Departure and Arrival

The two trainers left to make the necessary preparations for the mission after discussing a bit more about how they would invade the cave of crystals. Even with their drastic change in attitude, they were not completely deprived of their facultative capabilities, and therefore could formulate some strategy for their goal. It was decided between them that Asa would recruit the qualified mutants, while Roberto would organize all the necessary items, from cars to medical kits.

Some time later, in a dark workshop with its handcrafted furniture, two young men were sitting on the floor next to each other, leaning against a wall. The youngest of them was sweating profusely, his mouth was open for as much air as possible. His arms no longer had the strength to rise, however, his expression was far from showing any dissatisfaction.

"I swear, you're going to have to make it up to me. I would never have thought that something like this could be useful." Jefferson exclaimed, he didn't even try to look at his newest customer beside him.

"Okay, I don't have anything of value with me right now, but I'll definitely pay you double! And thank you very much!" Lucas, who held a crucible*¹ in his hands, thanked him heartily. After all, he only had an idea of ​​what the weapon would look like, and he didn't even know if it could be produced. Fortunately, Jefferson showed his stupendous metal skills and managed to finish the product.

"I won't forget, and if you even think about damaging this, I'll make sure my next weapons are made of human flesh!" The young blacksmith threatened, not caring whether or not he could carry out this sentence.

"Hahaha…" Lucas ended up laughing, and Jefferson gave a small smile.

However, before they could rest any longer, Asa hurried into the forge shop.

"Lucas, are you finished?" His voice made his emotions clear, he was rushed and anxious. He had already found all the necessary fighters, of course they weren't really good fighters, they just had mutations that could help them in a fight.

Lucas realized how important the situation was, so he immediately got up and answered the question:

"Yes, I have my weapon ready!"

"Great, let's go!" The coach then turned and walked out of the forge, Lucas following him, but not before waving goodbye to Jefferson, who waved back.

…

Two vans left the base, each carrying about 10 mutants, 4 of them in the passenger seats and the others in the body, one was driven by Roberto and the other by Asa. Each of them was armed to the teeth, most with swords and clubs. However, some of them stood out due to their weapons, Asa was one of them, their gauntlets were very well known and drew attention for their shape.

Another mutant who got stares because of his weapon was a tall black guy, his hair and beard were huge, both in thickness and in length. His mutation caused any hair on his face to grow abnormally, breaking any record before the world turned upside down. In this way, he combed his hair in several buns so as not to disturb the others, and even so the height reached almost two meters, forcing him to travel in the body. However, the most curious thing about his hair was its tips, which were visible to anyone, and there were very sharp blades in them, resembling knives attached by strings to the human head.

However, it wasn't just the weapons that attracted eyes, Lara and Ingrid also stole the attention of those present, and the reason was clear, their beauty. While Ingrid stood out for her sensuality, Lara wore an appearance to shame anyone who looked at her, she was definitely as beautiful as the starry sky and was even more complete due to her long silver-white hair, which resembled the light of the sky. moon.

'Come on man, focus on the mission!' Lara and Lucas were in the same truck and sat across from each other in the back, he tried his best not to get distracted from his task, but in front of him was such a dazzling gem that his eyes moved instinctively to her. So he always quickly averted his eyes from her when he unintentionally watched her, and definitely everyone noticed that. Laughter and small whispers only made her situation worse, even Lara gave slight smiles at this scene.

While they waited to arrive at the mission site, everyone talked about different things, others were silent, like Lara and Lucas. Some conversations also mentioned the delicious fruits they received, there was no lack of praise for the flavor.

…

The trip didn't last long, not even an hour passed when the two pickup trucks got close to their destination. The cars stopped a few kilometers from the cave, the two trainers got out of their respective cars and gathered the mutants to explain about the mission.

"We're going into a tough fight, I won't fool you, however we have a lot of us here and I'm sure if we unite we will triumph in the end!" Roberto gave his words of encouragement trying to cheer up the audience, even if it wasn't his forte. Normally, Asa took care of that part, but this time he preferred to explain the purpose of the mission.

"Our task today is clear, breaking into a cave and getting the crystals inside, this is the easy part. The difficult thing is to get past the deformed porcupines, they can shoot their big stingers at their targets, dealing great damage…" Asa continued his description of the animals and purposely concealed that there were already lost lives in that cave.

Everyone understood the situation and the group started to move towards the cave. The plan they had was simple, the moment they saw the mutated beasts, they would attack with everything. However, some were not happy about it, one of them was Lucas.

'What are they thinking? Porcupines can attack from long range, so we have to position ourselves far apart, or at least carry shields to defend ourselves. In their way of just attacking and that's it, many will die!" He didn't know why they adopted such a strategy, but he wasn't happy at all.

So he plucked up courage and walked through the team until he reached the two coaches ahead. Very politely he asked:

"Excuse me Asa, wouldn't it be better if we didn't get together like this? Like, since pigs can throw spikes from a long distance, the probability of getting hit decreases dramatically if we're far away from each other, preventing the stinger thrown at someone from missing and ending up hitting the fellow next door." He said it all at once, not even waiting for Asa to stop to listen.

Roberto was not far away and he heard everything, when he heard the proposal, a gleam passed through his eyes and his mind cleared a little, the same happened with Asa. They were about to give the matter more thought when a woman approached and praised:

"Boss, I really liked the strategy! Really, numbers are strength!" She had no visible mutations, in fact there was nothing in her appearance that would make her stand out in the group. She had dark skin, black hair, normal height and weight, she carried two daggers in her hands and wore jeans with a sweatshirt,

The moment she spoke, the two returned to their previous state and Asa replied Lucas:

"Don't worry, it'll work." However, he didn't say in his friendly tone that he always used it.

"What the fuck?" Lucas turned his face toward the woman, clearly expressing his confusion, he couldn't guess if she was missing neurons or chromosomes. Even his language, which didn't often feature swear words, changed. The woman caught his gaze locked on hers and hit him with a cold light coming out of her irises. Lucas, for a brief moment, was able to sense a murderous intent coming from her.

"What did I do?!" He didn't understand anything else, first she had said the dumbest thing possible, and now she hated him without even knowing him. So he retreated to where he was within the team and began to better plan for the upcoming fight.

'Well, I will do my part. Porcupines can attack from a distance, so I have to stay away from the crowd and avoid getting close to the biggest target. Surely these thorns can kill, otherwise they wouldn't bring so many people, so I'll be right behind the group." So he started walking more slowly until he was the last of the team.

Meanwhile, a few meters away, Lara noticed Lucas' strange movement and, out of intuition or curiosity, decided to move closer. She slowed her pace and was soon close to the young man, but before she could clear her doubts, everyone could hear a clapping sound in their ears.