C8

*Knock, knock, knock*

A man in his forties rapped his knuckles against a mahogany door, waiting anxiously for a response. The man had minimal defining features, not necessarily hard to spot out of a crowd, but easy to forget.

"Come in."

Walking into the study, the man stood at attention, waiting for the seated male surrounded by wooden furniture and holding a beverage to gesture that he could speak.

"Sir, we have a situation."

Like a balloon deflating, the forty-year-old looked like he had removed a hefty weight from his shoulders, although he still appeared skittish.

"Spit it out."

"I noticed an inconsistency in the report about the Hidden Snake, and suggest we abort the current plan and pull your son out of their headquarters."

"An inconsistency? Are you saying that there is a problem with project Forti Animo? And if so, tell me about it, now!"

"There appears to have been an extremely well-done cover-up, they covered up the loss of members and the purchase of some Taboo items. What I discovered was that they have for some reason been trapping vast amounts of dragon-kin."

*Ksch*

The glass in John's hand exploded into fragments shooting across the room, the man in front of him, his subordinate Carlos wasn't spared from the explosion, two shards cut into his right ear and left cheek. But Carlos did not stumble back or flinch. Instead, he appeared frozen like a deer in headlights.

"Who made the original investigation?"

"After finding an inconsistency, I investigated Webster and found that other than pulling strings for numerous gangs, he is also an associate of the Hidden Snake, and the reason he had not been caught, is various bribes and the use of a silver tongue. I repeat, should we abort the project in which your son was to rise up through the organisation. Or should we have some people in the area."

"Get ready to send the Ghost squad in."

Yes sir.

...

After finding a lead to the location of Medicus, the Dragon-kin convoy headed down a direct path. Unfortunately, it was not to be, and after ten minutes they met a dead end. In normal circumstances, it would take about 3 minutes to walk 300 meters, i.e. 1000 feet, but due to the maze-like corridors despite walking an almost straight route, it would take much longer to go from A to B.

"Are we going through or around?"

""""Through!""""

"Covertly, or Overtly?"

"Is there a covert way?"

"A sound barrier and kinetic dampener with Earth drills would quickly get us through and would not raise any alarms."

"Hmm, let's go with that... Nah, we only have one Earth mage so that would take too long, Caecus take some of the boys back to the intersection we passed and when you start hearing explosions, let them loose, just make sure that they fire at max range to throw off the response teams."

"Will do. Gemma stay here."

The mages raised their hand's and whisps of flames flicked into existence, balls of raging fire, hot and ready to explode. Mages attuned to the wind, were on standby to push the flames and heat back at the wall. According to Caecus, Medicus is about thirty-five meters from our location, so we would use magic until the Earth mage says stop.

"Ready?"

"Yes."

"Fire."

*Kadoom*

A cacophony of explosions rocked around the facility, the heat blasted towards Quilons group but was pushed back. However, the walls were more resilient than the group expected. And several minutes later they were within 10 meters of Medicus.

"Stop!"

The offensive mages stood down, and the Earth mage took over with drills.

*Grrrrr*