Silhouette

When Skuller reached the tunnel Brutus was supposed to be in, the orc did find the black wall the shark man had mentioned but no traces of the rogue thug or the rest of his team. Skuller frowned as he looked carefully at the wall, they had lost a quarter of their force because they hadn't been cautious, he wouldn't be the next.

The orc, standing head, and shoulders taller than his men took a second to count them. Still five, as many as he when the expedition team had split. Good, no one was missing. He quickly picked up his walkie-talkie.

"Skuller here, we reached the spot. No Brutus in sight, but we see the black wall."

"Grover here. Stay focused, don't let yourselves be caught off-guard. Assume Brutus and his men have gone rogue. Over."

"Don't worry, I wasn't planning on bringing sharky boy back home. Not in one piece."

"Ah, you come from the Kt'aan tribe then? Over."

"Nah, the Kok'to. We had a disagreement with the Kt'aan's leadership a couple of centuries ago and left to do our own thing. With a nice trophy in tow."

"I am glad to know we have such a capable man with us. The shark is yours to do as you please, take anything you need, but leave the silhouette's corpse alone if you manage to take it down. We are still unaware of its powers, and we wouldn't wish for it to come back from the dead just because you wanted a coathanger. Over."

"Ah, yeah, don't worry. The Kok'to learned their lesson after a kid somehow found a baby hydra. We make sure our trophies are safe before bringing them back."

"Good. Get to it then. Over."

"When should we expect reinforcements?"

"Soon. Soluble had an unfortunate run-in with a mutant catfish, they're fine but their arrival is slightly delayed. As soon as they arrive-"

"You'll come running. Got it. Wish me luck."

"I thought the Kt'aan didn't believe in luck? Over."

"I told you, I'm a Kok'to. And we started believing when a runtling slave defeated an experienced chieftain in a duel to the death and left with her family and his head."

"I see. Over."

Skuller turned off the walkie before addressing his men.

"We ain't getting any reinforcement. We're all we have."

"But, didn't Grover-"

"Grover gave me the go-ahead to kill one of this expedition's leaders, you think he wouldn't do the same to the others? Nah, he wants us dead."

"Why?"

"We already failed. A full team could reasonably go against a single unknown Super, but Brutus ruined everything. Grover just wants us to tire out that beastie and then get rid of all of us to reap all the rewards."

"Why?"

"You saw him, right? We're not his men, we're his mercenaries. And he doesn't mind letting us die if the operation is a success."

"Shouldn't we run away then?"

"Nah, not worth it. Grover ain't alone. He knows how to lead, but I've never heard about him before and yet he's so good at it? He's someone else's guy, for sure. If we run, there'll be people chasing. Maybe not today, but soon enough."

"So what now?"

"Now?"

The orc grinned madly, his white tusks giving him an even more unhinged and dangerous look than his lean yet dense muscle and his height ever could."

"We hunt."

"I see. Over."

Grover shut off the radio as he put it back on his clay belt, Displeased by his interaction with Skuller. A voice quickly snapped him out of his thoughts, an androgynous and annoying sound that quickly got on his nerves, though he had enough experience not to show it.

"Why did you lie?"

Grover looked at the slimy humanoid to his left, apparently confused about his plan. Good.

"I'm afraid Skuller is compromised."

"What? How?"

"The tone of his voice. If we go there now, he'll betray us and kill us all, or at least try to."

"Really? You sure?"

"With all due respect, Soluble, I have been in enough team-ups to know when someone is trying to double-cross me."

"You didn't expect the shark."

"Brutus wasn't a betrayal. Not a typical one. He's just an idiot who decided to do the job alone after failing to manage his team. Skuller, on the other hand, is more composed. He'll convince his team to join his little coup and kill those that disagree. Hence why we're not joining him."

"Why? Shouldn't we go there before he tries to make friends with that thing?"

"A reasonable conclusion, but you forgot two major details. One, Brutus already poked the hornet's nest. That shadow creature is now aware that it is under attack, and will assume that any further arrivals are more opponents, not potential allies."

"Okay, that makes sense, I guess. And the other thing?"

A serene smile formed itself on Grover's lips.

"We are talking about an orc. Once they have a target, they fight till the bitter end. No matter the betrayals and deceptions, once an orc wants something dead, it will not stop."

This was why he had specifically asked his employer for an orc. It took some work to convince Guy to contact one, but it was worth it. Even the weakest of the monstrous humanoids would pose a challenge to the average Cored human, and he had been lucky enough to find not only a Cored orc but one born and raised in a tribe. The wrong tribe, some of his information would need to be updated, but a tribe nonetheless. Urban orcs had lost a lot of the strengths of their more tribal brethren, sadly. They even had the audacity to start thinking for themselves. Not that being tribal stopped Skuller from doing exactly that.

"Sounds kinda racist."

Immediately the smile left Grover's lips.

"It... Is an effective way to plan any dealings with them. I believe you would call it trusting my instincts, in a way. So far, I've yet to be wrong. Just like how I trust your worries about this unknown entity."

