The Last Dainv

After an hour and a half of driving, the two cars pulled into a Walmart parking lot at the border of London, Ontario. Gale sat in the back seat of the car with Rachel, with Kyle in the driver's seat and Clyde beside him. Jeanne and Marine's car parked beside them, following them into the lot.

"Anyone want snacks or juice boxes?" Rachel asked.

"One more apple juice box, please," Gale said.

Rachel pulled out an apple juice box, ripped the straw from its plastic, and put it in for him. "There you go."

"Thank you," Gale said. It was his 6th juice box of this trip throughout the whole ride. Even though this was a serious mission, he wouldn't say no to a sugary drink.

"Seriously?" Kyle asked.

"You want one too?" Rachel asked.

"I'll take one of those tuna sandwiches to go."

Rachel pulled out the cling wrapped sandwich and handed it over to Kyle. "Clyde, you want one too?"

"I'm good. I'm way too full right now," Clyde said.

The man beside Kyle was a beast. He'd eaten a whole box of twinkies alone throughout the whole ride and gave Gale a couple of them too.

A knock on the twins' car door took their attention. Marine and Jeanne had already gotten out of their own cars.

Opening the door, Gale got out along with everyone else.

"Jeanne, Marine, you guys want any snacks or drinks?" Rachel asked.

"We're good. Kinda full after that ride," Jeanne said.

"You're cleaning my car later," Marine said.

"Just expense the detailing to Ollie," Jeanne laughed.

Looking around the whole area, there was no one walking around. No pedestrians walked at night, barely any cars passing by, if any, and the big Walmart was already closed at 12 a.m. London was clearly different from Toronto, where pedestrians still walked at night at 3am and stores were open too.

"So," Rachel said, leaning against the car. "Bonnie only gave us a city. London's not exactly small."

"Relax, we got a K9 on our side." Kyle smirked and turned to Gale. "Follow the scent trail. You think you can locate any clusters of Awakened signatures?"

"Let me try," Gale said, closing his eyes.

Presence Between's tendrils spread outward, stretching across the city in every direction. Tendrils passed through every house and every building there was as far as he could extend it to.

Signatures populated his mental map. Most were mundanes, sleeping in their homes, driving through the night, and some were still on their computers either playing or watching something. A few Awakened scattered here and there, but nothing suspicious about lone signatures.

In all of this, there were two significant clusters his tendrils passed through.

The first was in Oakridge. 5 signatures, all Aurian, located beneath a bank. Not inside the bank itself, but under it. Their signatures were a bit blurry, but Gale could tell they were around late-Awakened and an Attuned. He couldn't tell exactly the sub-stage of the Attuned.

The second was in Masonville. 21 signatures gathered inside a building near a mall. The signatures ranged from Awakened to Attuned, with the majority sitting around mid-Awakened.

Gale opened his eyes. "Found two spots. Oakridge has 5 people under a bank. Masonville has 21 signatures in a building near a mall."

Rachel and Marine exchanged glances while Jeanne yawned.

"Masonville," Rachel said. "Twenty-one signatures in one place is a lot. Higher chance of it being something significant."

"Agreed," Marine said. "Let's go to Masonville first."

"Nah." Kyle stretched his arms above his head. "Five people under a bank is way more suspicious. Who hangs out under a bank at midnight? At least the 21 could be a bar or a club or some shit."

"Man's got a point," Clyde said. "The 21 might just be a late night hangout. Five under a bank screams criminal activity or at least something suspicious."

"Still higher chances that 21 means something. Haven't heard of a gathering this size in London and Lily's done plenty of missions in this shithole of a city," Marine said.

"How about texting her and see if 21 gathering here is an oddity?" Clyde asked.

"No," Gale said. There was something wrong with the way the ones under the bank concealed their signatures. It was almost like how it felt with the sutras on the house, blocking his perception. "How about this: Kyle, Clyde, and I go to the bank. Rachel, Jeanne, and Marine go to the building near the mall?"

Rachel immediately shook her head. "Splitting up would be dangerous. If Yuxuan is actually here, we don't know which location he'd be at. Half of us could walk into an ambush while the other half is dealing with nothing."

"She's right," Kyle said. "As much as I hate to admit it, splitting the party is a bad idea. Can't take this one willy nilly when one of us could be next."

"Agreed," Clyde added.

Gale nodded. Those were all fair and logical anyways. "Then, we hit the bank first." He looked at each of them in turn. "Anyone have issues with that?"

Kyle shrugged. "Works for me."

"Same," Clyde said.

Rachel nodded. "The bank it is."

