War's Flames

Chapter 20: The Ghost Fortress

Chapter 20

The Ghost Fortress

After being teleported by Mr.Lionheart the two teams arrived in their destination in a couple of seconds. They arrived by a small white and blue light near the fortress, sadly when they did arrive it was above the forest and started falling. They all looked down and tried to land on the ground with out making a sound. CJ was the first to land as she simply teleported on the ground and watched everyone else fall. Aeria simply floated through the air and flew down next to CJ. Ryu dove through the air and grabbed onto a tree branch, and jumped and flipped from tree to tree and rolled next to them. Lily flipped through the air and through the trees as she tumbled down the tree and landed next to them. Vale sunk through the air and created a giant rock structure to catch him as he fell and rode it until it sunk back to the ground. Hunter created an ice ramp to slide down from the air and slid next to the team. Dylan was last and slightly panicked as she fell.
"Does anybody want to grab her?" Ryu asked as Hunter shrugged. Vale sighed as he jumped up and caught her and landed on the ground.
"Why did we teleport in the air?" Dylan asked settling down
"I don't know, we were on the ground at school" Ryu said confused
"Long range teleportation is hard" CJ said
"Yeah but why in the air" Hunter asked
"I don't know" CJ responded. Dylan pulled out her phone and displays a giant blue holographic map of the island. Vale studied it and inspected the area they were at.
"We had a rough landing but we are in the right place" Vale said pointing at the map "we're about a mile outside the main entrance and the guards are stationed all around the fortress"
"I think we should try to go in through the back, they probably stationed more guards towards the front" Dylan suggested
"Or they positioned more guards in the back" CJ said
"It's a low possibility the enemy was expecting a retaliation team" Aeria said
"Either way we still need a way in" Ryu said
"Why don't we just kick down the door, knock some heads off, steal the device, and then leave?"
"They'll probably try to hide the device if we go in loud" Lily responded
"So we'll go with Dylan's plan, we go around to the back and sneak our way into the fortress" Vale said "Everyone agreed?". Everyone nodded and ran through the forest. They hid behind bushes and trees from the guards sight and sneaked along the fortress. Ryu jumped through the trees silently moving at a fast pace. Everyone followed and continued to run through the forest.
"Testing, testing. Are the coms working?" Hunter asked speaking through his earpiece
"Yeah I think they're working" Dylan said "they work on a separate frequency so the coms are un hackable"
"There's a squad of guards patrolling the forest up ahead, I say we take them out, i doubt we can sneak by with them in the way" Ryu said quietly through the coms.
He jumped down when he noticed two guards walking by as he kicked one into a tree as he bounced of from the body in mid air to kick the other guard in the face, knocking the two guards unconscious. The team moved up and took out different members of the squad. Lily created a water tentacle to wrap around a guard and pull him towards her where she kicked him in the face. Aeria shot an arrow towards a guard knocking him out of view. CJ teleported behind one guard, grabbed him, and teleported away. Hunter froze one guard with his sword and dragged him away. Dylan covered a guards mouth and stabbed a knife into his back as it electrocuted him. They tied the bodies against the trees and kept on moving towards the back of the fortress. Lily was tying a guard up when she noticed a beeping tick on the back of his neck.
"Hey what's this?" Lily asked to the group as Vale came over and inspected the beeping
"I don't know, it looks like it implanted into his neck" Vale said
"This guy has one too" CJ said as she looked at her guards neck
"Is it some kind of tracker?" Dylan asked looking at it closely
"All of them have it" Hunter said looking at all the guards
"Why do all of them have it?" Aeria asked
"Everyone get away now" Ryu shouted as he grabbed all the guards and carried them away
"What? Why?" Vale shouted as they ran away. The ticks started beeping and flickered red as Ryu carried the guards. One long last beep could be heard before a loud explosion could be heard from the area Ryu was running. Everyone turned around to the giant explosion that instantly destroyed a large area of the forest.
"Ryu!" Lily shouted hoping to hear a response
"How did he know they were bombs?" Dylan asked as she stared at the flames sadly
"Damn it" Vale said angrily. Suddenly the flames started disappearing as if they were being vacuumed. They looked closely at the flames and saw Ryu standing in the middle of the explosion absorbing the flames into his body. After all the fire was extinguished steam rolled off him into the air. He grinned and his eyes glowed brightly. Ryu walked over to the group.
"Sup?" Ryu said nonchalantly as Lily hugged him tightly
"You scared me so much" Lily said quietly as he smiled
"I'm fine, don't worry about me" Ryu said as he hugged her back
"You scared the shit out of us" Vale said
"I almost couldn't believe it" Dylan said
"I knew he was fine" Hunter said as CJ punched his arm "Ah it's not my fault he's been able to absorb all kinds of heat since we were in training. It refills his energy and power apparently"
"It's part of my Catasrophie Dragon abilities" Ryu said
"But how did you know they were bombs?" Aeria asked
"They smelled like sulfur and I recognized them from my....past job" Ryu said
"Past job?" Dylan asked
"They're connected to their neural transmitters, basically they send an alarm back to their base where they can detonate the bombs remotely" Ryu explained
"So now that the guards were killed..." Vale said thinking
"They know we're here" Dylan finished his sentence sadly.