Take Back the Light

Chapter 23

"Alana, do you have visual on the enemy yet?"

Alana readjusted herself from her cover on top of one of the giant mushrooms in Deaddrop Cavern. The cavern was made up of dense forests that suddenly cleared away to reveal steep cliff sides, so as much as the Shane Gang wanted to charge the hunting party and get the mission over with, it wouldn't help if one of them fell to their death while doing it. They had to take things carefully.

"Almost," Alana breathed into her earpiece, responding to Eli. She could feel Dana approaching with her crew. The cold dark energy was sending constant chills down her spine.

A few more moments passed. Then Alana heard footsteps approaching in the forest below her. She bit her lip- hopefully, Eli's plan worked.

They'd been training hard since the fight on the train, but nobody was eager to get into another head-on confrontation with Dana, especially if she was backed by a group of ghoulslingers. They couldn't handle this enemy like the others- they had to think outside the box. It was like when the gang had first started encountering ghouls. They had seemed invincible at first, but after time, their slugs became accustomed to the stronger enemies.

Alana carefully scooted forward, peeking over the edge of the mushroom top. Below, she could see Dana come into view, and she winced as she felt the darkness inside her.

Dana was followed by two other ghoulslingers. The three Blakk Industries employees were looking around intently, searching for slugs to take back to the citadel or a ghoul depot. Ash growled quietly from his slinger's shoulder, following Dana with anger in his eyes. Mage stayed silent, her blue eye never leaving Dana. Alana had noticed that her healer slug was considerably more frightened of Dana than the rest of her arsenal (understandably so).

Alana pressed her earpiece.

"I've got visual. Get ready," she whispered.

"Will do. Don't worry, we're backing you up," Eli responded. Alana smiled and rolled her eyes.

"Who says I'm worried?" she responded. Trixie snickered from the other line.

"Always the confident one," Trixie said teasingly.

"Of course," Alana said, taking a deep breath and getting ready.

She remembered the plan the gang had made on the way to Deaddrop. It was Eli's idea- he had the mindset of well, Alana's got the powers and leverage, let's use them. Alana vaguely wondered whether or not he'd been planning for whenever she came clean to the rest of the gang ever since he had found out. He definitely wasted no time adjusting.

Alana watched as Dana walked around the forest floor. Her pale skin and scarlet attire stuck out from the dark blues, greens, and purples of Deaddrop in the middle of the night.

Dana stopped at the center of the clearing, scanning the area. She no longer wore her red glasses- her secret was revealed. She put a hand on her hip as she took a few steps around, searching for any slugs that had managed to escape her grasp.

"We've already cleared the area out," Dana finally said, turning towards the other two workers, her back to Alana. "I don't feel much slug energy."

Then Dana paused, and Alana heard a quiet laugh. The corrupted slinger sighed and shrugged.

"That is, if you don't count the slinger hiding on top of the mushroom tree behind me."