Team Boundless snuck around the back of the facility while she telepathically let Chine know where they were heading. Occasionally, she peeked through the facility’s windows to see if anyone had stayed around. It looked like the entire base was abandoned.
That said a lot about the situation of the dragonriders on this base. It didn’t seem like they could risk anything. They had launched a full-on assault on the imaginary troll horde. Either Gill had made the situation look extremely dire, or these riders couldn’t take any chances.
Alex felt a little bad for having tricked the riders, but it was their own fault. Hopefully, nothing terrible happened while they were out.
The team turned the corner and were greeted by Chine and the rest of the dragons, lazily lounging in the sun. Chine slowly raised his head when he saw Alex, his eyes twinkling in that smile only dragons could do.
The rest of the dragons rose along with Chine. We were wondering what was taking you so long. Ready to get to work, Dustling?
Chapter Three
The dragons and the riders split up, each pair making their way toward the stables. The plan was for the dragons to wait outside. It would be easy enough for them to enter once the coast was clear, and Alex wanted to make sure the facility was empty first.
She led the team around the back toward where Gill said the stables were. There was only one entrance from outside, and that was through the specially designed ceiling. The only thing that could get through the ceiling’s defense grid was dragons. Anything else would be instantly vaporized.
Instead of going through the ceiling, the team was going to work their way around and sneak in through another section of the facility. They were sending Jollies since she was the smallest, and she was the least likely to get caught after Gill.
Gill would have gone, but he had to keep an eye on the simulation he’d built. The riders of the facility still hadn’t come across it and he wasn’t sure how long it would hold. The simulation had been enough to get the riders out of the building, but he wasn’t sure if it would keep them out there for long enough.
Jollies was making a huge show of getting ready to go into the facility. Her flair for melodrama hadn’t lessened, however potentially stressful the situation was. She was demanding that Alex remind her everything was going to be okay.
Alex opened her palm and let Jollies take a seat in it. “Trust me, Jollies, you’re the best person for the job,” Alex said, wondering how much Jollies needed to hear this.
Jollies sighed, grabbed her hair, and pulled. “But what if I’m not quiet enough? I’m not a sneaky person. Pixies don’t sneak. Maybe a fairy would, but not a pixie. What if I get caught? What if I can’t find the…what am I looking for again? What if I can’t remember what I’m looking for?”
Jollies flashed bright white, then the brightness faded and she looked pale as a sheet of paper. Alex shook her head, smiling. It was evident that the pixie did need the comforting. “Jollies, you’ll do okay,” Alex whispered. “You’re going to head toward HQ and find the mission map.”
“How am I going to know what it is?”
That was when Gill spoke up. “The map is going to be in the middle of the HQ war room. It’ll be a large, green holographic map. They’re usually in the middle of the room. Nearly impossible to miss.”
Brath grumbled, “That’s if she can remember what she’s looking for.”
Jollies zipped in front of Brath’s face and pulled her dagger. “You bet your ass I’m going to remember!” she growled menacingly.
The rest of the team tried to keep from laughing at how ridiculous Jollies was being.
The pixie flew back to Alex. “All right! I’m ready. Let’s do this!”
Jollies slipped under the door leading to the janitor’s closet, which opened into the back of the facility to make for simpler waste management. Gill had found it the easiest point in the whole facility to sneak into. The closet was surprisingly large.
Once Jollies was in, she stuck her head under the door that led to the main facility. She was still a long way from the war room, and her best route was going to be through the air ducts. For anyone other than Jollies, it would have been a tight fit. For her, they were downright spacious.
Through the ducts, Jollies made her way toward the war room. The plan was that she would get a copy of the map while the rest of the team tried to find a way to get into the stables.
While Jollies was flying, she was also taking live readings of the areas of the facility she was passing through to make sure there were no other riders. So far, she hadn’t come across any.
There was still a good amount of distance between the janitor’s closet and the war room, though.
Gill led Team Boundless around the side of the facility, heading for the next section that had a supposed weakness, the gym’s bathroom.
Brath was joking about how he hoped that there were enough riders left for them to catch them in the shower. Alex had to cut him off. “Do you know how unbelievably creepy that sounds?” she asked. “Pervy little gnome trying to check out girls in the shower?”
Brath’s eyebrows raised with confusion. “Girls?” he asked. “I’m not trying to see girls in the shower. I wanna see how tough the dudes are. You never get a real fight out of a gnome unless you’ve burst in on him in the shower. That’s the only way you get to see the fire.”
Alex turned to Gill and asked, “Is he serious?”
Gill nodded absentmindedly as he checked his HUD visor to make sure
