Legio: Part 5

Daniel arrived before the police, checked out the unconscious men’s minds, and then concentrated on the van.

“They were all blocked,” Daniel said. “I wasn’t awed by the work. Whoever did it, didn’t have as much power or fine control as I do, but given those limitations, it was sophisticated. It would take me hours of work to get anywhere, and I couldn’t be sure I got everything.

“Fortunately for us,” he continued, “they didn’t do any thing to block impressions from building up in the van. So I’ve got the address.”

“Great,” Cassie said. “Let’s go.”

“What?” Vaughn grinned at her. “We’re just going to go over there and take them on?”

“Why not?”

“They might be expecting us,” I said. “Or expecting to be chased at any rate.”

“No,” Cassie said. “They got away. No pursuit. I’m sure they’ll be watching, but they don’t have a reason to be.”

“Right,” Jaclyn said. “We were doing okay with just the two of us. Now we’ve got five –”

“Seven,” Lucas said.

“Oh, no,” Jaclyn said. “We are not bringing you along.”

“Lu — Red Legacy,” Shannon began. “They don’t want us. I’d be fine with going home.”

“No,” Lucas said. “I want to see this through.”

Cassie put her hand on Daniel’s shoulder, “Hey Mystic, where are they?”

“The north side. It’s in an older neighborhood, not far from all the factories and warehouses. They’ve rented an older house. A big one.”

“Are there a lot of people in the house?”

“I don’t know. I couldn’t get that.”

“Do a lot of different people use the van? Or is it the same people all the time.”

Daniel stepped back, and thought about it. “Yeah. A lot of different people.”

Cassie smiled at Lucas and Shannon. “Consider yourself in. Let’s go.”

Jaclyn looked over at them and then at Cassie. “Are you serious?”

“We might need them.”

“What about the rest of the League? They ought to be showing up soon.”

“I doubt it. I canceled the yellow once Storm King and Rocket showed up. Everyone else has to cross town to HQ to suit up before they get here, not to mention leaving whatever they’re doing… I bet they didn’t even get to HQ before the alert changed.”

Daniel nodded. “It turned to green on my way. I only showed up because I was closer to here than home.”

Vaughn said, “We could call everybody, and have them meet us there.”

Cassie shook her head. “We’d still have to wait, and I want to hit them while they’re off-balance. Let’s go.”

“What about those guys?” I pointed toward the bodies.

“We’ll leave them for the cops. Accelerando, you could tell them what happened, and then catch up with us. Mystic, can you give her the address?”

As Daniel said, “Sure,” Lucas turned to me and asked, “She’s team leader?”

“For the day. We switch off.”

The police showed up as we flew away, Cassie’s motorcycle running down the road below us.

* * *

The north side of downtown held mostly factories, old houses, and Grand Lake University. The house stood less than half a mile from the two smashed buildings where we’d run into the Gray Giant, and the abandoned building where Lee sometimes held practices.

Jaclyn had caught up with us before we arrived, running next to Cassie.

We stopped a couple blocks away from the house, gathering in the parking lot of an old brick factory. The factory went for half a block by itself, obscuring most of the parking lot from the view of Lake Street, the main road through this section of town.

The factory used to make furniture. White bricks spelled the name “Wilson Furniture Co.” on the side. I didn’t know what it made now.

Whatever it made, it closed before eight. We were the only ones in the parking lot. With the sun still setting, we had light to work with, and we’d made a point of standing with the factory between us and the road.

We circled next to Cassie and her motorcycle.

Shannon stood next to Lucas, shifting her weight from one foot to another, and sometimes looking down the street.

Vaughn moved between Jaclyn and Cassie, asking Jaclyn, “How’d it go with the cops?”

“I barely talked to them. I told them who the guys on the ground were, and how the hole got there, and left.”

Shannon said, “I don’t want to be a pest, but who were they? I don’t know either.”

We all looked at each other.

“I don’t know, for sure,” I said, “but I’ve been assuming that they were what’s left of the Cabal’s gang. We know they’re in the area, and since they went after members of the Southside gang, it fits. Kind of, anyhow. They’ve got better equipment than normal gangs.”

“It makes sense,” Vaughn said. “I always heard that you could buy drugs from the Lake Street gang at Harbor Place apartments. Maybe they’re taking over or something?”

“I told the police they were with the guy who murdered those people last Sunday,” Jaclyn said. “That’s where I stopped.”

“Well,” Cassie said, “we’ll know more when we take them in. Right now, we should make a plan, and I came up with one I like on the way here.

“Here it is… The Mystic, Storm King and Red Legacy fly up above the house. I’ll use the motorcycle to shoot in smoke and tear gas grenades. The Mystic can tell us where they’re leaving the house, and you two,” she pointed at Lucas and Vaughn, “can zap everybody coming out from above. The rest of us will take anyone you missed.”

“I don’t really know anything about fighting,” Shannon said. “What should I –”

Cassie interrupted her. “Don’t worry about it. If you can put a thin layer of darkness around the sides and back, they’ll come out the front. Can you do that?”

“I think so.”

“Anyone else?” Cassie asked.

The last time Cassie had been in charge, we’d fought the Gray Giant. That hadn’t gone very well, mostly because we had no idea what we were really facing.

This plan sounded pretty good.

19 thoughts on “Legio: Part 5”

  1. Hey Jim, nice work on Legio, this arc seems pretty intriguing. I’m liking the action. Red Legacy can join the good guys anytime, but Sean needs a kick in the head.

  2. The plan does seem pretty solid but like they say, no plan survives contact with the enemy. As Nick points out, with GG they had trouble because they didn’t know what they were up against and, well, they don’t really know who or what is in that house this time, either…

  3. GSW: Good to see you’re online again (and posting at your own serial). Thanks. It should be an amusing arc.

    The Plan: Plans seldom do survive contact with the enemy. Will this one? That’ll be more obvious on Wednesday…

  4. Was it deliberate to have Jacyln’s and Daniel’s name said out loud there? Or is this all mind-discussion?

  5. Oops. No, that was me making a mistake.

    It’s fixed now.

    Thanks.

    The funny thing is that I caught that exact mistake a couple times in the course of writing this. Just not quite often enough.

  6. Also, the second to last line “The last time I could think of…” seems really confusing. It couldn’t probably do with some attantion some time.

  7. A good point. I was wondering about that line as I posted it. Like a lot of awkward sentences, that one became clearer after I removed a couple clauses.

  8. I don’t think so. The head of the local organized crime group was named Monroe, but it’s been a while since I wrote it, so it’s not impossible that there’s a Wilson mentioned.

  9. Ah, the best laid plans of mice and men, etcetera. Nick is just asking for trouble with an ending line as hopeful as that one.

    G.S.: I’d just as soon Red Legacy not join up with the good guys until he can manage not to accidentally (possibly on purpose?) fry them with lightning while in the course of trying to apprehend the bad guys.

    As a side note, if Nick can ID the Justice Fisters (heh) from voice alone, what’s to stop Sean from doing the same to his old sweetie?

  10. Wilson is Keith’s last name, but I think that’s the first mention of the name in LoN. Hooray for text string searches.

  11. When Nick wanted to scare Sean to think the Cabal was after him, he used “Wilson” as the name of the make-believe attacker with TK.

  12. GS,
    Nick needs a kick in the head. Don’t poke at someone’s trigger. Especially don’t do it three times within three minutes. That’s being more of an idiot than Sean was being.

  13. @Mazzon
    “Improvise is the only plan that survives first contact with the enemy.” – Sam Starfall in the webcoic ‘Freefall’

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