Prompt: Robert, The Grays, and Anthony learn about what’s going on with Paintball at the games

  The sight awaiting any shoppers at Peach Tree Supermarket who happened to step into the cereal aisle on Saturday morning wouldn’t have stood out at all. The only thing greeting them, as far as any of them would realize, was a large, heavyset man, in a very nice suit, pushing a cart next to a young boy, who seemed to want to read the back of every single one of the many colorful cereal boxes they passed. No different, on the face of it, than any father and son out shopping. Aside, perhaps, from the fact that the boy was quite well-mannered for all his enthusiasm. He was cheerful and eager, asking questions about the cartoon cereal mascots.

  Such a sight would barely have merited a glance, if that, from any other shoppers. Perhaps a smile and nod at how well the supposed father entertained his son’s questions, and how polite the boy himself was at asking them and moving along when the dad pushed the cart forward. But hardly anything to gawk at. And yet, were it not for the ongoing application of Elena Evans’ illusion power, there would be much gawking indeed. Because even in a world that was fairly accustomed to the existence of TONIs, seeing a nine-foot tall brown bear (still in that expensive and well-tailored suit, which was so much more impressive a feat given the actual subject) very carefully pushing that cart along would have drawn more than a few lingering eyeballs and open mouths. Honestly, it would’ve been difficult to get any shopping done at all in those conditions.

  Thanks to Elena’s illusion of a tall (only seven feet though, even her illusions couldn’t make people believe a nine-foot man was normal), well-dressed man, hardly anyone paid them any mind at all. So, Fisher was left alone to push his grocery-laden cart down the aisle, giving a fond smile at the small boy who was bouncing back and forth from one side of the aisle to the other.

  Grabbing a box of chocolate cereal featuring a spaceship and a woman with bright pink skin wielding a laser gun, the Biolem Anthony held it up and quickly asked, “They made a second Outlanders movie!? That’s Bishop, it’s gotta be Bishop right there! She even has the Colonel and everything!” His fingers eagerly tapped the large, fancy-looking pistol she was wielding. “I mean, there and there!” The boy moved his fingers to point at both the pistol and the ship. As everyone knew, Bishop’s hand cannon transformed into the ship she rode around the galaxy in.

  With a chuckle, Fisher nodded. “Well, yeah, that’s Bishop and the Colonel. And yup, there’s a new movie. But ah, it’s the third one, not the second one. The second one came out while you-- I mean while the human-- ahh… that is…” He grimaced, another amusing sight that no one but Anthony himself was privy to. The large bear’s face curled in and twisted like he’d eaten an entire pawful of extremely sour berries. “Eh, a few years ago. They made the second one a few years ago.” Settling on that as a safe description, he added, “If you want, we can watch it later.”

  As Anthony brightened and started to eagerly agree, the phone in Fisher’s inside suit pocket gave a soft buzz. Like the suit itself, the phone was oversized and made specifically to fit his paws, so he could tug it out without breaking the thing immediately. Using one claw to answer the call, he looked up and down the aisle while holding it to his ear. “Don’t worry, everything’s good here. We got a late start but we should be there by the time they start the ceremony.”

  “Actually, you’re already late,” Robert Parson informed him, in a voice that was more tense than Fisher had ever actually heard from the man. “The ceremony started five minutes ago. But that isn’t why I’m calling. We need to Yellowbrick down there, right now. Put in the call, I’ll explain there. Check what happened online, but make the call first. We need to be there immediately.”

  The man hung up without another word then, another thing that told Fisher just how stressed he was. Robert wasn’t the type to make demands and hang up. Which meant… this was bad news. And if it was bad news about something going on at the LEAT Games awards ceremony, that had to involve Cassidy. Something bad enough to make Robert snap orders and then hang up. Which was a realization that made Fisher’s poor stomach abruptly twist itself up in a tight knot.

  It was a sentiment his partner echoed from within the private pocket universe they shared. I’ve got a bad feeling about this. What the hell happened to Cassidy? And how’d we get the time wrong? I coulda sworn the damn thing started in an hour. We’ve gotta get out of here, now.

  In almost any other case, Fisher would have lamented leaving all the food behind. But this was Cassidy, and he didn’t give it a second thought. The bear was already pivoting, cart forgotten as he announced, “Sorry, kid, we’ve gotta go. I’ll--” He had just started to head for the exit, already moving his claw down to make the call for Yellowbrick, when he realized the boy wasn’t with him. Turning back that way, he found Anthony standing right there with the cereal box held loosely in one hand, his head cocked to the side as he stared vacantly off at nothing. “Kid?”

