One More Step Out of the Pit

chapter 4

This was boring. Wilbur could say what he wanted to about the Red Glider (and he did say many, many things), but at least he was entertaining. This was just sad.

The Blaze Lab was one of the Superhero Guild's biggest potions suppliers. As such, it had security which included privately hired guards and a couple of low-ranking heroes loaned from the Guild.

They uh...

They probably should have invested in some higher ranked ones if he was being honest.

Wilbur honestly barely had to whisper to push half of the guards that engaged with them off of their feet. He left the other half to Techno, though Techno was aware this wasn't because Wilbur couldn't have easily handled them all on his own. He just knew Techno would complain if he didn't get his fair share of the action. It wasn't really a fight for Techno though. He hadn't even seen cause to get his sword out yet. His fists were working perfectly fine, and he was half worried it'd be a massacre if he did get it out. With the way they were fighting, Techno would not be surprised if they tripped and fell on his sword of their own accord, and then Phil would be sad, so the sword stayed in its sheath.

Phil, for his part, wasn't even pretending to be interested in the fight. Whenever someone seemed to think about approaching him, all he really had to do was flare his wings a bit and they'd turn tail.

In fact, the fight only last a couple of minutes before all dozen or so of them gave up and bolted in the opposite direction.

"They'll be calling in reinforcements, I'm sure," Phil pointed out. "We should probably pick up the pace."

"Or we could hang out and see what they've got," Techno said. "I didn't even get to stab anyone yet."

Phil looked over at him, eyebrow raised.

"Not that the goal of this mission is stabbing," Techno amended, "and I will do my best to minimize the amount of stabbing that takes place."

"Uh huh," Phil replied. He turned to lead them down the hallway towards their destination. Techno and Will followed casually cautious as they were still in enemy territory, but they were not all that worried. They were right not to be too as nothing challenged them the rest of the way to the main storage area. In fact, it was almost a surprise that, when they entered the room, someone was still there considering everyone else had fled.

He was costumed, so definitely not a lab worker, but he was rushing around messing with things before he noticed they'd entered the room. He froze.

Phil stepped forward deeper into the room, his eyes locked on the person. "Hello there," Phil said pleasantly.

"Hi," the person replied.

Phil tilted his head to side. "What've you got there?" he asked casually.

"Mushrooms," he answered.

"Hmm. Why?"

"No, reason really." Techno and Wilbur had fanned out a bit, Techno walking towards the left and Will to the right to make a sort of semi-circle with the person in the middle. His eyes tracked the movements, but returned to Phil.

"Stuff's missing," Techno observed as he noticed areas of the storage room meant for potions and potion ingredients were suspiciously empty.

"You been hiding shit, Mate?" Phil asked sounding a bit amused.

The hero, because that's what he clearly was, held onto his tray of half-grown mushrooms tighter. "No," he lied.

"Fire resistance is still here," Will said.

"Must have hid the more dangerous stuff first, huh?" Phil asked the hero, with a small smile on his lips. "Smart, but you hid the wrong things. This is more of a supply run than anything."