The camera wasn’t the sort of threat he was worried about, except that it increased the man’s exposure to any dangers Serenity missed. The fact that the man was outside the trailer said good things about his bravery, but perhaps not good things about his common sense.
“Have we heard anything about what’s going on?” It was clear that it was an attack, but there ought to be a plan for this. Serenity frowned, realizing he’d missed something. “Where are Raz and Katya?”
“Over here.” Katya’s voice pulled Serenity’s attention to where she was waving at him from the corner of the trailer. “We went out the front right before you went out the back; we were going to swing around and catch them by surprise, but you took care of them too fast.”
Katya paused and looked down at the centaurs. “Do you need any information from them? I think one of them’s still alive. Broken legs, not going anywhere unless it gets healed, but alive.”
Serenity didn’t, but he didn’t want to throw away possible information, either. “I don’t know if we’ll need any or not. We’d better keep an eye on him.”
Serenity swapped to Life Sight for a moment and checked the bodies. Katya was right; only the one with the broken legs was alive.
During his distraction two more cameras had joined the first, all sweeping over the carnage. Several other reporters seemed to be headed towards them, coming from the door on the other side of the trailer. One of them turned to Serenity. “Can you tell me what’s happening?”
Serenity glanced towards the noise, most of which was in the direction of the invaders’ portal. There were heavy weapons of some sort being used; most of them were likely technological, but there were some fluctuations in the local mana that made Serenity think that there were also major spells being cast. Spells that weren’t just Path Skills, and they certainly weren’t being cast by a lowly Tier One or Tier Two caster.
A loud sizzling noise interrupted Serenity’s attempted reply; it sounded very much like water hitting a hot pan, but much, much louder. The bright, flashing lights told him it was something very different: it was electricity, sparking through the air. It probably came from a Lightning-Affinity sorcerer. Given how high it reached, it might even be from a ritual instead of a simple spell.
The shape of the lightning reminded Serenity of a giant Tesla coil; once he made the connection, so did the sound. That was definitely a memory from Thomas; Vengeance had other memories of similar spells.
It didn’t reach high enough to reach most of the airplanes, but in the light Serenity could see that some of the firing seemed to be coming from low-flying planes; it stopped as they started to climb away from the lightning.
It didn’t seem like they had to climb all that much higher; less than a minute after the sound of their guns stopped, the first one started again.
Serenity grinned; he knew just how difficult it was to attack something high in the air from the ground with magic. It wasn’t a task for someone at a low Tier unless they were specifically specialized in it. He could have done it, but he wouldn’t have done it with anything remotely as wasteful as lightning. Planes were protected against real lightning, as well; while it was possible that the mage had come up with something more dangerous than actual lightning, Serenity doubted it.
His grin faded as he realized that the lightning fountain was moving and seemed to be headed towards him. It had a long way to go, but it was moving at a decent clip for him to even be able to tell it was moving.
Serenity turned back to the trailer, only to find that almost all of the reporters were staring at the scene in front of them; two of them actually had their back to the storm and were talking to the camera recording it, instead. “Everyone! It’s headed towards us; do any of you have a vehicle nearby?”
One of the reporters turned to Serenity. “You’re afraid of a storm? That’s impressive, but it’s just lightning.”
“With no clouds in the sky, directly over an enemy encampment that probably has multiple mages that we were planning to attack in just a few hours. It’s obviously just a storm.” Serenity worried he was laying the sarcasm on too thickly, but the man paled a little; maybe he’d actually gotten through. “It’s a spell, and it’s headed this way. More importantly, that means that so is their army. We just fought off a few scouts; we need to not be here when the rest arrive.”
“We’re here to watch the fighting, why should we run?”
Serenity didn’t catch which reporter asked that question; all he knew was that it wasn’t one of the ones standing in front of a camera. He was about to say something, probably something unhelpful, when the oldest of the reporters replied.
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“Bullets don’t respect the press. Neither does lightning. When your escort says run, you run.” He turned to Serenity. “The drivers aren’t here yet, but I know where the vehicles we’re supposed to take are. Follow me.”
The older reporter set off at a jog; Serenity could respect that. What he wasn’t happy about was that only half of the others followed. Serenity bellowed, “EVERYONE! THAT WAY, FOLLOW HIM TO THE CAR!”
It probably wasn’t actually a car, but “car” was faster to say and easier to understand than “vehicle”.
