Deadly Beautiful (SuperCorp Medieval AU)

Part 47

  or the one where Kara is a spy, a general, and a total boss  

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The tunnels were a lot more dark, dank, and miserable without Kara's friends besides her. Still, she swallowed hard and pressed on. The whole experience had shaken her somewhat. It had been a while since she had purposefully tried to be invisible in the halls of the castle. Kara only had to remove a handful of actually rather wimpy guards, a deed she had accomplished without earning a single bruise or cut.

Kara took the tunnel at a light jog and felt a bit better about running all of those laps with the troops. She made it back to the trapdoor in what felt like only half of the time it had taken when she made the trip to the end of the tunnel the first time. Kara hated how she felt without Lena beside her but was comforted by the knowledge Alex and the others were watching over the princess. She pushed the trapdoor open and grinned wickedly as Winn and James dropped into the tunnel after her. She clapped the men on the shoulders and gratefully attached her gladius to her belt with a slight sense of relief.

"All right then, are you ready to kick some ass and get the girl, fellas?" Kara asked, drawing the blade a few times and whipping it carefully through the air, just to test herself a bit.

"Ready when you are, boss." James agreed, adjusting the shield on his back and clearing his long-handled mace in its holder at his side.

Winn nodded as well, his great ax on his back. Kara had had the weapon commissioned as soon as she had felt comfortable asking Alex. Despite his sword-on-sword sparring with her, Kara knew this was his preferred weapon. J'onn told her he was even more talented with the ax than the sword. Kara looked forward to seeing him get serious within a fight. She nodded back.

"Well... we should get to it." Kara said evenly and they began the trip back down the tunnel. She felt as though she were spending much too much time underground as of late.

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"You really know the way back to the dungeons from here?" James asked as they emerged carefully into M'gann's workshop.

"Yes, I spent most of my spare time around here exploring all of the little nooks and crannies of this place. If we head down this hall, we will be less likely to be seen by the guards or the courtiers." Kara lead them down the hall as she spoke lowly, one hand on the hilt of her gladius at the ready.

"Okay, how do you plan to get the cell open, then?" James asked. These were all things they had discussed previously, but they found the repetition soothing.

"If Winn cannot cut off the lock with his ax, James will attempt to pick it while I look for the key." Kara answered, her back to the wall as she looked around the corner to see if the path was clear. There was one guard at the door down to the cells and he did not seem to have any intentions of moving. "We are going to have to go through that one. Who wants the first go?"

Both of the young men lifted their hands slightly and glared at one another. Kara rolled her eyes, pointed to Winn, and shrugged at James with a slight grin. Winn hefted his ax, smiled, waved and headed down the corridor to seemingly shake the man's hand. Kara thought he looked much too happy to be about to fight a guy. Then again, in her estimation, there was not much wrong with a good and fair fight.

"Hi there, I am the young Lord Winn Schott, Jr., would you please let me through the door?" he asked, ever the polite young noble. Winn propped his weapon upon his shoulder and continued to smile as though the guard's shoulder's had shot up and back straightened with a fighter's tension. He looked to be around ten years younger than Kara and there was enough fear in his eyes for her to tell he would never be able to win.

He charged for Winn's middle in what seemed to Kara to be the world's most idiotic move. Her protege side-stepped easily, and when the guard lost his balance, Winn brought the hilt of his ax down on the back of his head. He fell face-down, unconscious and Winn searched him and came up with the key.

"That was almost too easy." Winn said with a slight wiggle of the eyebrows. He beckoned them over and together they dragged the unconscious man, though when Kara looked down at him, he was not much more than a boy, into the staircase to hide him. "We might actually be able to do this."

"I applaud you for your faith in me." Kara snorted quietly, before heading down the staircase and into the darkness. Her sarcasm was cutting and Winn knew Maggie would have been proud if she had heard. "You always instill me with the utmost self-confidence."

"You are so full of crap." Winn chuckled. "You know what I meant."

"I do." Kara kissed his cheek and headed towards the dungeons, sword drawn. She could only hope she and her friends would be ready.