Mission Complete
Breathing heavily I open my eyes - I had shut them tightly while in pain. Trembling a bit, I sit up only to see a bunch of worried faces surrounding me. Crouching directly in front of me, however, is Viv.
She reaches out and wipes away something wet beneath my eyes. Tears. "Sorry," she says, "I should have come to protect you guys sooner but I was busy dealing with something."
I have no idea why, but hearing a girl my age speak in such a caring way made me feel small. I felt like I was a little kid she had to take care of, and I did not like that feeling one bit. "I'm fine," I say, even as my trembling voice disproved that statement.
Shying away from her touch, I force myself to my feet and study the fight still ongoing in front of me. Somehow, even though the Fasuru had now joined the fight, Kane is still holding his ground. Still, the fight is now in a precarious situation. The masked man is now holding a pair of glasses in his hand. The Eyes. The remains of the box that had been holding it lay littered on the ground.
"Aren't you going to help him?" I ask Viv. Judging from what I heard about the glasses earlier today, if the masked man puts it on this whole fight is over; he could convince us to kill each other or make us believe he didn't exist, there are so many ways he could end this.
"Not yet. He hasn't gone all out."
I understand what she means when a second later, Kane's eyes begin to glow. The third eye. Kane has already opened his third eye. Alarmed, the masked man attempts to put on the glasses, but Kane isn't having any of them. A shock wave spreads out from him as he steps on the ground and blurs. He reaches the masked man less than a second later and swats away the arm holding the glasses, then he strikes out with his palm toward the masked man's chest. The palm connects, producing a sickening crunch before the masked man is sent flying.
The spider attempts to grab the glasses, but the moment it touches them it jerks its hand away with a hiss. The glasses had reacted to its touch and hurt it, as expected of an artifact created by the Laen. At this moment, Viv finally makes her move, running toward the glasses. The spider immediately focuses on her, and the protrusions on its head vibrate. Viv takes a step and vanishes, dodging the unseen attack, before reappearing above the spider.
She raises her hand and focuses Uua on it, shaping it so that it extends some inches beyond her hand before coming to a point. Then she strikes down, driving her hand into its head. The spider retreats as a sharp high pitched scream reaches my ears. It doesn't bleed as the wound on its head slowly closes, but its size seems to have reduced somehow.
It turns back to face Viv and attacks, striking with its sharp pincers. The attacks pass through her without any resistance, even as the Eyes of Deceit seemingly rise into the air on their own. Then the real Viv appears, smiling as she holds onto the glasses.
"Too slow," she says to the spider before she puts the glasses on. The moment she does so, everyone's fighting stops. I try to look around me and quickly come to a realization, I am unable to move an inch. The smile on Viv's face widens as she raises a hand. Suddenly, the spider bursts into action, diving into its injured Familiar-kin before vanishing together with him.
The smile on her face freezes and slowly she lowers her hand, a look of supreme disappointment on her face. "I didn't even get to really use it." The disappointment in her voice is palpable. Letting out a sigh, she takes off the glasses. Almost immediately I regain control of my limbs.
"If you didn't target me, I might have been able to stop him," Kane says, his eyes already having returned to normal.
"Sorry, I couldn't really control who was and wasn't affected. But damn, I felt its power, and it's… crazy. I want to keep it."
"We have to return it," I remind her.
"I know. Here, take it, before I decide to keep it for good." She hands it to me.
I accept it and spend the next few seconds wondering where to keep it. Someone nudges my side and I turn to see Noah holding out a case to me. "I brought it in case something like this happened."
I collect it from him and keep the glasses inside before stuffing the whole thing into my pocket. With that out of the way, I am finally able to take a breath of relief as well as finally take in all the destruction we caused. The broken delivery truck, small gouges in the road - most likely caused by Adelia's arcs - and several craters, big and small, created when Kane fought the masked man. Toss in the bullets littered on the ground and random scorch marks and the end result is that it looks as though a war had just taken place here.
"What do we do about the road?" Adelia asks, voicing my concerns.
Kane looks around for a moment before pulling out his phone. After a quick call, he turns to face us. "The cleanup crew are on their way."
"Cleanup crew?"
"Of course. Do you know how many messes we cause every year? This, is nothing. The cleanup crew will take care of it, however, until then we will need to redirect traffic. Viv?"
"On it. Noah, follow me, you can learn a thing or two from this."
The two Illusion members leave.
"Um, hello." A voice says from behind me.
I turn around to see Aussie giving me a bright, insincere, smile. "Can you let us go now?"
The fact that he managed to speak a sentence without cussing almost floors me. I turn to Kane, who does nothing except stare back at me. I am quick to grab his meaning. My mission, my choice. I turn back and begin to question Aussie. A few minutes later, I finally understand how he got involved in all this.
Someone powerful, probably an Ascendant had paid them a hefty amount of money to ship an unknown package. At first, they wanted to refuse, but then their boss ordered them to do it. They were still suspicious, but after an inspection revealed only a pair of glasses, they relaxed a bit. They had shipped their fair share of illicit artifacts over the years, and while it was a bit risky, it was still fairly safe. Until today.
After making sure they truly had nothing to do with this, I freed him and his companion.
"What about our truck?" Aussie's partner asks.
"Meet the resident Guardian tomorrow, you'll be compensated for it," Kane answers.
"That's all, what abo-"
"Don't push it. You aren't exactly innocent people, I mean, you just confessed to having shipped several illicit artifacts over the years. You will be compensated for the truck, that's it. If you want anything more, then we might have to report the rest of your activities. So?"
"Don't worry," Aussie spits, "as long as we're able to get our fucking truck back then there's no problem."
Kane nods, then proceeds to ignore them.
The cleanup crew arrives not long after and it consists of one Wranth woman. She takes a good look around and mutters something about destructive kids before opening her third eye. What follows is the captivating scene of her repairing everything, except the truck. By the time she is done, everything is almost as good as before we fought here.
"Can you please help us with our truck?" Aussie's partner begs as she begins to leave.
She stops and stares silently at him for a few seconds. Then she faces the truck and pushes out with her palm. The truck's various parts are shoved off the road with telekinesis before coming to a stop. Satisfied, she leaves, not bothering to answer the outraged cries of Aussie. Kane watches all this with a small smirk.
Finally, everything is over. Viv and Noah stop their actions, allowing people to start passing the road once again, Aussie and his partner get someone to come and pick them up and the packages they were delivering, and I and my team are finally able to leave.
Our first stop is the bookshop, where we handed the glasses over to Hugo. Like Viv, Hugo also can't resist putting the glasses on when he lays his hands on them. For a moment I fear I will be paralyzed again, but Hugo does nothing of the sort, choosing instead to take off the glasses after a few moments.
He nods to me. "Good job. It seems like your first mission wasn't too much of a hassle. Just know that subsequent missions will get harder."
"Harder?" Toby sounds shocked. "We almost died in this one and the next few ones are going to get harder."