District 42-Chapter 121: The Aesir’s dilemma
The warrior taking the lead beside Freygar in the middle guard stopped to move, taking a turn to the left. The Aesir did the same but didn’t give any orders regarding the protocols, since the others did it efficiently and swiftly even before he could look behind at them to do indicate that they could start.
Three warriors gathered at the edge of the turning, wielding tightly their weapons and conversing with each other. One of them took a device similar to a small camera, and a smartphone. That was a device that transmitted the image of that camera in real-time. It was something quite simple, but very useful.
He left the device on the ground after inspect carefully the corridor. He typed on his smartphone for a while, activating the second function of that technology. It briskly opened little gaps in its structure, and little legs like the ones of a spider come out from it. He controlled that little robot with his phone and made it cover all the way through that corridor until the signal was cut and he could not go further.
The man signaled to the other two Ridires with him that they could show up, and so they did. One of them put the barrel of his gun out of the cover on the turn’s edge, prepared to shot at any signal of movement. The other positioned in the frontier, without anything to protect him, also pointing his gun.
The other Ridires, at Freygar’s signal, also started to move, going towards that turn to keep going in that part of the complex. The first ones would keep there protecting them from behind.
It was something that they did several times to get to that point. They were moving slowlier than they had expected they would, but the Aesir ordered to them previously that they should decrease the pace.
That experienced warrior had made a lot of different operations to seek and execute. He had participated in plenty of missions where they needed to capture fugitives. He was more than fifteen years allied with the Ridire forces after all, without even count his time at the city guard.
For Freygar, there was something really strange in that action. He didn’t know why exactly, but his senses began to warn him that something was off. Maybe unconsciously he noticed those points that made him decide to be cautious.
The first thing the Aesir realized was the silence. No shots, steps, or screams, just a silence that raised the tension. Their footsteps could be clearly heard, no matter how sneaky they tried to be to not warn their enemies about their arrival. At that point, they should have already caught up with the vanguard, but there was no signal of them. And those warriors were meant to clash with the enemy before the middle guard could advance so much.
There were no enemies around. Freygar expected to see one or two fugitives that departed from their group, running backward and trying to get out of the line of fire, or maybe even some Ridires making a withdrawal maneuver. But none of this happened as well.
Besides, the Aesir asked several times to Anton about their localizations, their plans, and every detail he could grasp with the middle-aged man’s ability, but he started to be defensive, to respond subjectively, and at some point said that he was overworking his quirk and needed to rest for some while. But had been just a few times that he used that abnormal skill, and as far as the warrior knew, since he was a successful experiment, his endurance should be bigger than that.
"Something is happening here, and I feel uncomfortable even with all this care we are taking to not be caught by surprise... What the heck is that White-haired stubborn man doing right now? What are his plans?"
Just as all the Ridires turned to another corridor and were in the middle of it, a shout could be heard behind them.
"Hurry! Enemies behind!!" After this, noises of shots raised in the air.
For just a second, Freygar’s heart throbbed, but he could maintain his cool and analyze the situation. His specialty was to keep his mind clear and calm at moments like that.
"We need protection in front of us, now! We are close to another turn, let’s make a strategic withdrawal there. Five people at the front using shields. 3 behind them to retaliate. Take the actions now!" The warriors responded to his orders with a war cry, stomping their feet in the ground and moving as fast as they could.
The shield line was made first, then the line for the counterattack. The rest of the Ridires ran quickly to another corridor, regrouping there.
"Ok, I need two supports to check if there were warriors that got shot in this encounter, and..."
"There are more..." Anton warned, looking to the end of the corridor, which ended with a turn to the right. "They are coming!"
Quickly Freygar drew his two pistols, pointing at there. The Ridires, still following the protocols, positioned themselves through the corridor and waited for the worst.
"No... We can’t. They outnumber our troops, and they don’t plan to show themselves so easily..." Anton put his hand in Freygar’s arm, making him low his gun slightly. "We will need to run away from here, man..."
"How they possibly can be planning not to show up themselves? Are you saying that they know we are here?" Freygar asked, keeping his pistols, and signaling to the Ridires to go back again.
"Yes, I still don’t know how, but they can know our positions. There are a lot of them moving around this place in the complex, but they are too much for me to spot exactly where they are..." The Aesir felt that the more time Anton passed with them, the more useless he became.
In the start, his ability was more accurate. Freygar was thinking if that man was getting exhausted and overworked for real.
The troops retrieved again, they needed to pass quickly in the corridor they had just left, but there was no other choice. The Aesir was aware of how important it was to keep his warriors alive, since they were already outnumbered by the enemy, and their resources weren’t as bad as they were in the start.
They tried to move to other parts of the corridor but got stuck at shooting exchanges more often than they expected. It was like play hide and seek. They needed to be constantly running through the complex.
Freygar was getting without options more often. At various times, he needed to let some unities holding the enemies to prevent his troops to be completely wiped out. The enemies’ attacks were strangely accurate and efficient. It was a matter of fact that his actions were being previously calculated, and the Ridires, totally predicted throughout that battle.
"Ok. We don’t have any casualties as far as I know. There are just some men with light bruises or cuts. One got shot in the arm, but that’s it. The ones that are apart from the formation needed to be stuck at their own battles... I am getting without outs...
"I am running out of shield unities. The supports aren’t worthless at the battle, so we can add them to the attack unities, then we have good firepower, but the thing is, for how long will we last with this poor defense...?" Freygar could not count on the unities he had in battle right now. He was expecting that 50% of them would survive and catch up with them, but he couldn’t predict at all for how long those battles would last. 2 minutes inside a situation where you were being pressed were as important as 2 hours. In 2 minutes, an entire army could be wiped out depending on the movements of the enemy.
"I wasn’t expecting that they would retaliate like this, but it is no surprise taking into consideration that now they aren’t as worthless as they were... It’s not an impossible situation to get out from, but it will cost too many warriors for me... I think I will need to use this..." He touched carefully the device at his back. "However, it can be extremely harmful as well for the warriors, and if I use it just on me, then it will not be so worth..."
The Aesir was stuck in a dilemma there. For the first time in years, a prey had turned its claws to them, and not just threatened, but attacked and even cornered. It was something amazing itself. Casper could lead a bunch of sedentary prisoners and turn them into real warriors just by making them follow simple but effective orders.
"Sir, What will we do!? Anton just reported that more people are coming in our distance, this time we are getting into a sort of clamp, they are surrounding us from all the corridors around..."
The Aesir sighed hard, looking to the vice-leader of the middle guard.
"That’s... a good question, warrior..." His voice faltered for a moment. "A really good question."
