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“I don’t like this,” Fang Rui announced.
Wu Yuce glanced at him. The hood and mask of Fang Rui’s costume covered most of his head, but under the light of the streetlamps Wu Yuce could still see the trace of his partner’s mouth, set in a firm line, and the glint of his eyes, narrowed in focus.
“How so?” Wu Yuce asked, adjusting his own mask.
“I don’t know. I’m just putting it out there, so I can say I told you so, later.” Fang Rui’s tone was still light, but Wu Yuce knew that he wasn’t so frivolous to say something like that without any reason, not when they were on a job. Fang Rui’s intuition had always been particularly sharp when it came to things like this, and it had definitely helped them on more than one occasion in the past.
Just another reason to take caution right now. Of course, that had always been the plan, anyway.
“Ah, well. Come with me, miss,” Fang Rui said as he extended a hand out to him, and Wu Yuce, rolling his eyes, took it. He felt Fang Rui’s power settling over the both of them like a cloak, hiding them, and then, still holding hands, the two of them moved.
This job, as the report from GPA headquarters had told them, was straightforward enough. Their goal was to rescue a boy named Ash Yi, seventeen years old, currently held hostage by some low-tier villain gang.
They’d been lucky with the report this time. Sometimes GPA had almost no information to give them when it assigned a job, and the heroes were sent in blind. But this time, it seemed that the intel team had been able to do their job quite successfully – they had the layout of the hideout, which wasn’t large to begin with, and the expected location of their target as well.
Get in, get out. It’d be fast. And for that, Wu Yuce was thankful, because he honestly wasn’t in much of a mood to be doing these routine jobs right now. Ever since Li Xuan disappeared two days ago…
As they approached the gate that surrounded the hideout – it was really just another ordinary building complex along this city street – Wu Yuce withdrew a few cards from a side pocket of his costume. Without slowing their steps, he tossed the cards in front of them, and then locked them in midair with his power.
Once upon a time, he would have struggled with these small, precise footholds. Wu Yuce’s power ensured that the cards would remain frozen in space no matter what weight was put on them, but that didn’t necessarily make it any easier to balance upon them. Now that they’d done it so many times, though, climbing like this was as easy as ascending a set of stairs, even when they still had to hold hands.
There was exactly one bored guard stationed at the gate entrance, and he didn’t even turn his head as the two of them landed on the other side. Wu Yuce released his power, letting the cards silently fragment and scatter.
“Sheesh, we don’t even need me for this. They’re not big enough to have serious security,” said Fang Rui, not even bothering to keep his voice down as they ran toward one of the buildings on the left.
“Better safe,” replied Wu Yuce. Fang Rui’s power rendered himself imperceptible to the senses and to most technologies, and by touching Wu Yuce, he could extend that imperceptibility to him as well. Extremely useful for sneaking about, although Wu Yuce was all too wary of the false sense of invulnerability it tended to lead to.
It also meant that they had to hold hands like this for extended periods of time, but that was a different issue entirely.
They broke in using a standard piece of GPA tech, an electronic device that could disable many locking systems. They dashed along the corridors, Fang Rui’s power silencing the otherwise echoing sounds of their footfalls, until they finally arrived at a locked door that looked no different than the rest.
“Man, I sure miss the thrill of cracking doors manually,” Fang Rui commented, as he used the unlocking device again and pushed the door open. Wu Yuce wondered, not for the first time, if talking aloud like this helped keep himself sane, when his power meant that he couldn’t talk to anyone.
As expected, the boy was inside, bound to a chair that was secured to the ground. His black hair was a bit mussed, a bit of dirt on his face, but he was undeniably the young man in the report from GPA, the one they’d been sent to retrieve.
Tossing the unlocking device to Wu Yuce, Fang Rui hung back and kept watch at the door. When Wu Yuce let go of his hand, he felt the cloak slide off him as he became visible again, and the boy, already staring at the open door, jumped.
“Who… are you?” the boy asked, his voice barely above a whisper. He was watching Wu Yuce with wide and scared eyes, and he looked like he was trembling a little. But there were no visible injuries, which was a good sign.
“GPA heroes,” Wu Yuce answered, kneeling down to unlock his restraints. “Stay quiet and we’ll get you out of here.”
“Oh, thank god…”
Wu Yuce helped him to his feet, but it seemed he didn’t need too much help to walk. Arms crossed and shoulders hunched in, he looked around nervously as Wu Yuce guided him toward the door.