Jeanne and Marine also said they were good for it.

"What's the positions here?" Gale asked Marine and Jeanne.

"Backline. Going with Mr. Quiet handsome over here," Jeanne said, causing Clyde to step away from her.

"Flank, same position as Kyle," Marine said.

"Then let's move." Gale turned toward the direction of Oakridge.

The group fell into formation. Gale led the group with Kyle and Marine flanking him, Rachel next with Clyde and Jeanne behind her. The six of them ran through the parks and rooftops of London, Ontario. Their steps made no sound as they hit against the shingles, dirt, sidewalk, and metal poles.

Unlawfully taken from NovelFire, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

After a couple of minutes of running, the bank came into view. On the front, it said Bank of Montreal. It was rather small, just about as big as a house. The only difference was its blocky structure with its orange like concrete rough walls. There was a single van in the parking lot, with black and extremely tinted windows.

Presence Between seeped through the walls and looked further inside, mapping out the entire building. Signatures told him the activities of the Aurians underneath the bank. They were unlocking boxes and taking stuff out of them.

Five of them exactly, and though they got closer, their signatures were still muddied. He couldn't exactly tell the exact sub stage of each of them.

"Four Awakened and one Attuned," Gale whispered. "All below ground level. They're moving around down there, doing something."

"Vault?" Kyle asked.

"Probably," Gale agreed. Whatever a vault was, they were probably inside it.

Clyde cracked his knuckles. "Classic."

"Classic, but doesn't make sense. Mundane money isn't worth that much in Aur," Jeanne said.

"Whatever. Might as well bust them even if they're not part of Yuxuan's crew," Kyle said. "We're already here. And if they are connected, we get information. If they're not, we just did the city a favour."

Rachel didn't argue. Neither did Jeanne or Marine.

The group walked toward the front entrance until they were just in front. When Gale pulled the door slowly, it wouldn't budge.

Kyle stepped forward with the most serious look he's given since they got off the car. "I got this."

He hovered his palm over the door's keyhole, not quite touching it. His ether flared briefly before a click could be heard.

"Aloha-unlock-whatever-the-fuck," Kyle muttered, then pushed the door open dramatically. He gestured for everyone to get in. "After you."

Entering the bank, the moment they stepped through the doorway, Gale heard the shuffling from below. Footsteps, boxes clicking open the same way Kyle had done that door. But those noises disappeared immediately as the last of them entered inside. He wasn't sure whether the others heard it too, though.

Marine raised her index finger to her mouth and whispered inaudibly. Blue light formed into a sigil and the air around them stilled, washing out all noises into dead silence.

He nodded and moved forward. His steps were muffled before, now they couldn't be heard at all.

This bank looked similar to the TD bank that he entered once. Just thinking about it made his blood rush to his head. But this one was a real battle.

Counters lined with computers where people would usually talk to the teller. A few desks for consultations. A row of chairs around a coffee table. Nothing out of the ordinary.

Leading them around the counters, Gale entered the backrooms first. Filing cabinets lined the walls, and doors to offices lined each side.

He held up his fist. Everyone stopped.

Presence Between's tendrils confirmed the five signatures had stopped whatever they were doing below. They probably knew. Too late to stop now, though.

Moving forward a couple more steps, he found a slightly thicker dark wooden door that led to the basement. Turning his face to the group, he nodded to Rachel, and then signed, Door to basement. Five targets. Ready?

Everyone nodded while the temperature in the room slightly spiked from Rachel circulating her own ether.

As Gale reached for the door, gunshots rang from behind it, bullets punched through the wood. One hit the silence sigil, immediately destroying it.

The second bullet whizzed past his ear. The third grazed his shoulder, tearing through his jacket. The third and fourth hit the wall behind him, sending plaster flying.

The bank's alarm blared. Red alarm lights came on, painting everything in red.

Suddenly, an explosion shook the whole building from the other side of the bank. Dust and debris fell from the ceiling as part of the wall collapsed inwards from the heavy tremor.

Presence Between tugged at Gale. All five entities were running away from the hole the explosion just caused.

"They're running!" Gale shouted.

Kicking open the door to the basement, they ran down and saw a hole in the far wall where the robbers had blasted their way out. The five were already jumping on top of a nearby building's fire escape to get to the rooftops.

"Chase!" Gale shouted.

The group burst out through the same hole the robbers had made. Once out of the wall, Gale jumped to the roof in one leap. The others followed, managing to keep up with him.

The chase was on.

Gale launched himself onto the first rooftop. His feet barely touched the shingle before jumping off of it once again to get to the next. Kyle threw his dagger multiple times while holding onto Clyde's shoulder, creating a chain of blinks that made them as fast as Gale.