The transparent grey humanoid with black bones floating inside of it beneath its black leather clothes grunted but didn't make any more remarks as they both kept on walking in the tunnels. Just because they didn't plan to be Skuller's reinforcements didn't mean they couldn't slowly approach them, just to make sure there wouldn't be any bad surprises.

Unsurprisingly, the slime was easy to manipulate so long as their ego was stroked. Grover had plenty of experience doing that.

"Everyone's in place?"

"Yes sir!"

"Good."

Skuller readied his arm before he threw a grenade at the wall of black bricks on the other side of the canal, roughly in the center. At his sides the thugs who accompanied him were standing in line and aiming their guns at the wall, ready to shoot if anything. The grenade detonated, spreading dust and rocky debris everywhere in the tunnel, many of them hitting Skuller and his team but none of them reacted. Skuller had drilled it into their heads when he briefed them about his plan, rocks may hurt but monsters kill.

The orc's face was inscrutable as he stared at the spot he had aimed at through the cloud of dust, waiting for it to clear so he could properly judge the extent of the damage. A smug look quickly reached his face once everything settled down, letting all see the wall and the effects of the grenade. The spot Skuller had hit wasn't that badly damaged, mostly small cracks here and there that they wouldn't have noticed without looking for them with their flashlights, but a spot a little further on right was suspiciously more impacted, small holes appearing in the stone and letting him take a glance at what seemed like some sort of hallway behind them.

"Well boys, we found our monster's lair. I'm throwing in another grenade, be ready to shoot if anything acts up."

"Couldn't you punch through what remains? It doesn't look that solid."

"Yeah, it doesn't look like it, but ya see, that little thingy should have been strong enough to punch a hole through cement. So, how come those old sewer bricks held?"

"Do you mean..."

"Shark boy broke his hand for a reason. I don't know how but it's obvious why someone decided to either replace or upgrade these bricks. And sure, I could give it a good kick, but I ain't betting my foot. Wasting a grenade is better than wasting me."

The thug understood the reasoning but still didn't look satisfied with the orc's management of their supplies. Skuller would keep an eye out for that one. He didn't expect Grover to be thorough enough to plant a spy in every team, but better be paranoid than dead. He had learned that the hard way, with his brother.

"Ready? Here it comes!"

Once more Skuller threw a grenade, except this time something weird happened. A black tentacle popped out of the black bricks on the ground and seized the grenade midair before tossing it back at Skuller and his men. Skuller didn't even bother thinking about throwing it back or warning his guys, those things were quick. He immediately dived into the dirty water of the canal, uncaring about the stench and enormous leeches that immediately assaulted his body as an explosion occurred on the surface, sending a couple of the thugs into the water.

Skuller might have been fine with dealing with leeches the size of his forearm with his thick skin but it wasn't the case of the men that had unwillingly joined him the canal, not only because of their weak human skin but also the size difference. To the thugs, those things were closer to the size of their torso, and Skuller only had the time to rip a leech's body off one of the two - leaving the head on the man, forcefully detaching a leech's head was a terrible idea, you had to be delicate and now wasn't the time - before the other thug was swarmed by even more of the things. Once he saw the state of the one in his arms Skuller decided not to bother with the two men, instead, he swam back to the surface purely with the strength of his legs while he killed every leech that had attached itself to him.

As the orc emerged he caught sight of the carnage that had taken place in the small time it had taken him to return. All of his men were now weaponless and a pack of weird huge black rats had appeared out of nowhere, clawing and bitting them in a frenzy that spread blood everywhere. As he observed the scene Skuller made up his mind, this hunt wouldn't succeed. A good hunter knew when things had gone south, and if this wasn't things going south you could call him an elf. No, there was no point trying to save any of those men. He would return later. Without Grover. With better equipment. With his family.

Those were the orc's last thoughts as a gunshot rang through the sewers, the bullet lodging itself directly into the green humanoid's head, straight through the brain.

On the other side of the canal, James lowered his tentacle holding the gun he had taken from one of the thugs, carefully sending another tentacle to fish up the large man's corpse. He quickly looked at Mischief's fight in case any of them needed help or one of the opponents tried to flee, but it was unnecessary. Rats they were, they were still wild beasts. They knew how to maim and kill, they had to to survive. He was only a beginner in this domain. He hated the fact he now knew what taking a life felt like that, or he would once the adrenaline would run out once the raid would be over.

For now, he had to be ready.

Two teams down, two to go. Though, based on what I saw, it looks like Soluble and co will be playing second fiddle. Right now what's more important is fixing the wall, once that's done I could try to do something with Soluble's infused bones, but that can wait.

Polisson, holding the ripped-out throat of a thug in his shadowy claw, nodded at James. Mischief was done. This team had been fully taken out. No survivors.

I can't afford to distinguish between the hostile and the meek during a fight. I can't... The first group all wanted to surrender, but this one...

He didn't know. And it terrified him. The orc clearly wouldn't have surrendered, he saw it in his eyes, but the rest...

Now is not the time. Moral debates and anxiety crises can come later, now? Now I must be ready for more.

And more would come.