Avah: Chapter 0: The Bomb

“Energy readings are nearly off the charts. The boilers should be burning off the evocation energy down there but we’ve got confirmed reports of conjuration magic at play which is keeping the reaction going. It seems to be self-feeding and in an escalating feedback loop. We don’t know which lab is responsible for this going FUBAR, if the engineers involved in this are even still alive, but we have to get down there and relieve pressure before it finds a weak point which we expect to be the Lower-City streets of the south-central Fourth Precinct. You don’t need me to tell you that Command views that as far too close to home for a failure. That’s why we’re going in. I want boots laced in 10 minutes. Dismissed.” Captain Steinbeck gave a quick salute, raising his hand to a black beret with a simple bronze placard reading “D8” on it. The captain looked his squad over quickly, nodding once as the group immediately returned their salutes, each raising a hand to their beret. The captain then clicked his heels once, turned face and made for exiting the briefing room.
 
A crew of 7 soldiers, all in simple red and black utilitarian uniforms held their salute for the captain, not dropping their hands until he had finished exiting the room. “Alright crazy 8s, you heard the cap, we’re on a bomb run. Heavy ablative loadout on the specialists and make sure your kit is airtight. Scalding steam is expected. We’re not expecting resistance so no heavy weapons, nor do we need to breach, so travel light. Those of you with light kits take the extra time to help Specialist Maxim and Specialist Tender get geared.” The group was already beginning to exit the room, heading for the armor even as lieutenant Ruzzle repeated something they already knew.
 
They’d been in this job for a good while, most of them anyway. They were the best at what they did, because if they were any less they’d have already been long dead. The D8s, or ‘Demolitions 8th Division’ were legendary within the Izzet League as the go-to solution for handling explosive situations. No critically overloading energy reactor was too dangerous for them to disarm, and given enough time there was next to nothing they couldn’t demolish either. The team was typically dispatched to decommission out of control magic experiments, safely bring down failing infrastructure or in the rare cases of war they had their time to shine with artillery and military engineering runs. The group’s symbol was their simple black beret, and it was something that the squad wore with pride.
 
“Ah shit, heavy ablative gear on Maxim? Do we have a crane yet, LT?” The adrenaline was already flowing in the group, and thereby so was the humor.” “That suit weighs damn near as much as me!” The soldiers laughed at the joke, but the perpetrator earned himself a slap on the back of the head from a winged tiefling woman for it. The name on her uniform read ‘Maxim.’ “If you worked your reps as hard as you work your mouth it wouldn’t be so bad, would it now? How’s your PT been trending?” The tiefling’s jab earned a chorus of “oohs” from the group, before a nervous bout of laughter broke out.
 
“Alright lads, can it. You know the drill. Rock, paper scissors. Loser gets Maxim, winner gets Tender.” The lieutenant rolled his eyes and opened the door to the armory, waving the group in. A quick match started in the back, followed by a heavy groan. A few laughs at the plight of the loser quickly quieted though as the team reached their respective lockers. There was no time for jokes during suit-up, a single mistake might mean a jet of steam getting in your suit and then the suit may as well be your coffin because boiled flesh doesn’t separate from insulated ceramite easily at all.
 
Most of the activity was around two very different individuals. On one end of the room was Specialist Maxim, a tall and full bodied tiefling woman who was being carefully suited up in a thick suit consisting of a dipped fabric and ceramic plates. The suit was tested at every joint for gas and water permeability, though her leathery black wings were left outside of the suit, the joints of her wings carefully surrounded with fabric folds and secured with baffles. Even with the assistance of two other members the handling of the equipment was difficult. The other individual was a near polar opposite, a short goblin male. His gear had a much less flexible nature and was composed almost entirely of ceramics, giving him the appearance of a pilot inside a humanoid construct. The stiffer and smaller components of his suit were quickly applied with the help of a single squadmate.
 
“We’re moving in double triple formation, lone leader. Keep eyes on the specialists and stick with your Weird Wagon as long as possible. Maxim high and Tender low approach I’ll be moving ahead. Murmurs in.” Lieutenant Ruzzle popped a small smooth metal object into his ear and nodded to the group. “I’m going ahead. Listen up for orders.”
 
The remaining squad finished prep put the murmurs into their ears. A few quick checks and the team was ready to move. They quickly split into two teams of three and made their way to the air-docks. Weird Wagons were new technology, the chassis of a wagon atop a cage-like structure which contained fire/air weirds. The heat and air pressure generated lift and thrust for the vehicles, and made them one of the faster methods of transport around the city. They weren’t elegant, nor particularly safe, but when you were dressed to head into a bomb sight the risk of elevated temperatures and static discharge weren’t particularly worrying.
 
Specialist Maxim looked out visored slit of the armored wagon that passed as a window as the team approached. Her grey eyes registered the passing of tall buildings as simple transitions from shadow to light, until the terrain flipped and now the buildings were columns of light within the darkness. They’d gone underground, crossed the line between surface and subterranean and were now gliding through the avenues, or were they catacombs, of the Undercity of Ravnica. A necessary place for a city which had consumed the entire surface of the plane, and a necessary place for the storage of the untidy things that kept that surface world operating.
 
The team was quiet as always before disembarking; there wasn’t much to be gained by speaking now. They knew what they knew, they had what they had as far as equipment, now was the time to let it all go: the locker room energy, any nerves or jitters, any lingering sense of self. They were moving at high speed toward something that by all sensibilities they should be fleeing from with even more haste.
 
Light was faster than sound. The brilliant blue slashing through the visored slit of the wagon caused a reflexive sucking in of breath as Avah flinched. She turned to look down at her team, she had to warn them. She tried to open her mouth, but the eye contact she made with the two across from her said it all. The light shone like a blue slash through on the wagon’s far wall, a herald of the energy that would soon cleave the very molecules of the team apart. The briefest watering of eyes, an unspoken acknowledgement and farewell, was all the three could manage in communication before the shockwave hit.
 
The dampness was everywhere. Her uniform felt drenched in something wet and heavy. Blood? Was it her own or the squad’s? How long had she been out for it to have gone so cold?
 
“Hey! Got a big one over here! Haul her out of the river, she looks hurt!” An excited man’s voice rang out in the haze. “Bloody hell, are those wings? We’re going to be rich!”
 
She felt herself hoisted from the cold wet by many hands. Did they say river? Was she dead? That must be it. They hadn’t made it in time. They’d failed. They’d died. Then was this the afterlife…?