Chapter 327: Back to Reality
The sight before her as she came back to her own reality was something like she expected to see. The room was filled with bandits. Most of which were standing back and relaxing. Not prepared for a threat at all.
While the Mirror Salem was pacing back and forth in front of Atlas and Yuti who were on their knees in front of her. Their weapons were confiscated by a pair of bandits who were standing behind them. Neither of them looked fatally injured which was fortunate.
"Sounds like your boss is-" Mirror Salem turned around as Salem raised her stolen rifle and fired two precise shots. There was loud dinging of metal on metal as the bullets flew past her. As she stood stunned for a moment before reacting by pulling out her gun. But then she was dodging out of the way as Salem had already thrown the stolen rifle through the air.
Atlas caught it as his cuffs fell off and spun around. Hitting the bandit behind him across the face and knocking him out. Yuti was less gentle as she flipped through the air behind the bandit that had her katana and snapped his neck as the cuffs were bouncing off the floor. Salem had aimed for and shot the cuffs off of them. Freeing them so they could fight back.
"You are still out numbered..." Mirror Salem trailed off as a number of people came through the mirror anomaly. "Shit! Run, the Faction is here!" She called out and then bolted for the exit.
Salem moved to give chase but she dodged back as a behemoth of a man slammed a makeshift hammer in front of her. She jumped back as she looked over the loosely clothed man who was grinning with barely any teeth left. "You ain’t getting to the boss, no matter how funny your hat looks." The man chuckled dumbly.
Salem frowned as she noticed a personal shielding unit on him. So she could not just outright shoot him to get rid of him. She would actually have to fight him while the chaos of battle around her continued. She looked past him where Mirror Salem was running and saw that Mirror Jace was following her a moment later.
"That guy is tougher and smarter than he looks. He managed to get the drop on both myself and Yuti. Knocked us out cold." Atlas explained as he fired at another bandit until their shield overloaded and exploded catching them on fire for only a moment before a bullet went through his head.
Yuti grunted as she beheaded another bandit. "He has cybernetic musculature enhancements. They modify his movements to an insane degree." Yuti explained, "I only saw a few Vexical manufactures do something like that."
Salem sighed as she stepped back and got into a fighting position. She would have to chase down her mirror counterpart after dealing with this overgrown bandit. She backed up as the large man raised his hammer.
She pulled out the knife she had on her and nimbly jumped over the hammer as he swung it in a sweeping arc. She rolled to kill her sideways momentum before dashing forwards and stabbing toward his armpit. But then clicked her tongue as the blue shield came up.
Salem grunted in pain as she was backhanded. Fortunately it was sloppy since she was not in an optimal hitting position. So she only flew a few feet before skidding to a stop on the sand. She spun around as the large man was already charging at her.
She grabbed another bandit that she landed near that was wrestling back a soldier and threw him into the large man’s path. The large man swatted him away and his shield flared. Unfortunately she was not able to directly influence this man. The strange mental block the portal had granted was preventing her telepathy and mind control. While the personal shielding unit was blocking her telekinesis. She had already tried.
She could grab the hammer with telekinesis but it was pulled quickly out of her control as his grip was too strong. So she had to focus on something else to use. Especially since she had a limited amount of bullets.
As she continued to back up her back hit the wall of the room. She prepared to launch herself upwards with telekinesis. But as she was she noticed a stray rock hit him on the side of his head and set off his shielding unit
She scooted her boot back and heard the sand grind against the rocky ground. Her eyes lit up as she came up with an idea and jumped upwards as his hammer slammed into the wall that was behind her. Once she was above him she focused and spun her hand like she was mixing something and the sand around the large man began to gather and rise out of the ground.
She then tightened her hand making a fist and the shielding unit flared on constantly for a few seconds as a grinding noise could be heard throughout the room. Then it exploded and the man grunted. "The hell-Arrgghh!" He screamed as Salem could see the sand turning red as it tore off the skin from man as it started grinding him up while he was alive.
Fortunately for him, Salem landed on his shoulders and plunged her knife through his ear and into his head. His body stiffened for a moment before he collapsed and Salem released the sand letting it fall to the ground.
The room had gone silent and the bandits started dropping their weapons as Salem walked across the room. "Let the soldiers take the bandits back to their reality." Salem walked to the opening that led to a balcony that was outside. She stopped as she noticed a cage with a man who was shaking back and forth while mumbling. "Grab our guy and bring him to Vanityville." She told them as she looked out over the edge of the balcony.
She could see down into the little fortress at the base of the mountain. There was a horse moving away quickly, heading on a direct course for Vanityville.