  “Cassidy.” That was the first thing Anthony said, while still staring off in the distance. “She’s-- I mean, they’re in trouble.” His dull voice abruptly changed, as did his expression, snapping back to himself after clearly using his Biolem abilities to access the store’s wi-fi. “We’ve gotta go, Cassidy’s in trouble!” Without another word, the kid grabbed Fisher’s giant paw (or at least a small part of it) and started to run off, practically dragging the bear with him on the way out of the store. Even then, he absently set the cereal box back on the shelf rather than simply drop it.

  Well, now Fisher and Price were both even more anxious than they had already been. Which was a feeling that didn’t exactly get any better as they put in the call for Yellowbrick to transport them from the men’s restroom to their house first to pick up Robert, then to the stock room of an old, currently empty shoe store in downtown Phoenix. The entire time, Anthony and then Robert kept filling the two of them in on what had just happened at the start of the awards ceremony.

  If the unfiltered sight of Fisher and Anthony walking through the grocery store would have made quite the impression, seeing the equally well-dressed raccoon known as Price, Anthony, and Robert Parson stepping into that alley would’ve at least doubled that. Especially when Price leapt to the top of the nearby dumpster and loudly snapped, “Casura!? They got kidnapped by fucking Casura!? Where is that bitch!? I’ve got something for her right here!” From his own suit pocket, he produced a small, silver cylinder about the size of a pen. “Shove it right down her throat and see how she likes having her insides turned to lava, that’ll solve the damn problem.”

  “We’ve gotta help them!” Anthony insisted, head snapping back and forth to look both ways as they stood in the alley. “How do we get to the stadium? How come we didn’t go right there?”

  “We are helping,” Robert assured him in as gentle a voice as he could manage, before looking at Price. “But we’re not doing it by picking a fight with the most dangerous Fell in the world.

  “Hey, she picked the fight,” the TONI raccoon shot back, “I’m just talking about finishing it.”

  “Between the audience right there and everyone watching the feed, millions of people saw what just happened,” Robert reminded them. “This is the LEAT games, and Elena and Sterling are already there. They’ll be throwing everything at finding Ca--Paintball and stopping Casura.” He said that in a way that anyone who didn’t know him would think meant he was calm. But a quick glance at the way he held his right hand in what looked like a painfully-tight fist would show just how tense the man really was behind all that. He was barely keeping it together at that moment.

  “Okay,” Price started in a slow, careful voice, “so, if you think we can’t help, why are we even--”

  “Oh!” Anthony cut in suddenly, “the police are-- I mean, sorry for interrupting, Mr. Price, sir. But the police are being called to block anyone from driving to a place a few miles out of town. It’s where they sent the bad lady. Except--” He stopped, head tilting again. “Oh. She’s not there. Flea is. They almost attacked her. Um, the Ten Towers people and their friends did, I mean.”

  “How do you know all that?” Price asked, squinting that way. “They wouldn’t put that online.”

  It was Robert who answered. “There’s a police precinct across the street. He’s picking up their broadcasts. It’s one of the reasons I told you to have Yellowbrick send us here, for an update.” He paused before turning to walk as he added, “And it’s close to where we’re going.”

  Both Anthony and Price looked at each other before starting to follow. Rather, Price hopped off the dumpster and immediately switched places with Fisher so the much larger bear could easily keep up with Robert’s quick pace. He even reached down to pick up Anthony, setting the boy on his shoulder so they could walk faster. It was Fisher who asked, “What do you mean, Casura wasn’t there? Wait, back up. What do you mean, Ten Towers had people out there for her?”

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  “They knew something we didn’t,” Robert muttered while striding down the alley in the opposite direction from where he’d indicated the police station was. “Remember how strange Paintball was acting? We knew something was up, just not what. Caishen knew more. She knew Casura was involved. Paintball must’ve told her, and she kept it secret so Casura wouldn’t know they knew.”

  Shaking his large, shaggy head as he followed the man through a parking lot just past that alley, Fisher lamented, “And Caishen managed to set up an ambush of some sort, probably telling her people they were after someone else, or doing some sort of training work. Whatever she told them, it wasn’t enough to actually catch our attention, or for our insider to raise the alarm. They kept it secret right up until it was too late. But you said she didn’t end up falling into that trap?”

