Chapter Seventeen
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 Don't dwell on the past, Intrepid, the black haired, black trench coat wearing man reminded himself. Even if the past was only ten minutes ago. It wasn't easy, but, he resolved, running a hand through his hair to scratch an itch, there was nothing he could do about it anymore. He shoved his empty soda away, wiped his stubble, thanked the vendor, and stood up.
 Intrepid left the cafe on Vendor Street and headed back to Leek Works. He used to go to this place with Grand Masterly Shadow and Elite Distant Tofu all the time. But that was dwelling on the past. Now, at least Red was back safely, Ben had made sure of that, while he had gone to mope here after talking to her.
  As he headed down the sidewalk he wondered if Mara had caught up to the fugitives. He thumbed the little dial on his earpiece back to subspace mode, and signalled her.
 "We're back to normal communication." he said. "The president was harsh."
 "No wonder I couldn't bring you up on subdimensional channels. So it's done." Mara's reply was staticky. "As for the mission, I did attempt to reason with them, but they said they were coming back to base anyway. What's that supposed to mean?"
 Intrepid shook his head at the ground ahead of his walking feet. "Kids these days." he muttered. "I haven't a clue. Well, take your rocket, remember how to fly that? - and head back. I'll see what's going on."
 "Love you!" she responded, and ended the call.
 He phoned Leek Works next, but the line didn't even crackle with any interference, because there wasn't a line. There was nothing. Intrepid quickened his pace, and for a second he considered activating his Bat Lord helmet and speeding away... except that was back in his office, in storage, with the rest of his gear where he last left it years ago. He imagined the contents of his trench coat's pockets instead. He had a snapsickle. That would work instead. He pulled it out of his pocket and out of its wrapper... it was old and half-melted and sticky. Grimacing, he let it touch his face.
 Suddenly he felt like his body was being pulled forwards, just his nerves and stomach and skin, leaving his skeleton behind. Then all of him was mashed back together in the middle of Leek Work's computer room.
 "Ben?" he called, almost falling down from the inertia that stayed with him. With one hand he reached for a table, at least to balance himself, and with the other he rubbed his eyes. As soon as Intrepid's head stopped spinning, he opened them and spun around to survey the room. His jaw dropped.
 What.
 The.
 Brick.
 Had happened to this place.
 This place was DESTROYED. Every table except that which he leaned on was overturned or nonexistant. The computers... ugh. Blast points adorned the ceiling, walls, and floor. Leek Works looked like it'd been transformed into a warzone, and its people...
 "BEN!" he shouted, but as with before, he received no response. Who else was here? "Red? Allison? Tiberius?"  Everyone had to be elsewhere. He ran for the connecting hallway and slid that door open, to see it looking no better, and the doorway on the other end looked pretty door-less. All sorts of mechanical parts littered the hallway, like someone overturned a metal recycling bin in there. Someone would need to clean that up.
 That reminded Intrepid of one more person to call. Too bad he couldn't remember his name. He was never good with complex names. "Number One Janitor?" he shouted into the spiral hallway. He held his breath.
 "Yes!" a voice responded.
 Intrepid exhaled in relief, and ran through the hallway. "What the brick is going on?" he shouted.
 As soon as he got through the doorway, he was nearly hit by a stray blast of laser fire, but he saw it out of the corner of his eye and ducked. Intrepid swung his head to see the blast strike the wall behind him, and proceed to infect it.
 Maelstrom. They were all over the hallway, battling it out with some minifigures who looked like they came out of a Nexus Force themed costume party.
 Again, Intrepid thought about activating a Shield Slam and sending the closest bunch of Stromlings to heaven. But again, he didn't have the corresponding gear. He had other stuff though. A Long Sword appeared in his hand.
