Tepic didn’t have much time as he made his way to the last cell and opened it. His friend was there comatose, staring without blinking the way he had when he’d first been shot. The young fox examined them and then sighed as he found a lock on the devices metal collar.
He left the cell for now to see Billy wrestling with Theodore and shouting obscenities while he had the large man’s neck trapped firmly in a chokehold. This didn’t stop the giant from throwing the Romanchurian about like a rag doll despite that. Jim was much more careful than Billy, watching his opponent, and then moving forward to try punching the giant in the diaphragm or tripping him.
The giant wasn’t going down easily though, he had been raised to never hurt a woman, but these men were another story. He thrashed about causing a commotion as he flailed about and knocked the two smaller men around, ramming them into the walls, but finally his knees gave way and he fell onto the table in the room smashing it beneath him.
Billy tore his arm free while Jim stopped to check the man’s vitals. Tepic slowly moved to join the two heavily breathing men, and there in the corner he saw his hat!
He ignored the men for now, who were quickly searching the room for something they could use before the man’s mates arrived, and collected his hat again. He reached inside and found the wire he needed and moved back to help his friend.
There were shouts and Tepic saw that two of the men he’d seen before had entered armed with swords, and that two more men he’d never seen were running up behind them! All his fellow captives had managed to get were the legs from the table.
If he and Beryl were going to get out of here then he needed to move quickly. The lock was tiny and the wire wasn’t the best tool for this kind of lock, but it wasn’t trapped so it didn’t matter if he made a few errors in his first attempts. He could have whooped when his ears detected a small click and the collar opened!
Tepic removed it from his friend quickly, and as soon as it was off of them their eyes began to move again! Feeling elated he chucked the thing outside and Beryl started to groan and feel at their head, where their fur had long overgrown where they had been shot. “Yer alright now Strifeclaw?”
Beryl blinked and tried to raise their head slowly and it dropped down again. Tepic’s face fell and he glanced outside to see how much time the men had bought them with the clubs, but was surprised to find that the two men had overpowered the two of the men in the cramped hallway and were now fighting the other two with the swords they’d taken! Billy managed to run through one of the men, while Jim managed to get the other in the leg and then cuff him aside the head after he’d gotten the extra room!
“Cor!” Tepic exclaimed as he looked between the two. “Yer didn’t tell me ya could fight like that!”
“Ya didnae ask lad,” Jim said with a grin, and then started to look over the bodies of the comatose and dead men to see what they could find. Hitting them on the head again when it looked like they might be rousing.
That was when Tepic remembered something the man in blue had said earlier about these men in passing, “Are ya supposed ta be Heroes?”
Billy somehow managed to snort and guffawed at the same time, “They think we is. Why that toff sent the clockwork after us!”
“I’m just a soldier,” Jim said quietly. “But aye, Phillip told us he hired that man as a ‘Hero Hunter’, but if he’s not working for someone else I’ll eat my hat.”
Tepic felt much better knowing that he was in such prestigious company and he turned back to Beryl who was still rubbing their head, but didn’t seem to be wobbling anymore. Tepic grinned, “Ya ready to escape now, Strifeclaw?”
Beryl nodded wordlessly, just as a new shout came from Jim Doohan, “Ya cannae use a gun here!”
Billy snarled quietly as he pocketed one of the mens guns, “I know what I am doin’!” He stood up and started to make his way to the door. “Ya three need ta moved soon. I’m gonna sink this ship and that smug git to the bottom of the sea!”
“What about you, Mr. Mudfoot?” Tepic asked, as Beryl came out of the cage and crouched nearby.
Billy kicked the side of the submarine, “They mean to use this vessel to blow up food ships heading to yer city and scare ‘em off. My little town chain’t much, but it does trade with New Babbage. I chain’t leaving this ship in one piece.”
“We’ve got a better chance of escaping if we stay together,” Tepic tried, but Jim was already talking over him.
“Then we need ta head ta their engineering.” Jim stated with confidence and a growing smile. “We can kill it there, and possibly find escape vessels there if the engineers that made this valued their own hides.”
Billy didn’t return Jim’s grin, but he nodded, “Alright. Stick behind me then, and leave that clockwork ta me if he shows up.”
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