Threat recognition was an important part of Power Brigade training. Small details like a slightly more prominent energy signature could indicate a super tech weapon was far more dangerous than others of a similar kind. Then, of course, there were the ones that required a sling over the shoulder for a muscled lizard dude to lift. That was also a good indicator.

"Take cover!" Great Girl yelled while proceeding to do very much the opposite of that. But I wasn't responsible for her actions. She was more experienced than me, and decently high tier. We just had to hope that it wasn't a weapon made with size changing werewolves in mind.

It seemed that the Neon Void liked their couches, but not enough to avoid shooting them. That was why I took cover behind a vending machine. I just had to hope that it was one of Commissary's. Nobody wanted to shoot that guy's vending machines, because they shot back. He wouldn't mind restocking a vending machine in a villain lair, though. He was that sort of eccentric. The Power Brigade didn't have any of his machines inside because of security risks, but it wasn't weird that a gang was a bit more lax.

Regardless of the details of the vending machine, I wasn't chosen as the target for the mega cannon. Instead, they tried to shoot Midnight. They disintegrated a whole kitchen as Midnight darted around. I felt a sudden boost from Haste, which I had been just about to cast. Instead, I redirected that mana towards a Size Shift spell. The spell usually did the same thing to a target and all of the stuff they were carrying, but I tried to improvise something special. If the gun could get bigger and the guy smaller…

But they barely moved. I was used to my improvisations working more often than not, but not this time. At least I didn't waste much mana, and the threat did end up neutralized. Great Girl was already leaping through the air to tackle the guy with the disintegration cannon.

In slow motion, I watched her knock over the lizard guy, grabbing onto random bits sticking off the weapon. Her arms bulged as only part of her grew. I wonder if she knew she could do that, or if it was a subconscious thing. It didn't last long, as she shrunk back to near her normal proportions when she finished ripping the weapon into pieces.

That was about the moment that backup arrived. Obviously we weren't crazy enough to have gone into a den of villains with just three relevant people. We just didn't have a good way to hide more people. Or at least, a good way that wasn't already occupied with other jobs. The Power Brigade wasn't doing just one thing, after all.

I heard the first one in before I saw them. Or felt the gusts of air. "Hey!" A bunch of people toppled over. "Make-" Others kept their feet and found that their guns no longer had clips, and for those few that had safeties they found them to be on. "Me-" Everyone was lucky that we didn't default to killing people, because Shockwave could have killed at least a few of them in that same time. I'd seen Shockwave kill extradimensional dire rats by the dozens- with a knife. Not something they tended to advertise as a possibility, for their own image and that of the Brigade. "Faster!"

I considered Shockwave's request. "No need for that just yet," said another new arrival. Movebrain was gathering up all of the dropped weapons and ammo so people couldn't just retrieve them. There were still a few individuals around the edges of the room that hadn't yet been dealt with, and he yanked weapons right out of their hands. "We've secured Anima for the moment. Focus on finding their stores."

"That, I can do," I commented. I had a vial specifically for this purpose. Animal hadn't kept her evidence of drugs, though that would have been perfect for finding what we wanted. Instead, we had to approximate from what we'd seen before the raid on Rodentia's lair.

I held the vial flat on my left palm, imbuing it with mana. Finding something that matched something else was pretty easy. It swiveled and pointed towards-

I took three shots with the gun in my other hand. After I had enchanted it, it was generally sent to imbue things with electricity. Like a stun gun, but without a sustained current that could shut off someone's heart. Unless I hit it directly, but in that case it would be hard to say the electricity would be the larger factor.

The vial swiveled away from the now-defunct scrying anchor, pointing down a particular hallway. "This way," I said.

Shockwave was already running off in another direction, flinging open doors. Whether or not they went directly into a room after doing so appeared random, though it probably wasn't. It was a good way to avoid a whole roomful of people shooting at you… at least meaningfully. Open doors were also much easier to speed through later.

We had to clear the whole base anyway, so cutting off a potential flow of enemies from one direction should be good enough.

"I'll begin securing the people here," Movebrain said as Mono and Grasp entered through the illusory wall that hid the base. "Your team should focus on securing whatever you can."

Great Girl was done beating up the people that needed it. Movebrain appeared quite capable of cuffing people who were struggling without even lifting a finger. "Got it boss," she said. "Mage, show me the way."

She took point. That was her job as a bruiser, and I wasn't going to take any of that away from her. Of course, she wasn't the sort that just let herself get hit so I also couldn't assume she would block everything. I had to keep my wits about me.

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The second scrying anchor was easier to get to and I was less annoyed, so I yoinked it instead of shooting it. The Neon Void seemed to use small boxes. I'd dump them off in containment later, since we couldn't be sure they only did one thing.