As the others headed off, Serenity looked at Katya and Raz. “Follow them. I need to check and make sure everyone’s out of the trailer; Rissa’s still in there so there may be someone else.”
They nodded and set off after the reporter.
Serenity hopped back up into the trailer through the hole. It wasn’t a bad jump, only about four feet. He knew Thomas couldn’t have done it easily, but it wasn’t unreasonable at Tier Three.
“I’m not going out there.” The voice led Serenity back past the torn curtain into the sleeping area.
“Everyone else is outside, and Serenity just said we need to head to the cars. We’ll be headed away from the fighting.” Rissa was kneeling in front of one of the bunkbeds, looking under it.
“Bullets don’t care about distance.” The voice clearly came from under the bed.
Well, that explained why Rissa was still in the trailer; she was trying to get the last person out.
“Fortunately, spells do. And they’re using lightning, which gets pretty inaccurate at longer distances. So the farther away we can get, the better.” Serenity knelt down next to Rissa, looking under the bed. It was one of the reporters; Serenity thought it was one of the last group to arrive, but he’d already forgotten the man’s name.
Really, the only one he could remember was Jim Larkin, and that was because of how much energy the man had.
“Surely it’s safer to stay in a metal building than go outside in the storm?” The man turned his head to look at Serenity.
“A car will be safer than a building with a hole in it.” Serenity wasn’t sure if the hole mattered or not, since they weren’t near it, but it certainly wouldn’t help. “Plus, we can get farther away. Come on, we need to hurry.”
The man under the bed seemed to consider it for a moment, then pulled himself out and headed for the door.
“Anyone else in here?” Serenity asked as he stood.
“No. He’s the last one.” Rissa sounded positively annoyed as she followed the man outside. That made sense; it had to be annoying for Rissa that the man didn’t believe her but was willing to believe Serenity with very little explanation.
Fortunately, it didn’t take them long to catch up to the fleeing reporters; the ones in the back were moving little faster than a walk, and they caught up within sight of three parked SUVs.
“Three drivers!” It sounded like the older reporter’s voice. “I’ll take one; you and you take the others. Everyone find a seat. As soon as we’re all in, we’re off.”
Serenity’s phone rang; it was his father, so he answered. “Dad? Little busy here, we’re running from a lightning spell. Trying to get everyone in cars now.”
“Good.” His father paused; when he continued, he sounded almost pained. “Can you stop the lightning spell? They bunched up nicely, but nothing we do is affecting the last person inside the spell or the spell itself.”
Serenity turned back to look at the spell. “There’s only one person in there?”
The spell was gigantic. It was taller than it was wide, but it was probably still a tenth of a mile across, and it had been running for minutes. That meant it had to be a ritual. There was no other way to gather that much mana on a world as low-Tier as this one, especially without spilling it into the atmosphere ahead of time. That obviously hadn’t happened; it would have made a storm or even a manastorm. It was entirely possible this would cause a manastorm, even though most of the mana was being bled off as lightning.
“That’s what all of the imaging shows. I can’t guarantee no one’s hiding with magic, but there’s certainly no one hiding otherwise.” Lex sounded tired, all of a sudden.
“If you kill him, it should dissipate,” Serenity offered. He was certain they’d tried, but perhaps they’d been trying to disrupt the lightning or something instead?
His hopes were dashed by his father’s reply. “We tried. So far, everything we’ve sent in there has been destroyed or deflected by the lightning. I’m told that anything that enters the storm is hit by several dozen lightning bolts, similar to those from a thunderstorm. Nothing’s getting through, at least not anything intact enough to kill whoever that is.”
“It will burn itself out,” Serenity offered. “And the more you shoot it, the faster it’ll happen. I don’t know how long it’ll take.”
“If that makes it to a city…” Lex didn’t finish the statement. He had a point; it was undoubtedly scorching the countryside it passed over. Serenity fully expected that it was starting fires, too.
His father was right; it needed to be stopped. He’d hoped he wouldn’t have to get involved, but it looked like he would. “Yeah, I can stop it. The best way to do it won’t be fast, and you’ll have to stop shooting it. I can’t deal with that at the same time.”
“That’s fine, we’re not having any luck anyway. Send me a message when the firing needs to stop.” Lex paused, then continued in a softer tone of voice. “And don’t die. Your mother would never forgive me.”
Serenity chuckled at his father’s dark humor and returned it in kind. “If I do die, I promise to haunt you.”
Serenity looked up at the vehicles and realized that not only were they waiting on him, at least two of them had cameras pointed at him.