Rachel kept up by just flying through the houses instead of jumping across the rooves, while Jeanne and Marine barely managed to jump onto the roofs one by one.

From ahead of them, gunshots rang out. Bullets whizzed past the group. One of them cut through Gale's hair. Another almost got Kyle on his chest, but a quick swipe of his dagger cut the bullet in half.

Multiple shots converged on Rachel's position, forcing her to get to lower ground to hide from the shots.

"These guys aren't even silencing their guns!" Kyle shouted as he blinked once more to a house. "What the fuck!"

"They are! They're fucking using mundane silencers!" Clyde shouted back.

True enough, there were those suppressors attached to their barrels. However, they were still very loud and were basically waking up the whole neighbourhood. Lights started turning on from some houses, but most didn't dare to even look outside or open their windows.

"Focus on the mission!" Rachel shouted from behind as she dodged another shot coming at her. "Can you just teleport to them?"

"I'd kill them if I did that," Gale said. To fully activate One Step, he'd need to do a final strike. That would immediately kill those fuckers.

"Then we do it the hard way," Marine said. "Jeanne, buff!"

Jeanne muttered something under her breath. Suddenly, sigils formed all around the crew. Wind gathered around everyone's legs and their steps all felt much lighter than before.

The rooftops blurred. Their steps quickened. Air resistance was completely nullified from the buff as the gap between the robbers and them closed in rapidly.

Now that they were closer, Gale got a better look at the runners. Five Asian males, all wearing loose fitting casual clothes. Sweatpants and hoodies, sneakers and baseball caps. None of them wore masks or any kind of face covering.

Either they were confident or really stupid or something else entirely.

The rooftops ended at the edge of a forest. The robbers dropped down from the final building and hit the ground running, disappearing into the treeline.

The trees provided cover and a more random mix of obstacles. But to Gale, this was exactly where he lived and breathed. He caught up so fast that one of the men in front shouted something in chinese, which made the last one slow down to shoot at Gale.

Mid-Awakened. His barrel was too slow. Muzzle flashed the same time as Reflection activated.

The bullet met the reflection head on, bullet cut in half in a blinding spark. Reflection passed through his thighs, separating his legs from his body.

The man screamed as he collapsed to the forest floor, blood spraying from the stumps where the rest of his legs used to be. His gun flew from his grip and landed somewhere in the underbrush.

Gale stood above the man still screaming. Not an ounce of pity showed on his face.

A dagger stabbed into the earth beside him. One flash of blue, Kyle and Clyde appeared beside him.

"This one's good. We only need one," Kyle said.

"Those fucks were fast though. Fucking Jiuling," Clyde said.

The young man on the ground looked to be around his early 20s. Blood pooled beneath him, soaking into the dead leaves, snow patch, and dirt.

Eventually, the rest of the crew arrived. Rachel came in from above, slowly hovering down to the ground. Jeanne and Marine arrived a bit later as they caught their breath.

Gale turned to Rachel. "Anything you can do about the self-dying thing? So they actually talk?"

Without responding, Rachel knelt on the ground and placed a palm on the man's chest. Green fire engulfed his whole body.

The man screamed loudly, thrashing against the ground. His legs sizzled as the fire cauterized the stumps. And when the fire seeped into his mouth, the man's eyes widened, wailing in horror.

After a few seconds, the flames died down. Rachel withdrew her hand.

"Done," she said. "Whatever kill switch they had, I took it out."

"How do you know?"

"Ann Family methods," Rachel replied.

"Convenient," Kyle said.

Jeanne stepped forward, crouching down to look at the man more closely. "Well, everyone knows that only the Jiuling still uses those shitty silencers."

"Too typical, kinda like flunkies?" Marine asked.

"Why aren't they wearing masks though?" Gale asked.

"Just some bullshit about honour, don't mind it," Rachel said.

"Guess that didn't work out for them tonight," Kyle said with a smirk.

What a stupid reason. If they were going to rob something, might as well cover their whole body in black clothes, especially at night.

Crouching down, Gale grabbed the man by the collar of his hoodie. He lifted him up until they were face to face. Now time to get some answers from this punk.

"Speak," he said.

The man stared at him. Mouth opened and closed, yet no words came out.

Gale slapped him across the face, causing a loud crack against the silent forest.

"I said speak."

"What you want me say?!" the man spat, blood and saliva dripping from the corner of his lips. "You don't ask anything!"

A hand landed on Gale's shoulder.

"Let us handle the interrogation," Kyle coughed.