Villains Club Training Camp (5)

Riot

Apparition

The air in the prison was stifling hot and dry, at least that was the intent. Having commandeered some poor sap named 'Marv' I had to watch as my fellow guards captured Vera. I hoped she would forgive me for not trying to keep her alongside, for such a small machine she had instantly triggered the sensors in the dome the moment we went outside.

As the other guards in the immediate area zeroed in on my little friend, I strode through the big open spaces between prison cells. Not that they look like usual prison cells, each building was a small squat 10x10 roof made from a non-ferrous durable plastic compound that could take a decent beating without breaking. These roofs were set on large pillars with no real supporting walls and had a bed under them. Outside each cell was a small area the prisoner could reach and, as I marched through the prison saw people moving about on the end of chains, ropes or other tethers to keep them within range of the center point. The space between each cell was about thirty feet, meaning any attempt to run from one cell to another would mean walking under open sky in firing sight of the many turrets set in the dome.

I could see why the Audit was so proud of this system, while some villains lifted weights, other gardened and some carved or did pottery, none interacted with each other outside of a well heard yell, and anything passed between cells was passed either by a very obvious throw, or through the hands of a guard.

There would be no contraband here, unless the guards allowed it, and there had to be contraband cause at least one guy was smoking pot!

Strutting through the open spaces as though I belonged, which my host did at least, I found myself walking the same path as the Audit and her entourage.

"Bad Penny being a tech villain will no doubt attack the security system herself, while the magic users try to draw the guards away. I'm not yet sure how they plan to enter, but post your guards spread out like this!" She was indicating stuff on a tablet to a large lizard man. The person in charge? It sounded like the Audit knew Penny pretty well.

We were all heading towards a central spire, a large tower that not only supported the middle of the dome but included watch towers, control centers and the power plant for all this. I followed in at a distance, pretending to be part of the group, and split off when the lizard-man growled for me to "Take post, co-ordinate." in a mix of broken English and Spanish.

I flanked off, walked clockwise around the spire and looked for a service entrance or elevator.

The guard's pass got me most of the way in, after which I dumped the body leaving him fast asleep in a closet so I could pilfer a technician.

"Alright, this is more like it!" His key-card got me the rest of the way into the power system. "Just got to shut this down at the source!" Penny had been spot on. Ghost powers were rare enough that abilities like possession and intangibility weren't accounted for in the design. We might actually succeed!

After flipping all the breakers, pulling the breakers out of the wall, and then ripping out the cables that connected the solar panels and wind farm to the main battery I looked at the botched mess of cables and wires with absolute destructive glee. A technician would be able to fix this, but it would take precious minutes to half an hour at the most.

Through the spire an alarm started to sound in a low whoop whoop whoop, then the lights in the building flickered out as the red emergency lights came on. "That's my cue!" I ditched this body, letting it slump asleep, then passed through walls to exit back out into the broad daylight. As far as the prisoners knew nothing had changed, one by one however, electronics would be shutting down.

Floating in my ghost form through the walls and floor of the tower I wondered for a bit why things were taking so long. Then slightly away from the tower, close to where we thought Briar and Quinn's mother was, a large cracking dome of black and green energy formed in the space directly over one of the cells.

It dissipated to reveal a number of figures, floating in the air. Penny rode upon a giant beetle, made using her machine no doubt that fluttered giant pulsing wings in a rhythmic fashion, her helmet projecting a devil emoji. Behind her a hologram, epicly huge in size, showed the same helmeted face and Bad Penny's voice began booming through every loud speaker in the facility with a haughty, slightly robotic monologue.

"Villains of the Death Valley Supermax Prison Facility! The Villains Club are here to Wreck House! Can you very politely Riot for us!" And this was followed by raucous music.

No time wasted, I jumped the nearest guard running towards the invasion, watching above as Penny, her beetle and my Vera straight up assaulted the main tower, strategically blasting out cameras, turrets and even windows while the machine carried it's little mistress to the observation window so that Penny could stare down the shocked professionals.

Two of the kids dropped to the ground but I noticed that Lucyfar, clad in black shadows and sporting a single large black wing, casually smashed through the roof and supporting pillars of the cell she landed on. The prisoner, a golem looking thing having found himself un-tethered, immediately bolted for the next shelter, running from cell to cell.

Then something unexpected happened.

The black orb of magic appeared again, this time with Crow and Raven alongside. Along with them came something that this dry, hot little containment chamber under the heat of the desert sun had never seen before. A few thousand gallons of lake water, including fish.

The water was dumped unceremoniously into the dome, in complete defiance of all reason as Bad Penny Chided through the speakers, flooding out across the hard stone floor uninterrupted in a brief flood before settling to less than an inch thick. "Oh my, Dear Audit. You are almost as bad as your husband, you should have hired more magic users to either design or guard against us!"

As the last of the power flickered out of the systems, the music Vera was broadcasting also stopped, and the Audit casually replied; "I did!"