Our first problem with following Magnus? The window. Amy and I rose to find Sean, fists clenched, staring at the window and the empty room behind it.

The window wasn't moving at all.

And look, that wasn't as stupid as it seemed. The frame around the window might have been made of metal. It wasn't, but it could have been.

Colored black, but it appeared to be ceramic to me.

With a wordless scream, Sean punched it. His hand bounced off, and Dayton said, "Whoa, dude. Let them try."

Sean wasn't listening.

He aimed every metal object in the room at the window. Giving credence to my idea that it was more of an observation deck than anything else, all the metal objects appeared to be office chairs, all of them with green upholstery.

Don't ask me why that detail sticks in my head. I don't know.

The office chairs didn't even scratch the window.

Dayton asked, "Can you—"

At least he tried to. A series of thunderclaps cut off his words even though he'd delivered them via implant. Checking my HUD showed that the fight had begun in earnest on the other half of the room. Jaclyn's fist threw Power Burst into a wall, and her hands blurred, holding him in place as he tried to get away.

Vaughn, of course, had started throwing lightning.

Everyone else was moving too, but they were the noisiest. More to the point, they were holding everyone else back for us. We needed to get out of here so they had the flexibility they needed to win.

Using the anti-gravity to hold me in place, I threw everything into punching the window, rewarded by cracks and movement inward on the left side.

I'd broken some part of the frame. I floated sideways to my left and tried again. A spiderweb of cracks appeared in front of me, some joining up with cracks I'd made in the middle of the window.

Breaking the window wouldn't take much more than that, but I didn't have to. The left side of the window had popped out of its frame.

Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

I leaned into it, pushing only to discover Amy pushing next to me.

The whole window fell in, and all of us flew into the observation deck. The force of the window pushed the chairs all over the room. I guess they had quality wheels. Honestly, they appeared to be roller blade wheels. That might be a question for Rook later, assuming he was responsible for both excavating and analyzing eldritch abomination technology, along with office furniture acquisition.

Sean and Dayton shot toward the exit. The door was not only open, but also metal. It shot into the hall as if propelled by rockets and then tumbled, exploding into its component pieces.

Sean didn't stop, pulling Dayton along in his wake. Amy and I looked at each other, and she used her external implant to say, "He's going to kill both of them."

"I know," I said, but we weren't taking a coffee break to discuss this. We were hurtling after them.

Amy had dropped behind me because rockets were better than magic flight, sometimes.

"Your pouch is glowing a lot. I can feel its presence through my magical senses now. I know you got it from that guy when we met with the wizards. Did he say where it came from?"

"No," I said, and we continued following Sean and Dayton down the hall, a hall that ended directly in front of us in two wide metal doors. Metal turned out to be the key word in that sentence, though, because suddenly there were no doors.

They imploded upon themselves and flew inward so quickly they disappeared before I could suggest to Sean that maybe he'd kill anyone in front of them—including Jody.

Sean and Dayton flew through the new opening before I could suggest that sending a spybot through first might be the better choice.

Over the implant channel, Amy said, "Power, you're going to kill us with this crap."

Dayton said, "Whoa, dude. She's got a point."

By then, we'd all flown through the doorway.

It felt like home in a way. We'd flown into Rook's home lab. At least that's what I assumed. There were a few hints. The biggest hint being the vast number of Rook-style powered armor units in various stages of completion, some in pieces, some worn.

It wasn't a small room either. It wasn't my lab. I didn't have the money from a vast criminal conspiracy or troops under my command. Rook did, and his lab reflected it.

Lab might have been the wrong word. The right word might have been factory. If anything, it reminded me of Armory's lab back on the island, the lab where I'd fought the Grey Giant for the second time.

While the Grey Giant didn't appear to be here, it did share one major characteristic—giant robots and powered armor. Unlike Armory's lab, most of the armor appeared to be assembled. Worse, it appeared to be worn.

As we appeared, more than 40 (my implant counted 43) put down boxes they'd been about to bring somewhere (one of the submarines?), dropped their packages, and turned toward the four of us, transforming their arms into weapons.

At the same time, a flock of Rook's crowbots flapped their wings and flew toward us. From the crowbots' PAs came Rook's voice.

"Rocket! Such a surprise to find you here. I thought I'd have to go find you or that you'd be stuck fighting Number One's minions. Well, good to see you again. It will be the last time."

Connecting with Artificer awareness to the stone in my pouch, I knew that the portal was here. That meant Magnus had to be near. In the background of my thoughts, my implant notified me that the high-pitched whine it detected was the sound of Abominator weapons powering up.

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