There was one potential flaw in our plan to return to Bunvorix, which was the same thing that had kept us there so long the first time. The Bunvorixians had technology that rivaled the Celmothians, including the ability to suppress teleportation and the like. The enchantments Midnight and I had been doing for the embassy weren’t to achieve that result, but to make it more durable against magical interference.
Fortunately, I had some advantages. It seemed that the wide-scale teleportation suppression system would take longer to rebuild, and I had some trinkets to connect me to Bunvorix. And a native too, though I wasn’t sure how fast Zeb might be naturalizing to Earth. She did still care about Bunvorixian things. Like squirrels… or the squirrels they should have had.
“Alright, I think everyone is here.”
I took stock of the various people present. Ice Guy, Magnet Man, Khithae, me, and a pile of squirrels. I was pretty sure that Zeb was in there somewhere, as I could feel a stronger core of power. Then the bigger two, Fluffy and Miss Flutter.
We were making official use of Extra’s facilities, but really we could leave from anywhere. On the small chance that something went wrong and people came out of the Gate in this direction, we would have backup around.
“Starting the Gate now. Expect no more than one minute of activation.”
Truthfully it could last over two minutes in optimal circumstances. Almost two minutes and twenty seconds, in fact. I wasn’t quite comfortable pushing it beyond the normal 20 point mana limit, but with the various upgrades that was the limit at full mana. I did expect some resistance… and I found more than I thought.
I still got the Gate open, though.
“Proceed with caution,” I said.
We had already planned the entry order. Ice Guy was first- he was most capable of shielding himself from arbitrary attacks. Magnet Man went next, because he could completely decimate most weapons the Bunvorixians would use with his metal control. Third was Miss Flutter… carefully waddling through. The Gate wasn’t quite big enough for her to go through with wings outstretched, and it was better to be cautious. Fluffy followed, then Zeb and the squirrels. Finally, Khithae and then myself.
Flopan was there to meet us. It was nice to see a familiar face and some large ears. He was pretty focused on the squirrels, but I unfortunately had to draw his attention away.
“They might have logged our intrusion,” I said. “There was a bit of tension. We should probably get out of here.”
“A shame,” Flopan commented. “I liked this base.”
The revolution had already resolved to give up the location, however. An anticipated risk. I hadn’t been to terribly many locations in this world, and we didn’t have convenient communication that would allow me to receive pictures or useful coordinates. For Bunvorixian tech to contact Earth would require more infrastructure than the resistance had access to.
The area was sprayed down with anti-scent spray. I’d seen it before, but Flopan explained it to the others. “This will leave some doubt about whether you or even we were ever here.”
Khithae tilted her head. “Can’t they tell something from the fact that you used such a thing?”
“We’re not the only Bunvorixians that want to hide their trails. This could have been a drug den. Or somewhere high ranking officials meet up with forbidden lovers.”
As it turned out, merely having advanced technology didn’t make a planet better than any others. Though that was fairly obvious to anyone with decent sense.
“Come along,” Flopan said. “We have a vehicle waiting.”
We followed him through a few dumpy alleyways until we came to a small set of doors. He pawed it open, then led us down a ramp. Humans would have put stairs, but it seemed Bunvorixians preferred textured slopes for such an arrangement. Or maybe it was too early to make any sort of general judgment.
The roof was pretty low, so to protect my back and the necks of my taller companions, I cast Reduce on us. That included Miss Flutter, who was pleased to have more room to fly about in the tunnels.
The squirrels were obviously fine already, darting around and checking out everything. Little side passages, light fixtures, lumps of grime…
“Patches, no!” Zeb darted forward and grabbed a squirrel by the scruff. Oh good, we did have her. She mumbled some incoherent stuff, then put the squirrel down. “You can’t just eat random things you see!”
Patches just gave Zeb a look that said she in fact could eat random things she saw. The red-patterned squirrel was one of the larger specimens, though still not particularly huge. Still smaller than a housecat, if one didn’t count the significant volume of tail floof.
There were no further incidents as we entered the tunnels. Soon enough Flopan pulled up before we turned a corner. “Keep them all behind the line, okay?” Then he continued forward, revealing a strange little segment. “We’ll have to wait here for a few minutes.”
With my reduced height I didn’t immediately have the angle to see some important details, until I got closer to the edge of the platform. Then I spotted the drop off… and rails. Some sort of subway?
Zeb did order her squirrel companions to stay back, and they properly listened. Probably because Zeb used her serious voice, but maybe there was a bit of magic to it.
As Flopan had indicated, it was only a few minutes before a carriage pulled up. It was shorter and squatter than human forms, but it was still quite recognizable. Rather than seats or bars to grab onto, there were little cubbies of various sizes. Flopan backed into one, and Fluffy just barely squeezed headfirst into the largest size. It was a good thing he was indeed Fluffy, because if his actual bulk took up all that room he would have had to stay in the aisle.
