NOVPUBThe flares were shot with such incredible precision, if they stayed put they would have been encircled by them once they touched ground. At the time, they didn’t notice this and continued walking towards the city.
It’s walls were taller than those of the megacity of Texas, but the city itself was significantly smaller. Not just that, there were holes in the wall, too high to have been made by a roaming beast. The more they looked at the state of the wall, the more it looked like it suffered a recent attack.
After a couple minutes, new flares were shot their way, only this time the turrets mounted on the wall also shifted their position to directly face them. This time, the message didn’t go over their heads and they remained still until the flares touched ground around them making a perfect circle.
"I don’t think I want to go in there anyore." Said Nika after attempting to walk behind Uriel to enter his shadow, but Uriel grabbed her by the shirt from behind and prevented her from doing so.
"Where do you think you’re going? They already saw you, if you disappear now they’ll get suspicious."
"I don’t think they noticed, hey, let me go."
"They did, how else do you think they fired this flares with such precision? They must have a few hunters with enhanced sight." Uriel explained and Nika had to accept the truth.
It wasn’t that she was a coward by nature, it was the opposite. She didn’t mind rushing in behind enemy lines and do tasks most people deem to be suicidal, but because of her trait she always relied on stealth over power.
Even if she was faster than the regular heavenly rank, she was weaker than the average heavenly rank hunter. With a good weapon she felt safe, but she couldn’t carry big objects inside the shadows and she settled with the small handgun she always carried, but unfortunately that coil gun was completely useless against entity rank creatures and heavenly rank cryptids alike.
"State your business here." A voice echoed in the distance, though it didn’t come from a speaker. Instead, it was a woman dressed in the army uniform standing atop the wall, but what caught their attention the most was that she didn’t have a microphone or any device to enhance her voice.
"Just how loud does she speak that I can hear her? It must be her trait..." Uriel asked.
"I don’t hear anything." Nika replied as she unceremoniously cleaned her ear with her pinky finger.
"You’re correct, my trait is telepathy. Now tell the woman beside you to stop being so disgusting."
"Behave, would you?" Uriel nudged Nika on the side and then addressed the woman standing on top of the wall. "My name is Sage, I’m only here to buy a few things."
"Ha! You think I’m falling for that bullshit? Like someone would cross the bayou just to go grocery shopping."
"I’m serious, our ship crashed on the wetlands and we really need those parts."
"Hmm, your ship...? Hang on," The woman disappeared behind the wall, she was so distant from them Uriel could barely see it and it took a couple minutes for her to come back, but when she did she was even less friendly than before. "what you said is obviously a lie. My source from the Mapple corp. stated clearly there isn’t any scheduled flight around here.
Now go back from where you came from and don’t even think of taking a lap around the city to find the gate. If you ever show your faces around here again, you’ll be shot on sight."
The engine breaking was a huge setback on its own, but finding another city would be even worse, not to mention that they risked getting a similar welcome. Because of that, Uriel decided to at least investigate why they were so wary about newcomers.
"Don’t move," Uriel mimicked Miss Dragonfang’s authoritative voice, the one she made when she was still a lieutenant at the army, and it resulted in the woman standing in there not knowing why was she even listening to him. "first, we don’t belong to the Mapple corp. and aren’t associated with them in any way. Second, this is an emergency situation and the life of my friends is at stake here."
"That’s none of our business."
"I’m making it your business now. If you don’t let us in, we’re letting ourselves in and it won’t be pretty."
"Ha, ha, ha! You think you’re empty threats will mean anything to us? Maybe some other time it would have worked, but not now there’s two holy rank hunters in our ranks." The woman thelepatically scoffed, which was way more annoying than when people did that on a face to face conversation.
"Two holy rank hunters...? Could one of them be Mister Scofield... I mean, the Quill. He’s my friend, if you tell him I’m here I bet he’ll come greet me in person!"
"Kid, now you’re just spouting nonsense. Why would a holy rank hunter bother himself by greeting you in person? You’re just too full of yourself."
"Listen, I don’t know why you’re so wary of strangers, but you must have someone with a lie detecting trait. Just call them and ask if I’m lying."
"I don’t have the authority to do that, but even if I did, I wouldn’t do it. Colonel Sword commanded us to not let anyone come near the wall..." The woman continued speaking, but when Uriel heard the mention of Sword a smile formed in his face.
"Call Cassandra and tell her, her sister Luna is in trouble."
As soon as the lieutenant heard Sword’s sister’s name, she knew she was in front of someone who actually knew them in person. She didn’t believe for a second that the man at the feet of the wall could possibly be friends with the Quill, nor did she buy his story about his ship crashing.
But Cassandra only mentioned her little sister to those close to her, but even if it was a trap, there was still a chance that the Colonel’s sister was in trouble and failing to address the situation would mean punishment.
"I’ll confirm this and get back to you as soon as possible." The woman said, this time in a softer voice.
