Chapter Fifty-Four – A Bad Omen

“Hey, kid, can you give me a hand with something?”

Jezebelle looked up. It was nearly four-thirty, maybe five o’ clock, and she was looking forward to being out of the Endgame and back at their base. Honestly, she could use a break.

Yesterday had been… intense. At some point in the early afternoon, when she had been out of the Endgame, there was a sudden alert. She had been called back in, told to dress up and rush back, but it had been for nothing.

It turned out that there had been a message passed around. The Orbject–which was a crazy name–had changed hands.

Now, it was suspected that the object being passed from one villain to another within the same team would also send out that same warning signal, but since it had been a couple of days since anything of the sort had happened, the HRF suspected that maybe there had been a clash of some sort. One team of villains tracking down and stealing from another.

Which would be wild.

The HRF had been searching for any clues about who was responsible, or what had happened, and so far nothing had come up. It was frustrating. The number of patrols they’d done had doubled, and…

Well, she could tell that the higher-ups were starting to sweat a little.

This Endgame was rated very low in terms of threat and danger. It didn’t change the environment too much, the city wasn’t inherently dangerous, and the objective wasn’t something too bad.

She’d looked into it, watched some sleep-inducing documentary on past Endgames. Some of them called for heroes and villains to fight their own allies, sometimes to the death. There were some that made people sick, or changed the geography of entire regions.

This one? This was about as ‘safe’ as an Endgame could be, and yet the longer it went on, the more nervous the higher-ups grew.

The Endgame was expanding, and it was doing so faster and faster. Yesterday it had moved out three metres. In a day. Today it was projected to be four.

That didn’t look like too much, but she could do math. That total area was growing by a lot, and it was growing by larger increments every day. That, and the ‘prize’ at the end was scary too.

They knew that the Endgame handed out minor powers to villains and people who did things with relative ease. Those powers were all thematic. Theft and stealth.

The HRF did not like it when villains had stealth powers. It wasn’t the worst thing, but it was up there.

So there was this constant, conflicting feeling that things were expanding too quickly and yet not quickly enough.

“Glamazon?”

She jumped and refocused on the woman standing across from her. She had been eating lunch in one of the breakrooms set up in the HRF headquarters. “Sorry,” she said. “How can I help you, Obscure?”

The woman smiled, clearly not too bothered by Jezebelle’s absent-mindedness. “Nothing big. I was about to head out with Duty Bound. We’re going to go investigate a place not too far from here. Want to come?”

“What sort of investigation?” she asked.

“Nothing too big,” Obscure said. “I just overheard a few things. Thought I’d be proactive for once and go check it out?”

“Oh… yeah, I guess. Are we going with a team of troopers?”

The woman shook her head. “Just the three of us. Should be plenty, right?”

“I guess?” she said. She was a little confused, but she shook it off and stood. She was done with lunch anyway. She had this suspicion that the HRF was trying to keep its soldiers and heroes nice and thin by providing them with food that a starving dog might hesitate to eat.

Obscure smiled, then reached up and adjusted the half-face mask she wore. It only covered the upper half of her face, leaving her mouth and some of her nose exposed. “It won’t be too long, I don’t think.”

“That’s fine. Didn’t have very much else to do,” Jezebelle said. “Do you think the higher-ups have any clue about what’s going on?”

“I doubt it,” Obscure said as she led them out. It wasn’t long before they were down a few flights of stairs and stepping outside. It was unseasonably nippy out, and Jezebelle genuinely regretted the amount of skin-tightness in her suit.

“Is this cleared with command?” she asked.

“Yeah, didn’t I just tell you that?” Obscure asked as she bumped shoulders with Jezebelle.

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She frowned. Had the older woman said that? Probably. She was a little tired. The non-stop special alerts and extra patrols were definitely getting to her.

There was a HRF transport truck waiting by the side of the HQ, just kind of parked up on the sidewalk with Duty Bound leaning up against it, chained-over arms crossed over his chest. “Finally,” he said.

“Sorry about that,” Obscure said. “But hey, Glamazon agreed to help! It’ll be much safer with the three of us.”

“Should we bring a few troopers, just in case?” Jezebelle asked. She trusted her powers. They were pretty decent, but… well, having backup didn’t hurt. There were Villains out there, after all.

“I think we’ll be fine,” Obscure said. “I’ll drive.”

“I can do it,” Duty Bound said.

“It’s fine, I have an idea of where to go,” Obscure said.

Jezebelle found herself in the back, with Duty Bound sitting shotgun just in front of her. They took off, and it only took a moment to cross through the gate that had gone up around the headquarters. The troopers there checked Obscure’s papers and looked in, then let them pass without a fuss.

“So, where are we going, exactly?” she asked.

“Just out,” Obscure said. “Sometimes taking a bit of initiative doesn’t hurt. And I’m tired of being cooped up. The HRF does a lot of things in… honestly, kind of stupid ways.”

Duty Bound snorted. “Tell me about it.”

“They’re very reactive. It’s a weakness.”

They. the word stuck out to Jezebelle, and she found herself staring at the back of Obscure’s head. Something about the woman was bothering her, but she couldn’t quite put her finger on what.

They drove through a few streets, driving back and forth in what seemed like a pretty normal patrol route. The two at the front started a rather boring discussion about fast food places, of all things, and she only paid attention with one ear.

Then Obscure sat up. “Look! Doesn’t that building look suspicious?”

“Huh?” she asked before leaning forwards. It was some sort of warehouse or something. Maybe an old factory? It didn’t seem strange to her.

Obscure still parked them on the side of the road a ways down. “Let’s go check it out,” she said.

“We should call it in if you see something,” she said.

“We will, let’s just look, first?”

She worked her jaw, but when they both left the car, she followed. She raised her power, preparing it to burst, but still kept it locked in close. She just had a weird feeling about things.

Obscure had them move around the building, then came up to a door on the side. Duty Bound reached out and tried the handle, then shrugged after it did nothing. “Locked,” he said.

“Let me try,” Obscure said. She grabbed the handle, then a moment later, the door opened. “Not that locked.”

“Oh… oops?” Duty Bound said with a shrug.

Weird, but whatever. Jezebelle followed them into what was obviously just some warehouse. It was dark, but all three had lights, so it wasn’t that bad. Then Obscure found a door with stairs leading down. “Anyone down there?” she called in.

Strange.

They went down, and Jezebelle found herself freezing up. This was a base. There was a kitchen, things hanging from the ceiling, items scattered around, but… no, this was definitely someone’s hideout.

“No one home?” Duty Bound asked. “Hello!”

“We need to report this,” she said.

Obscure turned and reached over, patting Jezebelle on the shoulder. “I’ve reported it already. The HRF knows.”

“They… do? When?”

“Just a few minutes ago. Don’t worry. Let’s see if we can’t find any clues, yeah?”

“Yeah, alright,” she said. She… maybe needed that break more than she thought. Her memory had never been this bad before. Stress, probably.

She looked around. There was a lab, or a workshop, maybe. Definitely the workspace of a Gadgeteer. Then sleeping quarters for at least two more people, with snacks and things let out.

“They left in a hurry,” Duty Bound said. “Are we sure this was villains?”

“No… no, it’s probably nothing,” Obscure said. “Maybe squatters from before the Endgame started.”

“I don’t think it’s dusty enough for that,” Jezebelle said, but Obscure shrugged.

“We’ll just report and move on. No big deal, right?”

“Yeah,” she said. “No big deal.”

Obscure smiled at her, and for some reason that made a shiver run down her spine.

***

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