Great Girl knocked people against walls as they rushed out of surrounding rooms. I was pretty sure she broke some ribs each time, but frankly they should be glad she was holding back that much. The Neon Void had only half assed defenses for most of their members, which made them pretty much normal humans. Though most of them weren't humans, but that wasn't the point.

As we turned a corner, something flew past my head. I heard nothing, but I saw the impact on the other end. It was Mono. I wasn't worried about him hitting us on accident, but…

"Ah, dammit…" he grumbled. At the end of the hallway was what looked like someone brandishing a gun, but it was actually just a hologram projected from a vending machine.

"Warning!" a mechanical voice came from it. "It appears you have just assaulted Commissary." From what I understood, the guy who made these machines treated them like extensions of his own body, though I was pretty sure they weren't. Or it would have said 'me', maybe. "Reparations will be required or self-defense protocols will be enacted. Please insert legal tender amounting to [one hundred American dollars]." The last part was for some reason not in a mechanical voice, but instead seemed like a recorded snippet. "You have sixty seconds. Fifty-nine-"

"Yeah, yeah, I got it," Mono said. He bent over to check the pockets of one of the thugs we beat up. "Ugh, nothing but cards. Commissary doesn't accept stolen cards."

I pulled out some cash. "You can pay me back."

"Thanks," Mono said.

I was pretty sure the other vending machine I'd seen was a regular one. It had lacked the style this one had.

After we paid off the vending machine so it didn't shoot rockets or something at us- an annoyingly high price for something that hadn't even overcome its barrier- we hurried along. I did wonder if it sold anything interesting, but we could check later.

We fought our way through thugs. So far, I hadn't seen anyone I would consider exceptional in the employ of the Neon Void. Were they all just regular dudes that got their hands on super tech? At least that lizard guy was a bit bigger, but it wasn't anything that rose to the level of a power.

Seriously, how had they managed to grab stuff from Rodentia? She wasn't the most dangerous, but she was good at dealing with large quantities of people. And her moderate danger level was only because of her choices, not her actual limitations.

Great Girl seemed to be thinking the same thing. "Where's your boss?" she asked, holding someone against the wall with one hand.

Obviously thugs couldn't answer a straight question. The woman responded by trying to punch Great Girl, but she mostly just managed to pat her on the bicep. "You'll regret this! Arssa will take you down!"

Great Girl spun the woman around, twisting her arms behind her back and cuffing her before tossing her over to the side of the corridor. We couldn't afford to leave people free to attack us, but we also couldn't spend long on each individual. "Mage, anything on her? Powers?"

"Something in her pocket," I said. The device was… a hairbrush? I wasn't sure what super tech was doing with one of those, but just in case it could transform into a deadly poison injector we confiscated it.

We'd finally managed to get past enough distractions that we found what we were looking for. Probably.

"Should be inside this safe," I commented. It was a vertical one, maybe five feet tall by two wide. My magic indicated this was likely to be the stash. Why couldn't they just have left the stuff on a table. "It's got super tech defenses," I commented.

"I'll check it out," Midnight commented. A silvery tendril extended from Midnight's nanosuit. Super tech sometimes did weird things, but in many cases proper advanced tech could still overcome it.

All of us positioned out of the way, and Midnight stood around to the side so that even if there was some sort of retaliation he shouldn't be affected. The tendril happily curved around, and it could disconnect if something tried to flow through it.

"Take your time," Mono commented from out in the hall. "But we still have a trickle of people coming in over here."

They were lucky that he had plenty of sedative ammunition. And unlucky that they might not even hear the pained grunts of their companions after they rounded the corner. At this range, he could extend his sound dampening capabilities to beyond just his gun.

It didn't take long before the safe swung open, revealing a pile of syringes with familiar looking contents. "This is far more than Rodentia had," Midnight commented.

Grasp sighed. "It appears they have indeed figured out how to replicate it. Should I carry this?"

I shook my head. "Midnight and I should be able to fit them in storage." I was glad I had moved beyond the level where I had to be strictly touching things. Technically I had always been able to store a pile of stuff, even if I didn't really know that, but proficiency had made it easier to do from the top as well.

Since we were limited mainly by weight and not by space or shape, Midnight and I managed to store dozens of syringes- just ready to be injected into people's veins. Or was it supposed to be a muscle injection? We hadn't had an opportunity to analyze the stuff.

I kept one outside, just as a precaution. I used that to try to find any more, or anything connected to them. The second part was more vague, but I was hoping maybe we could find their production. However, if there was any it wasn't close. I explained that to the others.

"We should withdraw then," Great Girl said. "We've completed the main objective, and we don't want to run into any strange traps they might have elsewhere."

I nodded. Some people might get away, but if they really wanted to run they would be out the back already. With this many people, surely we would have grabbed at least one snitch who could help give us more info.

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