As it turned out, the warehouse was a room. Technically, that was what most warehouses were, but generally they were… bigger. It wasn’t exactly a small room- maybe fifty feet on a side- but it was definitely a small warehouse. It looked like it was put together through a bunch of panels.

There were metal crates placed pretty much everywhere throughout the warehouse. “I wonder what’s in those?” Midnight commented.

“Nothing,” said the individual who had driven us, a man by the name of…

“Do you have a name?” I asked.

“Olim,” the suit-and-sunglasses guy answered clearly. Unlike his employer, he appeared human.

“They’re actually empty?” Acid Man knocked on one of the metal crates, resulting in a hollow ringing sound.

“Yes. Feel free to use them as cover in case of a battle.” Now that he mentioned it, they were rather conveniently placed for such a thing. “Until the shipment arrives there is nothing to protect. Feel free to relax until the delivery in fifteen minutes.” Though he said that, he kept his back straight, hands folded in front of him. I presumed that under his sunglasses his eyes were moving around.

“Who’s delivering?” our captain asked.

“A martian,” Olim said. “They will be lowering the package through the roof,” he gestured to some panels that looked as if they could flip open. “I will control the warehouse doors.”

“And picking up the shipment?”

“When the individual in question arrives in six to eight hours, they will come through an alternate entrance that I open.”

“What if something happens to you?” Ice Guy said.

“Then Madam Kendrux will send a replacement,” Olim said flatly. “She is monitoring the situation. She has sufficient subordinates to handle any similar issues, but we are not capable of combating supers.” He gestured to the handful of others stationed in and around the warehouse- we’d seen some outside the doors.

Silence. Awkward and long. “Since we have fifteen minutes, Midnight and I could use Force Armor on two of you…”

“A defensive ability?” Olim tilted his head. “Then I would recommend myself and Evans. It would be inconvenient to need to call in a replacement for myself and Evans is… danger prone.” That was the closest Olim had come to expressing an opinion since we’d met.

“I can’t help it if people like to shoot at me!” A small- or perhaps average sized for what he was- martian stepped out from behind one of the crates where he’d been positioned. That spot had looked rather empty, now that I thought about it. I couldn’t help but think that Evans didn’t sound like a martian name.

Midnight and I cast our spells, which would expend just about as much mana as we could recover in fifteen minutes. Our entire squad was already covered, of course, and there wasn’t really enough time to expend something expensive. Stoneskin didn’t really work ahead of time- even casting on just myself and Midnight basically took my whole regeneration over its approximate hour of duration. Plus it cost diamond dust, but given what we were being paid today, expending $20 or so every hour was reasonable.

Then we waited for a helicopter to arrive. I had little experience but I knew they were quite loud- so when Olim stated, “They’ve arrived,” I was surprised, not having heard anything approaching.

A button press on a remote and the center part of the roof of the warehouse hinged open. I heard a humming sound and looked up to see what some people would wrongly call a UFO. But based on what I’d learned, that was a completely incorrect name- because these were identified and had been for a while now. It was a martian saucer. I don’t know why I was surprised to see that, given the prevalence of martians related to this particular job already- and yes, two was a lot.

The ship hovered over the warehouse, a large cone of light shining on the empty center of the warehouse and slowly lowering another crate. My goggles told me it was two hundred and sixty-five kilograms. That was, of course, far beyond what I could handle with Storage, but it was always interesting to see the mass of things with the odd goggles from Vilhelmiina. It was only about a half meter on a side, relatively simple to carry if not for the weight. The beam set it down gently, with seemingly exactly enough momentum to touch the ground and an uncomfortable lack of sound. Then the cone of light disappeared as the bottom of the martian saucer closed, then it flew off- a soft humming the only sound as it did so. Olim closed the roof behind it, gears clunking slightly as they turned the heavy sections of roof back to their positions.

“... I feel like that could have delivered the shipment to wherever it needed to go,” I commented.

Ice Guy shrugged. It wasn’t our job to question why things were being done this way. He did look curiously at the box, though.

So did I. Though it would slightly throw off my mana regeneration, a bit of active mana gathering over the next hour would help cover the six points to cast Arcane Sight. The box was… totally and completely normal. No magic, no super tech or powers of any kind.

It wasn’t just contained, either. I felt my spell penetrating through the layers of whatever this thing was, and though I couldn’t discern the internal structure I was certain I had reached most of the internals. If there was anything special, it was either very small or extremely masterfully concealed. Even then, I would expect to feel some sort of concealment… thing.

“Huh.” I said, “How boring.”

None of the squad asked for comment- not because they were uninterested, but because unnecessarily revealing information about my abilities while being ‘monitored’ was problematic. And there was really nothing I could tell them except that it was boring. Maybe it was a gold statue after all. Or maybe astral diamonds? Were those actually non-magical? Considering a small handful could buy any city I’d been in back in my world, I hadn’t actually encountered any.

Then we waited.

-----

The first trouble came approximately an hour later. Our first warning was Shockfire. “I sense something!” he warned. “Body warmth and the flow of electricity.” He paused, closing his eyes to focus. “Cyborgs, perhaps. Or people outfitted by tech supers.”

I turned towards the door that I expected them to blast through, but nothing happened.