The squirrels just kind of went everywhere, while the humanoids all sat awkwardly on the floor, resting arms on the edges of the segments to try to have some stability.
“Is it safe to take a vehicle such as this?” Khithae asked.
“We’ve been making underground rail vehicles forever,” Flopan said. “Of course it’s safe.”
“I mean… will it not be tracked?”
“Ah, I see.” Flopan nodded, his ears flailing about as he did so. “Do not worry. We have cover.”
I wasn’t quite so sure about that when we stopped at another, more official looking station. Passengers poured onto another carriage behind us. It seemed the other humans were equally suspicious.
“I feel like this would be trivially easy to track,” I commented.
“That means you come from somewhere with a functional bureaucracy,” Flopan commented. “People here are just glad that something showed up vaguely on time, and will bring them to the right place. But they might not be so lenient if we passed them by. Oh, and don’t worry. This car is full.”
It also seemed to have tinted windows- though maybe that was the norm. Either way, we kind of had to trust our friend from the resistance. I was ready to Teleport us away if necessary… but sadly that wouldn’t include Flopan. Then again, if there was actually trouble he’d probably be a traitor.
But he wasn’t a traitor. He was just a normal fellow who was a member of the resistance. And somehow, people really didn’t question another train showing up on the tracks. We dropped off the last of our passengers before we turned off into another tunnel on tracks that hadn’t been visible, seemingly going through a solid wall before pulling into another slightly larger station than the first improvised one we’d seen.
Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.
“Welcome to the current HQ of Resistance operations in this city,” Flopan said. “I’m sure that you will find-”
“Squirrels!”
Bunvorixians who had just been loitering around the edge of the area charged forward.
“Are they real squirrels?!”
“I can’t believe it!”
“Oh look it’s one of those upright folk! They’re smaller than I thought. Wow, look at this red squirrel!”
“Aaaagh! They’re too cute!”
“I’m gonna catch this one!”
Nobody caught one, try as they might. Even a terrain advantage was insufficient, as Zeb’s enhancements made them able to climb nearly sheer surfaces. They could even dangle from many overhead fixtures. They were also extremely fast… and seemed to enjoy taunting the Bunvorixians.
Zeb seemed to be watching carefully to make sure nobody was misbehaving. I wasn’t sure if it was reasonable to chase around your guests. Then again, they’d chosen to be friends with Zeb so they had to know what they were getting into.
“Excuse me,” one much calmer individual commented. He had slight curls in his blue-black fur, and looked quite refined. “Have you done any genetic sequencing on these individuals?”
Zeb managed to find a moment to answer. “I didn’t have any of the stuff! And I mostly don’t have two of the same kind.”
“I see. If my eyes do not deceive me, some of these are of Celmothian origin. And I would suppose the rest are from Earth?”
“And other worlds!” Zeb said. “A couple from Mars. And some places that don’t have shared planetary names.”
“Fascinating. If you would allow me to scan them… I intend to see if a squirrel reintroduction project would be feasible with your aid. Even if we no longer have our native specimens, Bunvorixians would take what we could get. Of course, such a project could not truly begin while the current leadership structure is in power.”
“That’s right!” said another Bunvorixian I thought I recognized. It was… Kirk? He was involved with the explosives. Yes, it had to be him given the various things strapped to him. “Down with the tyrants! Then up with the squirrels!”
Flopan cleared his throat, barking loudly. “Alright everyone, calm down! And no pictures inside the base, you know better!”
“Awww.”
Everyone was disappointed, but once he promised to create a series of secure pictures that wouldn’t give away anything important people calmed down. I wasn’t sure if anyone could get the squirrels to sit still for a photo session, but maybe that wasn’t what people really wanted anyway.
-----
Eventually we ended up in a proper meeting room, complete with many bean bags of varying sizes. Conveniently comfortable for individuals of various sizes, and something us humanoids could lie down on. This place wasn’t specially built to be accommodating to tall folk, and the resistance didn’t have the luxury of high ceilings just for aesthetic purposes.
I recognized some of those present, but there were also many others. It seemed that Flopan had been chosen to lead the discussion, perhaps due to his familiarity with us. And nothing stopped a mechanic from being good at leadership in a revolution. The fact that he carried tools around with him made him seem more down-to-earth, even.
“Before we can go into other business, there are certain details we must confirm given our limited communications at a distance. First, General Sporticus has been captured and turned over to the Celmothians, correct?”
“That’s right,” I said.
“Good. There has been no word of that on the streets here, but perhaps we might introduce it if it would suit our purposes. We would also like to hear about the team you brought with you.”
“Well, you know Zeb of course,” I said. She hadn’t been part of the resistance before we captured her on Earth, but she’d been easily bribed with treats. And quite rapidly broke away from the propaganda of her people. “Each of her companions is quite capable. And Fluffy is a rust mole… his teeth can chew on metal and his fur can absorb laser fire.”
