Mercury
I didn’t know what ‘Diagon’ was until after we’d all been sucked into nothingness by a magically-enchanted stick, dropping onto the ground in the midst of a burned-out, ruined city—finally, something my speed.
“Just like home. What’s the play?” While a few either threw up or looked around with apprehension, Jude’s jaw was set as she jerked her chin at a somewhat-intact building that could’ve been a bar or saloon; the sign was too faded to read.
“This way. I don’t know what sort of stuff we’re going to encounter, but… er, is there any way to contact Dugan?” Zed did a scan of the surrounding environment with a piece of technology that looked unlike any I’d ever seen before as I clasped my hands in front of me and prayed to Dugan, like Cho had done back in Zion. Sure enough, a rectangle appeared in midair, familiar bearded god looking out at me with confusion.
“Do you have any information on this place? We’ve just arrived in…” Jude stepped up next to me, “Outside the Cauldron, or what used to be the Cauldron. What happened here?” A pained expression crossed his face, a marble hand and arm reaching in from off-frame to hand him a cup of something.
“The Decepticons. Assassinated… well, your stepmother, as well as the rest of the island. I’ve only been there once, since.” Jude’s face grew taut, but she said nothing and simply walked forward to the door, passing through the rectangle even as Dugan continued.
“I’m giving Ellie operational command on this. She’s got the most military experience on Earth—no offense, Zedia.” The armored soldier in question shrugged, holding a strange pistol loosely as the rest all turned to first glance at Dugan, then at me.
“Does this make us a part of SHIELD?” Jude, from nearby a broken-in door, snorted.
“Technically, I already am. Well, Saber, but that’s still SHIELD.” From the rectangle, Dugan rolled his eyes mid-sip.
“Come up with your own department name, and I’ll see what I can do. I’d recommend codenames, as well—despite being temporal anomalies, a few of you are already in SHIELD’s database as POIs. Could be a problem if word gets out that you’re here.” I moved over to join Jude by the door, peering through at a dusty, broken-down bar.
“Ajax?” Various nods, then Elle spoke. “My codename in the Olympians is Nyx, so I’ll just keep that.” In short order, each of us came up with a decent nickname—Jude chose Saint, from the wings; James flicked a cigarette at her and proclaimed himself ‘Sinner’; Zed chose Jango, which seemed to mean something to her; Siobhan chose Merlin; and I went with a similar theme to Elle, flashing a grin and naming myself Six, after my old courier number.
“Alright, I’m more of an open field fighter, but I do know urban combat. Anyone got a spare rifle?” Elle tossed me some strange, futuristic model that I’d never seen—worked the same, though—and after inspecting a high-tech suppressor, I shouldered it and led the way inside. Puffs of dust rose with each footstep, fractured images of our group reflected from a shattered mirror that had once hung behind the bar; it looked like a fun place, when it was whole.
“Through the back. Should be a brick wall.” I nodded once, moving lightly between overturned tables, broken chairs, and the occasional pile of broken glass as the others stacked up behind me. It took a moment to get used to the sight on the rifle, but as I swept a corner and stepped into a small back alley, I was getting the hang of it. One rule in the NCR: learn to shoot everything.
“Now what?” Siobhan stepped forward, waving her wand and tapping a few of the bricks in the ramshackle brickwork in rhythmic motions. With a khrrk and a rumble, the bricks began to fold away and unveil a path beyond—this must be the place where the bank was held.
“It’s… gone. Oh, Merlin.” Similar to the exterior bar, what had once been a cramped-yet-cozy alleyway lined with shops, buildings, and all sort of attractions was now reduced to near-rubble; fires had eaten the wood while explosions destroyed the stone. A deathly quiet settled in the place, and I stopped a few feet inside as I spotted the only light aside from the sky, at the far end of the street.
“That’s Gringotts. Still running, even after all this.” Moving forward, I peeled off onto a side street to gain cover before we drew too close to the building (who knew what was guarding it) and once we had a few walls between us and the objective, I lowered my rifle.
“Give me a quick rundown on the layout.” Using her wand, Siobhan drew as good a diagram as she could from memory, using lines of soft silver light on the cracked stones of the alley we crouched in; Elle and Zed kept an eye on either entrance. It was fairly straightforward for an entrance, with only one path into a large system of caves navigated via magic minecarts—no other entrance was known among the two familiar with the locale. Zed, who was at the end of the alley closest to the bank, jogged over after a minute and informed us that her helmet scanner had detected four humanoids at the doors, and two more inside the first antechamber; the rest appeared to be lead-lined, so she couldn’t see in.
“With it being afternoon… not great for hiding in shadows. Do we go in loud?” Everyone exchanged looks, before Jude and Siobhan glanced at each other and shrugged.
“I can do four, if you do one and yourself.” With a nod, the pair began walking around and poking each of us in the head with either a finger or wand; as I waited for some strange sensation—and was greeted by the feeling of cold water dripping down my back, but when I reached back to check, my hand was dry. Then, I looked up at the others and swore as I saw them vanishing, driplines of liquid curling over them and leaving nothing but a slightly distorted view of the alley behind them in a general outline.
“Right there with ya, choom. This magic shit is better than any cybertech.” A few others, mostly Zed and James, were also weirded out—but with a snap of someone’s fingers, dull red lines in the general shape of each person appeared in my vision.