“South wall,” Shockfire pointed out- that was about the time something like a blowtorch started cutting through the metal walls of the warehouse.

“Should we… stop them?” Acid Man asked.

Olim answered that one. “If it is easier for you to fight them outside the warehouse, feel free. Otherwise, I would suggest getting in position to deal with them at this choke point.” As he said that, he pulled out his gun- a pistol- holding it on the crate in front of him that was just about the right height to support him. Evans stood on a smaller crate to achieve the same effect.

Acid Man ducked behind a crate closer to the wall while everyone else spread into their particular positions. Ice Guy took mundane shelter- why build an ice wall when he could just use what already existed?

Rocker had a question. “Wait so we aren’t concerned about damaging property?”

“As long as the package is unscathed, the rest of the warehouse is irrelevant,” Olim confirmed. “Including the structure, though I should note that it collapsing would likely harm the delivery.”

“I’m not that wild,” Rocker said. “Just good to know I can not worry about ripping up hunks of concrete.”

As the flames continued to lick through the wall, Shockfire edged his way closer, to the point he was actually holding his hand out to touch the flames. Even though the flames wouldn’t hurt him, normally the Force Armor would prevent them from touching him- but we’d tested things like this out before. As long as he was attempting to draw something in, it could bypass the magic. That only worked so much, as there were limits to what he could absorb and if something was particularly potent it might weaken the Force Armor even at his best efforts. It seemed he found a sweet spot with his hand just in the tip of what seemed to be the flames of a very large blowtorch- instead of a flame being a handful of inches, it went a good foot beyond the wall- and the walls weren’t exactly thin.

It took a good minute for the shape of a door to be carved out, after which there was a loud thudding as someone attempted to kick out the section of wall. They hadn’t done the bottom yet, which was quite embarrassing for them- and it was solid enough to not bend. The warehouse wasn’t just corrugated sheets on the outside, or with the power they had it would have been chopped apart in a few seconds.

Shockfire backed behind cover while they finished their cut- apparently having absorbed enough and not wanting to risk being exposed when things actually happened. The piece of wall fell out easily the second time and then… there were gunshots. I nearly ducked for cover before realizing that was from our side.

I supposed people invading a warehouse was sufficient justification to shoot them. There might be some issues if they actually killed people, but that was something they could handle on their own. After the initial moments, I wasn’t quite sure if it mattered, anyway. Bullets flew but I heard quite a few sounds of metal being struck as the few figures at their new ‘door’ staggered back.

Then a couple of them leapt through and started shooting lasers out of their arms. I didn’t think there were so many groups of cyborgs in the city, and I was right. This was the Mod Squad again.

I was quite glad for the nearly full cover the large metal crates provided, and I kept just me eyes above waiting for the opportune moment. When somewhere around a half dozen guys had stepped through with no more visible, I released my gathered mana at them. They suddenly began to move more sluggishly as Slow came into effect. I could have focused on one and made the effect stronger, but that seemed overall less impactful on a battle.

People began to spring into action, Rocker stepping out to strum on his guitar, amplifying the sound to blast the area they had all come in. It was clearly more impactful, sending them reeling while the gunshots had seemed only minimally effective. Yet the four out of six that remained standing managed to spread out in all directions, the copious cover also helping most of them- except the one that Acid Man entangled himself about. There were all sorts of things he could dissolve on a cyborg without killing them, and though it could take some time to dissolve metal I knew he could also focus on smaller bits, like wires or other connections.

Ice Guy got behind one of them, but even as he was tossing out an orb of ice they were spinning around. This one had that blowtorch arm- cutting Ice Guy’s attack in half. One section still impacted the man’s left side, covering it in a layer of ice, but the other hit a random part of the warehouse. Perhaps if he’d been able to move at full speed he might have avoided it entirely or even torched our captain.

Midnight scrambled past the legs of one of them, swiping out with an electrified paw. From our previous experience with the Mod Squad we knew that their electronics were not particularly sensitive to electricity- but overall they were still just about as susceptible as a human. Maybe a tough one, but it didn’t take much juice to lay someone flat.

In a moment that guy was down, and Shockfire melted right through one of the beam arms. We wouldn’t chop off biological limbs unless we had to- that sort of thing led to a negative reputation for being ruthless- but these were effectively just weapons. The fact that the Mod Squad had chosen to replace bits of their body with things more acceptable to destroy wasn’t our fault.

They went down easy. Sure, we couldn’t expect every member of a gang- even a ‘super’ gang- to match up to trained mercenaries with real powers, but it seemed too easy.

When I turned around to see more dropping in through high windows behind me that the warehouse definitely did not have previously, I realized half of my mistake.

When the front doors exploded into pieces to reveal a completely different group of people in military garb, I realized the other half. There didn’t have to be just one group of people who wanted this thing.

Though what Super Soldiers Inc. was doing here at a civilian warehouse was another question. They were a mercenary company- not like ours, as the Power Brigade execs would always point out- and though we weren’t on good terms at all, they weren’t supervillains either. Which meant they probably had some complicated excuse to be here.

I wondered what was in that box. Our contract with Kendrux promised it was nothing illegal- clearly, some people had different opinions.