 Months of research and development had created this ultimate weapon, based on a copy of his Uncle Killian's own legendary sword. Yelling out a battle cry, Intrepid swung the sword and a wave of fire expanded out from its path, passing through everything and everyone in the hall and smashing the weakest ones. Stromlings and Mechs smashed on contact. Intrepid then launched himself forwards, vaulting over a fallen cabinet to thrust the sword towards the next closest enemy, a Spiderling, which fired a web. The sword gleamed electrically and the web turned to dust, doing nothing to protect the Spiderling from its attacker or his weapon. It was felled as well.
 "YOU ALL WANT TO FIGHT?!" Intrepid roared. He gave his sword several aimless spins, and spurts of fire spun out in all directions. The Maelstrom horde, now consisting only of Spiderlings, an Ape, and some Chainsaw and Hammer Stromlings proceeded to turn tale and run down the other way of the hallway.
 "Ha." Intrepid let his sword fall and planted his feet triumphantly. That felt good. He could chase them, but the base defenses should smash them anyway. Come to think of it, the base defenses should have smashed them already. He listened, but except for the hiss of imagination leakage from busted pipes and the small crackling of aflame remains... there was nothing. The generators were silent.
 Intrepid turned around to face the other fighters for the first time. There was the janitor he recognized, in his Space Ranger pants and a No Pirates shirt, holding his Energy Spork. There was a guy dressed up as a Rank 3 Assembly Engineer. Strange and odd, considering every engineer he knew from the war had upgraded to Rank 7 during the last Maelstrom attack. Then there was a Sentinel Samurai girl, who-
 Intrepid did a double take.
 No.
 It couldn't be.
 The hairs on the back of his neck tingled and he aimed his sword behind him to incinerate the Chainsawling that dared sneak up on him. Then he turned around for real, not to make sure there was nothing left, but because he couldn't face these people.
 Red, he thought with gloomy realization. Why would you do this to me?
 Thinking of her, Intrepid asked, without looking back, "Where's the others?"
 The voice who answered "Yes!" to his number one janitor question answered, "They went downstairs, to follow the Craterises. But then we got jumped by these Maelstrom."
 A door, to the archive room, suddenly opened to Intrepid's side but he didn't aim his sword at the intruder. Out of the sleeves of her sweatshirt extended a frying pan each, and behind her he recognized his son. Just Allison and Ben. "What'd we miss?" she asked.
 "Stay in there!" Intrepid ordered. "What did Cailan and Crimson do?"
 "They attacked us." the Samurai reported. Intrepid didn't need to turn around to know it was her, or to know it was her who spoke. "Intrepid and Red followed them."
 Intrepid closed his eyes. "Stay here." he reiterated. The taste of snapsickle was still on his tongue, and he teleported himself to Leek Work's basement.
 All it took was one swing of his sword to send a wave of rooting over everyone in the room. Intrepid opened his eyes, and by luck, it was Grand Masterly Shadow's son who stood right in front of him. He stared at Intrepid with his eyes and jaw wide open in shock.
 "Good to see you too, Cailan." Intrepid muttered. He turned around, looked around a tower of milkcrates, and stepped over the unfinished concrete flooring to reach the next person, Red, and undo the imagination trap that had grabbed her feet. "Are you alright?" he asked, and she nodded.
 The basement lighting had switched to auxiliary, which consisted of ages old yellow incandescent bulbs. They hadn't been seen working since the base's construction, so they weren't changed with everything else. They provided a dim glow across the level's expanse, casting several shadows around each cylindrical support. Intrepid sauntered past Crimson and gave her a friendly punch on the shoulder, before proceeding along the wall past the stairs to the upper levels, to the doorway into the generator room. He heard raised voices from inside, and he stopped.
 "You know what?" Intrepid said, spinning around. All three young persons stared at him. "Red, put these two in containment. Then get these generators back online. I'll be in my office." The snapsickle was entirely gone and he decided he didn't like the spine-compressing feeling of its travel anyway, so he returned to the steps, leaving Red to figure out how to transport these two into cryogenic pods. To make it easier, he unholstered a stun gun and incapacitated both of his wife's cousin's kids.
 Then the man disappeared up the dark stairs.