“Only we can see the outlines, it’s just for positioning. The second doorway has enchantments that’ll strip this off, but we should be able to get into the first room. After that, we go loud with the element of surprise.” With five circles nodding in unison, I did one last check of my gun (thankfully, I could still see myself under the weird spell) and crept out of the alley even as a hush settled over our footsteps like a cloud of silence. Two magic-looking people were standing on the steps, heavily armored and bearing both wands and some sort of spear that crackled with electricity; inside the opened first set of doors stood the other four. The door itself was inlaid with gold, secured shut by a silvery metal that I glanced at as we smoothly walked up between them all, weapons ready. Once everyone was sufficiently positioned, I took aim at my target and, after a silent count of three, I fired two shots into the head of the armed guard in front of me. With a swit-swit and a thud, he dropped to the ground in unison with the other six as everyone struck out at once. Jude stepped out of invisibility upon moving onto the stone directly in front of the gold doors, pausing and holding a hand back to stop the rest of us. She leaned forward, peered at something, then dropped to a knee with her focus on where a lock would be—her head was in the way of me seeing. As she knelt, a gentle humming began to emanate from her that had a likely-unintentional magical quality, lifting a slight glow off of her body and raising the temperature from a barely-chilly cool to a more springtime balm.
“I can smell living beings in there. Don’t know what, though. Can anyone magic through the wall?” Several looks were exchanged, no one seeming to have an idea until Elle bumped her shoulder against mine.
“We’re expecting heavy resistance, right? Never hit a bank this big before.” At my nod, she dug through her clothes and withdrew a few different items: a small baggie of pills, three cans of some colorful drink, and a roughly half-pound bag of some white substance I’d never seen before—James raised an incredulous eyebrow at her.
“What? If we’re going in loud, why not have fun? It’s the first mission of Ajax, after all.” I was already pulling the chems I had out for inspection, mostly earning horrified looks as I explained what things like Psychojet, Hydra, and Superjet even did as Zed added a strange mechanical device to the growing assortment of illicit substances that Siobhan was floating in midair in front of us; after a moment, Jude pulled out her pipe and began to pack it with a variety of herbs even as James added a pack of cigarettes, some of which looked slightly different (as though they’d been hand-rolled). Out of everyone, Siobhan was the only one that bowed out, citing her ability to gain energy from eating souls as I began divvying out the chems in as-equal of portions as I could. I only had one Superjet, but nobody wanted the Psychojet (they were all fairly wary of needles), so I shrugged and lit one of the hand-rolled cigarettes as the others took turns snorting or rubbing the powder into their mouths; Zed had only opted for one of the canned ‘energy drinks,’ but nudged me as I was about to puff the Superjet.
“Mind if I have some?” The way that inhalant chems like jet worked was a little tricky—wasteland chemistry always was—so since there was only really one dose in the tube, I instructed her to remove her helmet as I puffed the Jet and held it, then placed my mouth over hers and exhaled it into her lungs—called a ‘Ranger’s Best Friend’—before nearly falling over as time slowed to a crawl, before jumping into high-speed technicolor as I shot the Psychojet and stuck my nose into the bag and snorted as hard as I could, unfamiliar with whatever the stuff was. A blinding crack of energy struck me, body actually beginning to vibrate as I fought down the urge to let out a whoop and rounded on the door, which Jude indicated was unlocked around her pipe. With the rifle in one hand and Nero in the other, I stomped forward and kicked the doors open with a resounding crash, dumping lead into anything that moved as I allowed the shout to escape my lips. Clear vision was a dodgy prospect, emptying the magazine of the rifle even as my sixth shot cleared the revolver and swinging the rifle onto my back, holstering my pistol and grabbing some sort of sword off of the ground to charge at the nearest thing that was making noise. My vision quickly went red, though I was surprisingly left to my own devices—Luisa was mostly spectating—and due to both the element of surprise and the sheer strength of our crew, the worst injuries were cuts to my shoulder that were healed by a touch from Jude as I was partially carried onto some sort of mechanical device.
“You do that before every fight, where you come from?” Elle, seated next to me, shot me a sympathetic look as she shakily lit a cigarette.
“Real chooms move in silence, like lasagna. I’m surprised your heart hasn’t exploded yet.” Any response I could have given was cut off as we accelerated from stationary to what felt like over one-hundred miles per hour in an instant, a cackling Siobhan at the helm taking us down into dimly-lit caverns that sparkled from condensation reflecting the sparks of the minecart-thing as Siobhan played fast and loose with safety. I was mostly preoccupied with clenching the armrests until we stopped just as fast as we’d started, sending me flying over Elle’s and James’ head before a lunging grab from Jude caught me in midair by the back of my coat; we disembarked onto a platform bearing several wrought-iron doors as various lights were activated.
“Should be… this way.” Jude marched off confidently, leaving the rest of us to jog up behind her; as I lit my cigarette, Zedd snorted from beside me.
“You sure you’ve never heard of the Force? Feel like you’d be a good Jedi.” Having no possible idea what the word even meant, I glanced up with a confusedly raised eyebrow, which only made her laugh through her helmet and speed up to draw even with James.