Fang Rui popped into visibility as they approached. “Hello hello,” he said, crouching to the ground. “Get on my back and hold tight, I’ll carry you.”
The boy nodded, dutifully climbing on. Meanwhile, Wu Yuce’s mind was still turning. Aside from the one at the gate, who seemed more like an ordinary security guard than an active member of a criminal group, they hadn’t run into a single person watching this place. But surely, even if this was only a low-tier villain gang… especially if they were trying to keep someone captive…
So when an unfamiliar voice suddenly sounded from the end of the hallway, it was the bad news Wu Yuce had already been expecting.
“Oh? Intruders? What stars brought you guys in here tonight, huh?”
There were two of them, a young man and young woman. Dressed in their own specialized costumes, these were clearly full, powered members of the gang. Wu Yuce didn’t respond to the man’s taunt, because the woman was already rushing forward, spear-like weapon aimed right at him.
The thing about Wu Yuce’s locking power was that it didn’t work on living beings at all. The easiest objects to freeze were relatively small and rigid; the more an object deviated from that, the more time, effort, and energy it took him. And there was a limit to how much he could affect at any one time.
So, stopping the woman directly was a no-go, and he couldn’t stop her clothes in time, either. But as her spear came toward his chest, Wu Yuce thrust out his hand, and the spear froze in midair.
The woman’s momentum still carried her forward, so she stumbled as the object in her hands was suddenly no longer moving with the rest of her. Wu Yuce took the opening to kick her back, simultaneously unlocking the spear and wresting it from her hands.
He tossed it away behind him, and there was no clatter against the ground – he knew he could trust Fang Rui, who had vanished with the boy but was still most certainly present.
A brick was flying toward his face, from the young man. Wu Yuce locked it, ducked underneath, slammed his wrist upward so his grip on the brick slackened and Wu Yuce could snatch it for himself. Wu Yuce maneuvered around, so that the woman’s follow-up punch was blocked by the man; the young man managed to avoid getting hit, but it interrupted both their rhythms.
Two on one was no good odds, but Wu Yuce could tell that even if they were competent in combat, these two weren’t particularly practiced in fighting alongside each other. And besides, he did still have Fang Rui, even if he was carrying the burden of keeping their charge safe.
They didn’t need to defeat these two, anyway. They just needed to get away. It was only a few seconds before the woman suddenly found her legs crumpling beneath her from an unseen force; Wu Yuce shoved her over and pressed the brick from earlier against her back. Once he locked it, the brick was immovable until he released his power or he went out of range. She might be able to wriggle free if she struggled for long enough, but this would buy the time they needed.
He jumped out of the way of her flailing limbs and spun to face the other attacker. Holding his hand out to the side, Wu Yuce grasped a spear that seemed to materialize from thin air, and stabbed toward the young man.
The young man was still chattering some nonsense as he dodged the stab, and then suddenly ducked under an attack that Wu Yuce couldn’t see. But he left himself open with that second movement, and Wu Yuce was able to slam him against the wall and pin him in place by locking the woman’s spear against his body.
“Let’s go!” Wu Yuce said, beginning to run back down the hallway the direction they’d come; he held his hand out, and felt the familiar sensation of Fang Rui’s cloaking power slide back over him as another hand grasped his.
Wu Yuce glanced to the side, and saw his partner still carrying the boy safely upon his back. “You got hurt?” Wu Yuce asked, noticing the fresh bruise forming around Fang Rui’s eye.
“Yeah, that guy managed to hit me. Lucky punch,” said Fang Rui.
“Are you alright?”
“I’m great!” As soon as he said that, he suddenly stumbled and fell to the ground, his hand sliding out of Wu Yuce’s.
Wu Yuce almost shouted in alarm, but remembered himself at the last second, that he was no longer hidden by Fang Rui’s power. The boy had tumbled off of his back as well, and a second later, Fang Rui appeared, crouched on his hands and knees.
“What happened?” Wu Yuce hissed urgently, kneeling beside him.
“I don’t know, I – my head –”
“Can you walk?” At Fang Rui’s nod, Wu Yuce continued, “I’ll carry him, just keep us hidden, you can do that, right?”
Fang Rui nodded, shakily pushing himself to his feet. “Sorry, I don’t know what’s going on–”
“It’s fine, you did great. Come here,” Wu Yuce said to the boy, who had stood up and was watching this anxiously from the side. The boy reached to hold Fang Rui’s shoulder, as though in futile support, or maybe hoping that his cloaking power would reactivate as soon as possible.
