A City of Secrets and Masks

-Twenty- Miscalculations

"Scott, you bastard!" Minx said. She should have thought of him.

"Enough." Fundy butted in. Minx looked at him- he was grinning. "You only really have one use for us now-" Fundy pulled out a needle of black liquid. It almost seemed to glint in the light. "Test Subject Number Three's a bit of a long name. How do you like Third?"

Minx's eyes widened. "You wouldn't." Her anger turned to fear, and that petrified her. She froze like a deer in headlights.

"Oh, Minx, I'm not Eret. I've got a much more... Flexible set of morals." The needle drew closer to her flesh. "You should be honored- the first person to have the true version of Mute injected."

She watched the needle with wide eyes as it touched her bicep. It wasn't piercing, but it was so close. She was so close to losing her power.

Tears burned their way out of her eyes. Anything but this, please, anything.

"STOP!" called a voice from the doorway. Fundy froze. "Remove the needle and let her go!"

Surprisingly, Fundy did as the voice asked. Minx watched as he took a step away from her. Only then did Minx feel comfortable enough to look up at her savior.

Niki stood there, Scott passed out on the ground behind her. Minx gasped. Fundy shook his head wildly as if trying to get her commands out of it.

Minx remembered who she was and what she could do. She teleported over to Niki.

"Are you alright?" Niki asked, checking Minx's arms.

"I'm fine, none of it was actually injected."

"Good, good. We've got to get down to the Lab- they took Tommy down there. Eret's trying to get to him, but he'll need us."

"Hold on, you're... betraying the rest?" Minx said. She shut the door on Fundy and grabbed a chair from a bit down the hall. She shoved it under the doorknob, jamming it.

Niki waited for Minx to finish before nodding. "Come on, we need to go."

The two women ran down the hallway to the stairs. They slid down the banister and pushed open the door to the lab.

Eret waited for them there. He gave a small wave. He looked disheveled- his crown and sunglasses were askew.

Karl's unconscious body gave a reason. There had been a fight. Punz was battling a clone of Eret.

"The kid's in that room-" Eret pointed to a heavy-looking door. "I think they were drawing blood. Harvey rushed out with something red in his hands. It was either blood or organs."

"Alright, you finish up here. We'll get Tommy." Minx said. Both she and Niki ran over to the door.

It was locked. "Shit!" Niki said, banging on the door. "TOMMY?"

There was a pause. Then a soft knock came from the bottom of the door. He was alive. From the sound of it, barely. "We're gonna go get someone who can unlock this," Minx said. There was another, even fainter knock from the bottom of the door. 

They met up with Eret at the bottom of the stairs. Punz was knocked out as well, so they got up to the top floor without issue. Minx grabbed both of their hands and closed her eyes, using most of her energy to get them to the outside- to the heroes.

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The siege started with the rain. Tubbo and Wilbur were both near the back- their powers weren't the most useful for this type of combat, especially with Wil's power on the fritz.

The heroes didn't actually attack first. A sheet of familiar purple haze covered the battleground. Everyone put some sort of mask on. They wouldn't be fooled that easily. Not again.