A Circuit of Time: Book Two of Spark (A MPHFPC Fanfiction)

Chapter Eleven

*

Isabelle Llywelyn returned to Caul's secret safehouse.

"What did she told you?" The Soulbender asked behind his mask.

"She said according to the information they had gathered, Francesca's team had received help from local rebels in Nanjing and now they are in Shanghai. Should we look there?"

"No. Keep an eye on Valeria, she will lead us to the Mother of Birds." Soulbender said.

Isabelle nodded.

Then she turned to see the forces Caul prepared for this mission. Fifty peculiar soldiers with various abilities plus one ymbryne, all dressed in bulletproof uniforms, each armed with an automatic rifle, a shotgun and other hidden weapons.

Behind them, tongues squirming behind their razor-sharp teeth, were thirty hollowgasts waiting to be set loose.

*

At evening, Bodhi arranged a loop near his flower shop for them to rest.

There weren't any empty bedrooms, so Bodhi let them bunk down in a meeting room.

"Thank you." Miss Bittern said.

"I should thank you." Bodhi replied, "Without you guys, this world won't stand a chance against Caul even if every normal and peculiar work together."

"What do you use this loop for?" Olive asked.

"To prevent time-trapped peculiars from age-forward, and it's also an emergency exist into the past." Bodhi answered, "We don't use loops as much as we used to. Many of our members are normal, so we just do most things in the present."

After dinner, they left the loop, and Bodhi introduced them to a man called Zack Chang. They followed him through the kitchen of a closed restaurant and down a stair hidden inside a fake fridge. Eventually they found themselves in another dungeon, all kinds of weapons arranged neatly around them. This was their armory.

"What kind of weapon will you need in Mother of Birds' loop?" Zack asked.

"We need something that can kill big animals." Olive said.

"What kind of animal?" Zack asked.

"Dinosaurs, weird crocodiles, maybe even thing we never heard of," Miss Bittern said, "We need something that can at least take down a rhino."

"Why will you need to shoot dinosaurs?" Bodhi asked, "Those animals went extinct long before humanity's existence. No loop can go that far back in time."

"We had been attacked by them in another ancient loop before." Miss Bittern explained, "I suspect maybe those early, more powerful ymbrynes who made those loops possess the ability to time travel back millions of years and bring back animals from those times."

"That's a stretch." Bodhi said, "You sure you weren't seeing something else?"

"We are sure." Olive said.

"It doesn't matter." Zack interrupted, "Whatever it may be waiting for us there, we just have to make sure our bullets can kill them. The problem is, we really don't have anything suitable for taking down multi-ton animals. Most our weapons are designed for human."

"You have any gun specifically designed against hollows?" Olive said.

"That kind of guns don't exist." Zack said.

"We will take what you can spare." Miss Bittern said, "You still need these weapons to fight a war."

"No, I want you to take the highest caliber bullets we have." Bodhi replied, "A revolution can be fought with many kinds of weapons. But against a being like Caul, you will need all the help you can get."