“Oooh! They sound like a menace,” Flopan said. “Glad he’s on our side. Who else?” he looked around.
“I’ll let these two demonstrate their own abilities, to whatever extent it pleases them,” I said. “First is Ice Guy.”
He probably wanted to use a cooler name here, but it was easier to just stick with what he already had. And the translation might be better. “Unsurprisingly, perhaps, I control ice. I know you don’t have much exposure to powers here so I’ll give you an example.”
He created a whip out of ice, swinging it around. Then he formed a solid wall, before dissolving both back into nothing.
“... But this breaks so many physical laws!” someone commented. “It makes no sense!”
“As a simple explanation,” I interjected, “Take it that he has a special source of high density energy as well as access to drawing matter from other places.” That wasn’t entirely how it worked, but it was easiest to just assume most powers did something like that when matter appeared. Like drawing from elemental planes or whatever. And while powers didn’t use mana, they certainly had potent energy that came from somewhere.
People weren’t quite satisfied, but we didn’t have time to go into a multi-decade power study at the moment. Though perhaps the perspective of additional high tech societies could be useful in that regard, we kind of had to deal with the whole revolution thing first.
Magnet Man just lifted some stuff into the air. “I’m Magnet Man. Well, I don’t actually control magnetism. I can manipulate metal directly, so magnetic shielding doesn’t actually do anything against me.” He demonstrated by floating a few metal plates, before tearing one in half. That was all fine, but it was the stitching it back together that got people. “It’s not actually a perfect restoration. I wouldn’t trust myself with a gun barrel, for example. Though I might be able to do it given time, at base I just force the atoms into alignment and they stick together again.”
People were suitably impressed, but even if it was going to be extremely effective against Bunvorixians, it wasn’t quite as impressive to them as conjuring ice. It didn’t look like he was breaking the laws of physics as much, but he likely was doing so on an equal basis to Ice Guy.
“I’m an engineer from an alternate version of Earth,” Khithae commented. “I have a decent understanding of advanced tech principles and can provide useful perspective on potential weaknesses of government devices.” People nodded along, finding the idea of her presence useful. “I also happen to have powers.” She pointed at a light and it turned off. Then again, and it was functional once more. “You can consider it tech manipulation for the most part.”
Turning off just one light was actually quite impressive, in my opinion. Completely blocking the flow of power into the room was one thing, but it was quite possible that the circuit required every light fixture to be connected. I did know that Khithae’s powers were mainly focused around repair, but turning devices on and off was included. It was useful to guarantee delicate systems were off before she began messing with wires.
As for repair, she could do far more impressive versions of repairs than Magnet Man. She could reconnect plastics to each other, and even make up for bits of lost material. She was one of the Power Brigade’s favorite people because she could repair tech to actually work instead of just being physically connected. There were certain small details that her magic just covered.
“Fantastic,” Flopan said. “We will do our best to incorporate your abilities into our plans. As for what those are… we intend to break some people out of a high security prison. Political dissidents, not actual criminals. Those usually end up in lower security facilities.”
Of course they would. I was surprised people were kept in prison at all.
“We do have a time limit, however. The facilities aren’t really there to keep people alive for the most part. Many will be sick or on the verge of starvation. I know you have various powers…” Flopan looked at me. “If you could Teleport people out…?”
“Maybe with Gate,” I said. “But there’s a time limit. Otherwise, it can work if we only have a small number. If they’re in such poor states, though, I’m not sure how I can help specifically. Do you have medical gurneys of some sort?”
“I doubt we can sneak many into the facility,” Flopan commented.
“Sure we can!” said Kirk, the excited spaniel. “I can make a big hole in the wall. But don’t worry, I can make a bigger one on the other side and draw the attention there.”
It was good for people to enjoy their jobs. I just had the sense that explosive experts enjoyed their jobs too much.
“... How heavy are they?” I asked. “What sort of dimensions?”
“They can fold down quite small,” Flopan said. “But they have a not insignificant weight.”
After some effort, we determined they were around twenty pounds. That seemed extremely light, but they were made of special materials… and they floated with antigravity stuff so they had a lot less actual bulk. Even so, I could only put a few in Storage.
Well, my Storage. If I connected a bunch of spaces to various Bunvorixians using the new techniques I learned, everyone might be able to carry one or two. I could probably set up a half dozen people with such things easily, though they would fade over time. More than that I would need to practice.
Of course, the devices would still be cumbersome on the way out, so we’d have to account for that too. It didn’t sound like we were going to break out just one or two people, though.
That wasn’t the only thing we planned. The pictures of squirrels was actually an important propaganda effort. The government allowed squirrels to be wiped out- one way or another. Even if indoctrinated people didn’t believe they were directly at fault because the government blamed Celmothians, being reminded of squirrels would break away some people. And the more resentment built up, the more momentum the resistance could build. One step at a time. Or two, given that Bunvorixians had more legs.
