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Part 1- Stakeout
Bip quietly snored to himself curled up in a ball next to Liz and Alex. The pair intently looked out over the now dimly lit yard of shipping containers now only inhabited by a handful of guards. Liz raised her hand up to her mouth as she let out a long yawn.
“This is taking forever, how long do you think till this guy shows up,” Liz mumbled through her yawn.
“Who knows, we’re not really going off much info here. What happened to all that energy to take this guy down?” replied Alex.
“Don’t get me wrong I wanna take him down, it’s just these late nights are really starting to get to me. Even if he does show up it’s gonna be hard to take him down if we’re to exhausted to move.”
“I’m sure we’ll be fine, one guy up against two pro Mages, what chance does he stand,” Alex replied, a grin spreading across his face.”
“Yeah, ha, I guess you’re right,” Liz chuckled as she felt her nerves ease.
She turned back to look at the yard just in time to see a black blur jumping behind one of the containers.
“Alex, get ready,” She said, her tone suddenly turning serious.
She stretched out her leg to shove Bip to life. He began to groggily open his eyes before turning to look at Liz.
“Huh… w..whats happening?” Bip Mumbled.
“Time to wake up looks like we’ve got company.”
“Where’d you see him?” Asked Alex.
Liz once again scanned the area below for the figure she had just seen. She raised her hand and pointed down to the facility.
“There.”
Alex and Bip followed Liz's finger to where she was pointing. A man dressed head to toe in all dark clothing stood pressed up against one of the shipping containers waiting for a pair of guards to pass by.
“So that’s the guy huh? Doesn’t look so tuff to me,” Bip said as he rubbed his eyes.
“Don’t let your guard down, we have no idea who this guy is or what he’s capable of. Come on let's not let him get away,” said Liz.
Liz pressed her hands against the edge of the roof causing a series of ice bars to form a ladder running down the side of the building. Liz began to descend to the ground bellow followed by Alex and Bip.
Part 2- Stalking the Target
The figure dashed through the facility keeping himself low to the ground. he reached a stack of containers and squatted down next to them as he watched and waited for a group of guards to walking past. He heard a slight shuffling behind him before turning around and scanning down the empty ally way of containers. After a brief moment of waiting the man once again took off speedily, narrowly avoiding the sight of the guards. Alex held Bip tightly close to him covering his mouth. The group stood behind another container just out of the sight of where the man had looked. Alex loosened his grasp around Bip letting him gently fly off.
“Crap that was close,” said Bip.
“You’re telling us? You almost got us caught, come on man get your head in the game,” Alex responded slightly aggressively.
“I’m sorry, I’m still half asleep. Maybe I could just rest my eyes for a minute.”
“We don’t have time for that now, come on let’s not lose him.”
Alex took off quickly after the man followed behind by Liz and Bip. They came to a wide-open arena-like area in the back corner of the facility. All lights in the area had either been turned off or where extremely dimmer than the others in the facility. The man stood in front of a large container with a strange-looking lock on the front. Liz, Alex, and Bip watched on from the darkness as the man knelt down and began to work on the lock.
“This must be the place where he’s keeping the kids,” said Alex.
“There are guards all over the place, how could he be keeping a bunch of kid under their noses?” Liz replied.
“No clue… let's go find out.”
Alex slowly began to creep into the wide-open space careful not to make a sound. Liz followed Alex into the clearing followed behind by Bip. She turned around and stopped in her tracks and face Bip.
“You stay back,” Liz whispered kindly.
Bip raised his paw and rubbed his weary eyes before nodding and returning back out of sight. The man continued to work with the lock as Alex slowly crept closer and closer. He raised his hand up causing his blade to appear in a cloud of smoke. Suddenly the man turned around and pointed a strange object like the one Benno had shown them earlier directly at his face. Time seemed to slow for Alex as he watched the man clench the object tightly causing a purply blue ball of energy to started to grow between the two ends of the barrel. Alex quickly ducked down as the ball shot away from the weapon towards him, lighting up the whole area with its glow. The ball passed over Alex’s head and hit the container behind him, leaving a melted crater in the side.
“Wh… what the hell,” Alex muttered, being suddenly taken off of his guard.
“Alex look out,” yelled Liz.
Alex turned his head to see the man charging up another attack. Liz quickly jumped towards him, pushing Alex out of the way narrowly avoiding the second orb of light as it shot off. The pair stood up to face off the man.
“What the hell was that?… Magic?” Liz said as she took up a fighting stance.
“No, I didn’t detect any magic from that blast or this guy.”
“Well whatever it was, let's not let him do it again,” Liz replied as she went to go attack.
“Wait,” Alex said raising his hand up to stop Liz in her tracks.
“Huh, what do you mean wait.”
Alex looked back at the stranger in front of him scanning every detail about him.
“That attack came out of nowhere; we don’t know what other tricks he has under his sleeves. We should be careful and notrun head first into this fight without thinking.”
“Huh… that doesn’t sound like you at all, but I guess it’s a good point,” replied Liz as she took a step back.
The man clenched down on the weapon once again causing a quite beeping to sound from it. He turned the gun to the side to look at a small battery symbol flashing red.
“Damn it,” the man muttered as he chucked his weapon to the side.
“Looks like we’re gonna have to do this the old fashioned way.”
The man mimicked the pairs fighting stances as they stood off, waiting for the other to strike first.
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TO BE CONTINUED
______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________Thanks you for reading Chapter 57 of Mage. If you like what you see please consider dropping a Kudos and maybe checking out the rest of my work. Also for any updates or if you just wanna see my cosplay adventure please consider follwing my tumblr here https://www.tumblr.com/blog/50funny and until next time have a good one.