Novel Full Chapter 2197 Twin Issues Part 1
— Kat —
The four additional guards were, thankfully, not people she recognised from previous rounds so Kat considered that a major plus. On the other hand, they were pretty average looking humans and Kat was pretty sure that with the right makeup you could disguise someone to look close enough to any of the four. Well, the one female guard might be a bit harder just because there were less women in the guard, or ready to fight but that was it really. In fact, despite Steel insisting otherwise two of the guards looked like brothers.
Kat was ready to meet them when Steel turned off the main street two blocks away from the quarantine zone. Kat didn’t say anything, just kept walking as she tried to work out why they’d turned off. There was a tension in the air and she was starting to wonder if there was an ambush or something that she’d missed but that would shortly turn out not to be the case.
After taking a slightly round about route with a few areas of backtracking, perhaps to throw off watchers or something? Steel walked up to one of the nearby houses and unlocked the door. As soon as he did so, a bunch of extra noise spilled into her ears. A bunch of people were chatting inside but Steel seemed unconcerned.
When they got through the door, Kat found out why. In the living room about half of the group she was meant to meet were setup. Two guards were watching through gaps in the windows, while Scar lay down on the couch and Brook reclined in one of the lounge chairs. The rest of the noise was coming from the kitchen, and Kat couldn’t quite see in at the moment but guessed the rest of the group was there.
Kat glanced at Steel who started to pull crates out from seemingly nowhere and place them down on the ground. “Alright, get ready to suit up you’ll be leaving soon. Kat, can you grab the rest from the other room?”
Kat nodded, and went to head off… when Scar asked, “Why does she get to avoid wearing that shit but we’ve got to point on those suits?”
“Because Kat can survive in the poison without issue and you can’t,” sighed Steel.
“I’m telling you, my coat is already enchanted to keep me safe,” insisted Scar.
Steel glared back, “And Vanilla has regeneration that likely means she’s safe as well, but I’m trying to be safe here so you’re getting in the suit. Besides, we don’t have time to test things properly. If it DOES work then you should’ve come forward about it earlier. We had to spend quite a lot of resources to make these suits work.”
Scar grumbled at that but did get up to start getting dressed so Kat continued on into the kitchen… and honestly wished she was surprised about what she saw. Technically, everyone was at the table, but Vanilla was being used as a chair by Maryland and Kat… just was not surprised in the slightest at this point.
One odd thing to note though… was that both twins appeared to be here, quietly whispering to each other. Kat debated listening in… but they both looked correct so she turned to the two idiots and spoke. “Steel is here with everyone’s suits, come into the other room and grab them, we’ll be heading out soon.”
’Vanilla’ stood up, taking ’Maryland’ with for a bit before flexing her muscles in such a way it through the other elf up onto her shoulders. This was, in theory a cool manoeuvre that would allow for her to carry Maryland out of the room much easier. In practice the roof wasn’t that tall, and Maryland ended up smacking into it. “Ah shit, dammit Mar- I mean Vanilla. Watch where you’re going.”
“Technically, I’m still in the same spot,” countered Vanilla. Hearing the voices of the pair further confirmed that it was Marigold and Vanya… but best to think of them by their ’current’ names lest she accidentally trick them into blowing their cover.
Eventually, the two separated, and as soon as they did, Vanilla zipped over and gave Kat a big hug. “Ah, Kat! I’ve been so excited to meet you. For the first time. Totally! I’ve heard great things!”
Kat rolled her eyes and returned the hug for a moment before Maryland walked up behind Vanilla and slapped her on the back of the head. It didn’t really do anything, so Kat decided best not to get the pair in trouble and broke the hug. Though she did ask, “Where is everyone else?”
“The rest of the guards are through there, and I don’t know where Carl is. He’ll show up,” said Maryland.
Kat nodded, and went to head off for the guards when she glanced back at the dwarven twins that remained in place. “We’ll grab them,” said Vanilla. Kat nodded and whispered back a word of thanks before going to grab everyone else. The guards were easy, once they spotted her, they simply headed off… but Kat couldn’t find Carl at all. It wasn’t until she circled back around to the living room that she noticed the elf was already there, grabbing his suit.
Vanilla was also a moment away from stripping. “Vanilla! What are you doing?” asked Maryland.
“Changing? Obviously?” scoffed Vanilla.
“The suit goes OVER your normal clothes. You don’t even have your amour on! So why are you stripping?” Maryland growled. Vanilla returned a smug smirk despite being caught and got to putting the suit on properly. The rest of the crowd had apparently spread out again to get changed. Kat quickly cycled through her mental image of everyone and she was sure that, at the very least, they were all who they said they were. Or at least, the pictures matched closely enough that she didn’t suspect any illusions.
A few minutes later the twins wondered into the room and Steel glared at them. “Why is it that both of you are here?” Apparently they hadn’t immediately headed for the room.
They glanced at each other before shrugging. “Look, both jobs you two were working on ARE important. I was going to leave things as is when you came to talk to me about swapping places. That was fine… but now suddenly you seem to both want to go?”
The twins glanced at each other before sighing in tandem. Both then tried to say something, before stopping when they noticed the other wanted to speak first. This went back and forth a few times before one of them stepped backwards, though their hands were hidden so Kat wasn’t sure which one. Their words did give a big clue though. “I know that I… that I really don’t want to get into one of those suits but… but it feels wrong to leave my brother to deal with this on his own. It seems dangerous and… and I wonder if I should be getting over myself.”
Steel let out a long sigh, “Rocky, there are two projects are two of you. Maybe if you’d come to me about this earlier I’d have found a way to fit you both in, but we are here, now, ready to leave. The only reason I’m not talking about ’major interference’ and ’leaking classified intel’ is because obviously you both knew about this because of how everything played out. Frankly though? At this point I don’t give much of a shit which one of you does go, but it has to be one of you.”
Lan looked away while Rocky sighed. “Isn’t there some way we can work around this?”
Steel’s eyes narrowed. “There was some way EARLIER as I said but we’re at the point where it is essentially too late. Even if I wanted to find a replacement for you on the other team, I can’t do that instantly. If you’ve been here all morning it means the other team is already down a few hours of work.”
Rocky winced at that admonishment. “Ah… sorry about that. I just… I didn’t think my input was all that important?”
“It’s really not your call in this instance. I was already going out of my way to make allowances for your phobia.” Steel raised his hands to cut off whatever Rocky was going to say. “I’m not complaining about that part. It was a poor initial decision on my part… BUT you can’t have those allowances made then come back and ask me to cancel them. This isn’t a school project, we’re talking about work that needs to be done yesterday, in both cases.
“Furthermore, the fact you think this will trigger your claustrophobia and still want to go is a risk. I don’t mind wanting to better yourself… but this is an important operation. One of the single most important missions, perhaps in the last century if not longer. Taking on additional risk by bringing along someone that might react poorly to the environment is a hard sell. So, what’s it going to be?” Steel asked firmly.