"Don't forget Rift Garden!" Mom shouted into my tent just before I left.
"I know! Don't worry about it." I quickly slipped on the glove and we started on the move.
********
We all laid down on our vantage point and our shapeshifting armor looked like grass, I held a spyglass to my eye and watched.
'Spirit, take note, that one is an ice mage.'
'Ok, we have two ice mages, a fire mage, a pressure mage, and a plant mage. Get closer, your dad has to replicate their voices.'
Everyone except for Bella made their way down to the training yard quietly thanks to their shapeshifting armor allowing softer steps.
"Keep your eyes out, Gond recently had a dragon attack, apparently it's a whole family of the buggers." One ice mage said.
"Really? Mark, I know you're a battle maniac, but don't go chasing a dragon." The fire mage returned.
"Look, Mark is dumb, but he isn't THAT dumb. It's a dragon, not some criminal." The plant mage interjected.
The group argued for a few minutes before we had a profile of their voices.
"Alright crew, we have to take down the whole patrol at once, lets just hope they don't check sub-affinities." I whispered.
We all silently ran up behind the group. One of them was facing us but was quickly dispatched by an arrow from the hill. The other ones were alerted but killed before they could sound an alarm.
'It feels so gross, it's almost like we're stealing their faces.' I thought
'Agreed.' Spirit watched as all of the group started shapeshifting into the group that laid on the ground. If he could puke, he would have.
"Grab their tags, we need their names. I'm Mark." James said.
Dad started drawing the runes he needed to cast his voice-changing pressure spell.
"I'm Jennie." Mom followed suit.
"I'm Brandon." Yandea's voice was already adjusted to the male's.
"I'm Carrin." It felt uncomfortable to hear my voice when it sounded like a girl's, but she was the only one short enough for me since I didn't grow much during the binding.
"I'm Bareth." Dad's voice was extremely manly.
"And I'm the prisoner." Bella whispered into my ear, scaring me a bit.
I gave Bella's shortbow and quiver to 'Mark' whose counterpart used a bow. We hid all of the bodies in the treeline.
"SECURE HER!" I shouted and faked sounds of struggle as I pinned Bella to the ground.
My sudden pin actually scared Bella a bit, but she didn't let it show, only a stony mask of anger.
"Get off of me!" She shouted, her desperation was obvious.
My instincts told me to let go, but I fought it off and continued restraining her until 'Bareth' tied her hands. As expected, some guards showed up and helped us secure Bella.
"We'll take it from here." I said to one of the guards.
"You got it, boss."
My tag put me as the commander of the squad, and apparently, I outranked the new squad's leader.
We walked our way to the front door.
[Bennit]
My spectacles told me the guard's name before I could ask.
"Bennit, we caught one of the escapees."
"First show me your affinities."
We all used the manipulation our counterparts showed. I replicated the spells that the other ones can't use.
"You're good, go on in."
'That was super hard, I had to do three different instances of intuitive manipulation at once without burning, freezing, or poisoning people.'
We made our way through the hall until we got to an intersection I recognized.
"Alright Team A, the cafeteria is down that hall and three doors down to the left. Release the doors when you see us on the Recorders in one of the cells."
Team A split off while we made our way to the cells.
"I know the way to the cell block from here, it shouldn't be hard."
We walked for two minutes until we arrived in the room.
'Security room has been cleared.' I heard in my head through my Telespeak.
"Alright lawbreaker, get in your cell." I signaled to the group to kick things off.
I cut the rope using a tiny knife and Bella sent out her spectral chains to pull the guards away from the alarm bells while we killed them with quiet ranged attacks.
'Release the prisoners and slip out, we have to leave before the guards are replaced.' I ordered Team A.
All of the cells opened and the prisoners filed out.
"WE'RE GETTING OUT, FOLLOW ME!"
They all looked at me like I had six heads.
"Get 'em!" One shouted as they charged us.
'Wait, they think we're guards.'
"Wait!" I unmasked myself. "We're here to help you!"
'How many are there?' I asked my glasses.
[15]
'How many did they kill?! Monsters.'
I started peeling the walls off like I was shucking milfoil. As soon as I breached the first wall, the alarm went off and I sped up the process.
I rearranged the walls to block the enemies from getting in the corridor and closed it behind me.
I got through three rooms before I ran into resistance, a large patrol of guards blocked the path.
"There they are! Fire!"
The patrol was made up of mostly fire and pressure mages. The mages that couldn't do pressure or fire manipulation would use flow manipulation to fuel the fire mages. The fire mages rode the flow with their Eneru and ignited it. The pressure mages made the fire hotter by giving it more air.
This combined attack resulted in one big column of unstoppable fire, but that didn't mean unavoidable. I spun up Rift Garden and overcharged it with as much Eneru as possible. Two portals appeared, one was as big as the corridor and was in front of us, and the other was behind us and as small as a pin. The fire went into the first portal while all of the ice mages cooled the area as much as possible, the fire came out of the second portal and made a hole clear to the other side of the fort.
'Turning around the fire is a fool's errand, it would just stop the flames and cook us.'
As soon as the fire ended, I closed the portal and heard a faint, high pitched:
Crack. Ting tatat ting ting.
As a quartz focal gem fell to the floor I rushed forward and unfurled my spear. I used intuitive manipulation to fuse the shaft into one part as I stabbed into a soldier. His reaction time was heavily slowed from the Eneru exhaustion.
The rest of Team B and the prisoners followed my lead, killing off the patrol and equipping themselves.
We continued our trip through the building and were one room away when:
BANG!
"I've had about enough of you!" Professor Kesde had a contingent of mages with two human slave-warriors by his side.