  “Nuh uh!” Anthony, bouncing along piggyback-style on the bear’s shoulders, confirmed. “They called in a few minutes before it started to have all the streets leading out that way blocked, but then called it off just a minute ago, cuz she didn’t show up when she was supposed to! It was just Flea instead. I dunno why, cuz they weren’t saying on the radio. But they’re all nervous.”

  “Yeah, I would be too if I lost track of someone like Casura,” Fisher grunted. By that point, they had reached a set of unlabeled metal doors on the back side of some nondescript brick building. Gesturing as they approached, he asked, more than a bit hopefully, “You want me to open that?”

  “Sorry, my friend,” Robert replied, “but I’d rather not make that kind of noise just yet. You’ll still get your chance to express yourself if this goes poorly. Anthony, the antenna on top of this building should let you keep monitoring the police comm. You just let us know when anything changes, okay?”

  As the boy agreed, Robert produced what looked like a simple laser pointer. When he scanned it over the keypad next to the reinforced metal doors, Fisher spoke up. “Ah, my partner would like me to ask if you remember we’re not in Detroit right now, so our universal backdoor keys won’t actually wor--” He stopped talking then, as the keypad gave a cheerful, affirmative beep before the door unlocked with an audible click. His head tilted slightly. “Huh. That is from both of us.”

  “Me too,” Anthony chimed in, his own head tilting the opposite direction, to see better. “Huh.”

  “That would be why I made sure to have the lock for this place shipped down from home,” Robert informed them while tugging the door open. He was already reaching under his jacket, producing a pistol. With a glance toward Fisher, he hesitated before instructing, “Be ready to be intimidating. And keep Anthony close. I think I can handle this without anything getting out of hand, but stay on your toes.” With that, he walked right in, entering a dimly-lit corridor before immediately starting down a set of concrete steps that lay just a few feet beyond the entrance.

  Choosing not to bother pointing out that drawing his gun seemed to lean against the man’s belief that he could probably handle this without too much violence, Fisher went down on all fours (his suit was made of a special material that stretched properly to allow this without being ruined), with Anthony perched on his back. Even then, he could barely fit through the double-door entrance. His voice was a quiet rumble as he carefully picked his way down the steep stairs. “If anything goes wrong in here, you hit a corner, lay down, and just stay there. I’ll keep you safe.”

  “Okay, but they sent an update,” Anthony whispered, clinging to the bear’s neck. “There’s an address they want all available units to keep everyone away from. I’m pretty sure that’s where they think Casura is now. They’re trying to evacuate the whole area, and the police aren’t supposed to go anywhere near it. Only the Ten Towers people or other Stars are allowed there.”

  Despite the boy’s very soft voice, Fisher didn’t need to ask if Robert had heard that. Nor did he bother to ask what they were doing here when all that was going on. Despite how much they all wanted to get there and pull Cassidy out of danger, the fact was that none of them stood even the slightest chance against Casura. Actually, Cassidy themself might be best-suited to surviving that sort of encounter, for more than one reason. Even if admitting that to himself made his fur bristle. Everything inside Fisher itched, ached really, to attack and smack that woman’s head off.

  At the bottom of the steps was another set of heavy doors, along with two cameras (one in either corner), and another keypad. Robert hit the pad with his unlocking device once more, while casting a glance up at the left camera. He didn’t say anything, remaining silent while the camera turned just a bit to focus on Fisher and Anthony. Then there was another click and the doors opened, admitting them into what appeared to be a messy workshop of some sort. It was a rectangular room, with the doors in the bottom left corner. The floors and walls were concrete while the ceiling was metal. Stretched out ahead of them were dozens of tables full of junk, tools, half-finished devices, several motorcycles and a couple cars in various states of disrepair, and a tired, old cocker spaniel curled up asleep in a dog bed about halfway through the room.

  Rising to his full height once more after they entered the workshop area, Fisher could see a man standing in front of a desk at that far end. He had his back to them, but clearly knew they were there, considering the monitor nearby showing a view from those same cameras they had just passed. He was typing at the keyboard of a laptop on the other side of that desk. Fisher’s eyes weren’t good enough to see what was on it, but he could smell the man’s nervousness. He was sweating, his hand shaking a bit as he typed quickly. Whatever he was doing, whatever this place was for, the man wasn’t happy about any of it. Everything in his body language said so.

