutes that she glanced back to the team and nodded. She reached to the wall but paused, noticing that Vash's music was coming to a lull. He had been using his stage skill for a while now as a way to make noise and cover any sounds the Shadow Talons could create. However, he warned that some of the songs would have low points. If he kept everything at a high intensity the entire time, it would be easier for the guards to notice other sounds.
Once the beat dropped, the elf smiled and gently tapped the wall in front of her. It instantly crumbled into dust, leaving some sand, gravel, and pieces of bones on the ground. The debris was so close to dust that the sound was much softer than even Liraelle expected. Behind that opening was an old set of double doors. Borin moved closer again and started lock picking them while Syrinx and Korrin made sure that it wasn't barred from the other side. It took them another two minutes to get the door open, not because of the lock, but because of the heavy weight that was behind it. Whey they finally were able to open the door enough for one of them to pass, they realized what happened. This was a storage room, and there was a large file cabinet leaning against the old entrance.
This was also a stroke of luck to the Shadow Talons. Being able to find a place like this was part of their plans, and they could go over any documents inside, searching for that one piece of information that could help the Alliance. They quickly went inside and started going through the files, making sure to close the door behind them. They wouldn't be leaving from there, anyway.
Outside, the Harmony Guardians continued their fight. But it was getting harder and harder to pretend they were being pushed back. The guards here were weak, at least in comparison with Hera and her team. They also were clearly not fit for the job. None of them knew how to fight and relied heavily on either items or one single skill.
The Empress dodged under another horizontal slash coming from the long-haired guard that came out of the facility a few minutes after their assault started. It was the 12th time the same attack came after her. Every single one of those blows was exactly the same. At the same height, speed, angle, and strength. Being able to replicate the same move over and over again would be impressive if it wasn't so underwhelming. The attack packed a punch, but it was slow, and the energy wave lost a lot of power as it moved. There was value in practicing the same move, but all that effort was wasted on this man. It was like he was following along a tutorial without understanding any of the content. He could replicate the effect, sure, but it would never be his own.
Hera had to dodge out of the way in an increasingly less convincing fashion every time. Her act this time was pretending to slip on a non existent banana peel. These guards were around Level 42, and they should be seeing the Harmony Guardians as a bunch of people in the mid 30s. That was all thanks to a ring that hid their actual level. It wasn't a powerful item, even if it was on the rarer side, but it wasn't infallible either. A strong skill could easily break through the illusion, and the notification window was clearly fake. The shape was a bit tilted, and the color was too dark, and the font was wrong. However, at a quick glance, or during a fight, people could fail to notice those mistakes.
From the corner of her eye, the Ophidianite saw Skyler gesturing to the path lead out and the two jumped away. Everyone was doing that from time to time, when they had to ask something or they felt they were pushing the humans too hard. Hera had set up a soundproof barrier around the area to let them talk without worrying about being heard.
"They are inside," Skyler said as the two walked inside the spell effect.
"Just now?"
"About a minute ago. The door gave them some trouble," the elf replied.
"Why is it always the door?" Hera sighed, realizing that it was one of the oldest clichés in existence.
"Beats me, but at least we know they are inside. And since the guards are still here, no one noticed them."
"How long we give them before stopping this?" Hera asked.
"As long as we can. The more time they have, the better," Skyler sighed. The two nodded and jumped back into the fray.
Just as they came out of the labyrinth's path, they saw the door opening and another human walking out. He was older, likely around his 40s and had a simple but sturdy leather armor. The only amongst all the guards that seemed to value more usability than looks.
"Why the fuck are you taking so long? Just kill them!" the man groaned, his face showing he only found this annoying.
"Captain, those fuckers are worse than roaches!" the man wearing an eastern tunic, the same one that kept sending that wide horizontal slash over and over again.
Just to make sure they weren't going over their heads, Hera used her [Observe].
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Derrik - Level 56
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"Rude fuckers," Derrik groaned and payed back in kind.
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You have been Observed
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That notification meant the captain was able to go through the illusion of the ring. Otherwise, it wouldn't show up. Another thing that confirmed that was the man's movements. There was a brief moment of surprise in his eyes, and his entire demeanor changed. He pulled a heavy-looking sledgehammer from his back and turned around before yelling, "Code Gray!"
When he turned back forward, Livy and Hera were both almost on top of him. Nimbus, Lurize, Viper, and Crimson were going after the rest of the guards. In a few swift motions, they killed all of them but the captain. Derrik was able to block the first couple of strikes coming from the Leviathan and the Ophidianite, but the man didn't expect the floating weapons to join in. It quickly became too much, and he perished under the assault.
"Fuck, they got us?" Flint rushed over. The move surprised him, but it wasn't completely unexpected. Everyone agreed that if someone was able to see their actual levels, they should just kill them.
"Yeah, his Observe got through," Hera sighed.
"Right, then let's get going. We need to storm the place and capture their command center, or whatever is in charge of communications and cameras," Flint gestured to the rest of the team that was already getting closer, "Plan B everyone!"
"Wait.. plan B? Aerial assault?" Vash asked.
"No, that's C. B is getting inside and taking control," Roan replied.
"No, it's not. That's just the followup of both plans," Vash shook his head.
"Whatever the number is, Roan is right. We go inside and try to serve as backup for the Shadow Talons. And we will be sure to defend against any human back up. We can stop the looping of the cameras to know if someone is getting closer," Skyler was the first to walk inside the lab.
"Also, we can use the communicators again. The humans already know about us and are under gray code, whatever the fuck that is," Neria shrugged.
Hera nodded and touched her neck, to talk with the Shadow Talons, "Ok, we are inside. Going to the command center. How are things on your end?"
"Odd.. we found some of the scientists, but they are already unconscious, bound and gagged. We might not be the only ones hitting this place," Korrin replied.
"Is that going to be a problem?" Flint was moving along the corridors, looking at the cameras to find where they led to.
"Hopefully no. But it's hard to tell. We don't know for sure how strong, or how many of them are. But they seem skilled. There are almost no signs of fighting. They also don't seem to care about data, so we are cleaning up the hard drives before moving to the next-" Korrin's voice was interrupted, but Lerialle's scream,
"The fuck is that thing?!"
Her voice didn't come from her own communicator, which meant that she was either extremely loud, or extremely close to the beastman.
Skyler, Flint, and Roan turned to Hera and said at once, "Go!"
With a nod, the Empress recalled her with the exception of Nimbus court and bolted through the facility. This was already part of the plan, she was the one woman army and any team who found trouble could count on her support.