Still holding Fang Rui, the boy took the hand that Wu Yuce gestured toward him.
Wu Yuce felt it instantly, the sudden intense wave of dizziness that assaulted his entirety and sent him crumpling to the ground. Somewhere in front of him, he saw that Fang Rui had fallen back down as well.
Fuck. Fuck. His limbs refused to obey him, but with his mind racing on high alert, it was all too obvious to Wu Yuce what had just happened. And it had happened so quickly, too.
They’d been played.
“Sorry, seniors,” said the blurry figure of the boy they had been trying to rescue. He knelt over Fang Rui, then pressed something to Wu Yuce’s nose and mouth, and everything went dark.
When Wu Yuce awoke, it was to his entire body encased in a solid block of ice, save his head. He wasn’t feeling as cold as he would have expected, but he was indeed very firmly stuck. He could just barely twist his head to the right, where he saw Fang Rui just waking up, in the same predicament.
The room they were in was extremely unremarkable. It might have been the same building as where they’d been caught; it was so generic it was impossible to tell.
“Don’t hit me, but… I told you so,” muttered Fang Rui. Wu Yuce threw a glare at him, but it was a good sign if his attitude was back to normal.
Before he could start brainstorming how to escape, the door suddenly opened. In strode an unfamiliar man, flanked by the familiar faces of the three young enemies they had encountered earlier.
“Oi, what the hell is this about!” Fang Rui yelled.
“Hello, Fang Rui, Wu Yuce,” the man said to them, exceedingly polite. “My name is Ye Xiu, and these here are Tang Rou, Steamed Bun, and Qiao Yifan.”
“Ye Xiu?” Fang Rui said, incredulous. “What, like the retired hero Ye Qiu? One Autumn Leaf?”
Ye Xiu actually smiled a little at that. “In fact, exactly. I did go by those names for a while.” He held out his hand, palm up, and a small dragon shaped of scarlet energy spun into existence. It reared its head, breathed fire at them, before dissipating.
The two of them were stunned into a silence. And then, “Illusion,” said Wu Yuce, speaking up for the first time.
Wu Yuce had witnessed One Autumn Leaf in action before, and the demonstration did match his callsign. But such a small effect, it could be faked, imitated… right?
The man merely shrugged. “Believe what you want. However, I am here as a leader of GPA, because we need your help.”
“Yeah, right,” Fang Rui scoffed. “Why the fuck would GPA go through such a convoluted method and lie to us like that when they could literally just ask us directly?”
“It was much-needed training for my students,” Ye Xiu replied, nodding toward the three standing next to him. Qiao Yifan, the one they’d believed to be Ash Yi, was the only one who had the decency to look a little embarassed; the young woman Tang Rou scowled at the ground, while Steamed Bun merely grinned and waved brightly at them.
“…What the fuck,” said Fang Rui.
“What do you want,” said Wu Yuce, a little louder.
Ye Xiu nodded, then tapped his foot on the ground, causing the ice to recede from their bodies and vanish. The two of them stumbled a little, but after exchanging a glance, neither of them made any move to attack or escape.
“As I’m sure you two are well aware, your team leader, the GPA hero Li Xuan, disappeared approximately two days ago,” said Ye Xiu.
“Yes, we do know,” said Wu Yuce, rather tersely. And they still had no idea what happened to him, no leads, and now instead of continuing their investigation they were stuck here just talking about this…
“What you probably don’t know is that he wasn’t the only one,” Ye Xiu continued.
Dividing the GPA heroes into teams like this allowed them to work in more specialized, efficient groups, but it also meant that the members of the various teams of the GPA didn’t interact with each other much on a daily basis. Wu Yuce had reported it up, of course, but to him there’d been no point in spreading fear or gossip widely amongst themselves. Hero work was dangerous; they’d get Li Xuan back soon enough.
But this…
Almost subconsciously, Wu Yuce found himself reaching for Fang Rui’s hand next to him, twisting their fingers together. “…Who else,” he said.
“Every senior hero.”
There was a pause.
“You mean…”
“Every hero who’s been active for over five years. Qi Breaker. Desert Dust. Immovable Rock. Vaccaria. Aweto. Swoksaar. Troubling Rain. Blossoming Chaos. Dazzling Hundred Blossoms. Windy Rain. Life Extinguisher. Demon Subduer. Peaceful Hermit. And more. All missing without a trace.”
Ye Xiu offered them a smile, and he suddenly looked very, incredibly tired.
“You could say we’re in a bit of a crisis right now.”