  Walking that way, right past the dog as it simply glanced up before going back to sleep, Robert lifted the pistol a bit. He did not actually point it at the man, but the intent was clear. “Step away from the computer, Stein. We’re not doing this today. Not this time. You know I won’t give more than one warning.” His voice was calm and steady, but didn’t leave any room to doubt just how serious he was about it. If this Stein tried to use the computer again, he would put a stop to it.

  Stein clearly knew that too, given the way he froze briefly before turning to face them. He was an older man, in his late fifties, with pale skin and a thin white mustache. He wore mechanics overalls, along with a pair of thick glasses. “Robert, what the hell do you think you’re doing here?” He kept his hands in plain view, opening and closing them to make his knuckles pop.

  Yeah, Price put in, what the hell are we doing here? We should be out helping the kid now!

  “Mr. Parson, sir,” Anthony put in, the small Biolem boy sliding down Fisher’s back before dropping easily to the floor. “That thing he’s working on there, it’s got the coordinates for the place they’re telling the police to keep everyone away from now. That’s where they think Casura is, right? So that’s probably where… Paintball is.” His voice was anxious, the boy taking a few steps that way. “I think he’s tryin’ to do something bad, something dangerous. You can’t let him.”

  “It’s okay, kid, I’ve got it,” Robert assured him without looking away from the man in question. “And what I’m doing here is telling you we’re not doing this. Not today. That’s not what this is for. But somehow, I knew they’d send you in here to try it anyway. They couldn’t resist, could they?”

  “You know as well as I do that we won’t get another chance like this,” Stein insisted. “The weapon was designed to be able to defend cities like this against Abyssal attacks, to actually end the threat once and for all. Do you have any idea how lucky it is that we know precisely where Casura is standing right now, and it happens to be a city we’ve installed one of these weapons in? No, they couldn’t resist. Because with a couple more keystrokes, the weapon will fire and she will never be a threat to anyone else again. How could anyone resist that chance?”

  Growling low, Fisher started to take a step that way. His massive paw reached out to push a table full of equipment out of his way, making the whole thing slide sideways with a loud screech. “What weapon are you talking about?” Neither he or Price liked the sound of that.

  “A very dangerous one,” came the response from Robert. “Which is not about to be used, because we have people in the line of fire. Children. Teenagers. Innocents. If you activate the weapon, Stein, you’ll erase that entire area and everyone in it. You’ll wipe a couple city blocks right off the map. That’s not going to happen today. Step away from it, now.”

  “And if Casura walks away from this and goes on to kill even more innocents?” Stein demanded. “How many of those deserve to die just because you happen to care about one or more of the ones who are in the path today? How many are there compared to how many that woman will slaughter in the days, months, and years to come? We could end her right now, and have only a few fatalities to go with it. Then she’d never be a threat to anyone else again. Are you going to be the one who tells those you’re sparing today that you stopped us from ending this problem? What will you say to them when Casura goes on to kill more people? What will you say to them when they realize how many innocents she’ll continue to slaughter just to keep them alive?”

  “I won’t say anything,” Robert informed him. “Because that’s something they don’t need to know. And it’s math I’m not willing to do. People can try to stop Casura. But not like this.” He spoke very carefully, making it clear just how serious he was. “I won’t let this happen. Step away from it.”

  Stein paused, seemed to consider the situation, then sighed as he raised both hands more and stepped back. “Then whatever happens going forward is on your head.” With that, he walked right past them, giving Fisher a curious glance before going through the doors and up the stairs to leave.

  Robert just grunted at that. “It’s okay, I have a thick skull. Kid, go turn that off. And… have they said anything else about what’s happening out there?”

  Anthony paused on his way to the laptop, clearly listening to something. Then he smiled. “It’s over, sir. Um, sirs. She’s gone. She left. And… and everyone’s still alive. Ca--Paintball’s alive, and so are the others. It… she didn’t kill anyone?” He sounded confused. “Is that possible?”

  Robert and Fisher didn’t answer at first. They couldn’t, given the pair were too busy embracing. The bear and man both realized what they were doing only afterward, staring at each other from that position briefly before coughing as they awkwardly stepped back from each other. Fisher, for his part, retreated further by switching places with his partner. As Price emerged, the small raccoon hopped up on the nearby table. “Kid, there’s one thing I’ve learned lately.

  “When it comes to Cassidy, anything’s possible.”

  Joke Tags: Boy It’s Lucky Robert Keeps Himself Busy With Those Extracurriculars Huh?