I groan as the reality of the situation sinks in. Thankfully, with a quick check of the security center’s scrying mirrors, I can tell everyone made it to the tributary just fine, so I loose a long sigh of relief. There’s definitely confusion and disarray amongst the ranks of my allies who’d been teleported though.

A cheeky voice comes through my goggles as Teuila gets the security center to connect our audio feeds, “Heyyy Airhead, did you uh, mean to do that, leaving yourself there and all that?”

Grumbling and grumping a bit, I snark, “Gee, whaddayou think Te? Of course not, babe. Huff, sorry, I guess the thing can’t really do more than, what was it, five’ish lifeforces plus some luggage? When Vylon showed up, it was everything I could do to keep my cool, and focus on the device. I probably should have expected he’d want to join the primary fight, and his Rend Latent will be invaluable out there, so I’m trying to not be annoyed or act resentful.”

Jokingly adding a playful pouting lilt to her voice, Te teases, “Awe, does this mean we don’t get to wreck face together today butterbuns? I was looking forward to it Airhead.”

Rolling my eyes, I smirk and retort, “You wish. As if I’d let you off that easy. I’ve got one or two tricks left for faster than normal travel, especially above the Worldstorm, even if Kinzul is off grid. I’ve just gotta make sure I have Adamantite shavings on me.”

Pretending–at least I think she’s pretending–to be flabbergasted, Te queries, “No way, you are not seriously thinking about doing what I think you’re thinking about doing are you? You can be so reckless! Ugh, why do I find the idea of you slamming down out of the sky so hot.”

As several of our allies smirk around her, Teuila adds, “Erm, right, the goon squad around me can hear me while I’m talking to the goggles, oof. Nyeh, sorry busters, bustettes, and unbustables, I don’t really think of you as goons. Hey, no laughing, my Airhead rocking the air travel after tee pee’ing us is hot ay eff. Wait. Ugh, I’m just gonna stop talking.”

Snorting a half laugh, I shake my head incredulously. I’m going to let Te deal with getting her own feet out of her own mouth. Eugh, I hate that phrase, I need to find a replacement for it. For the moment, I’m just going to let that whole bit of speech marinate in the awkward silence that has arisen.

When I can see heat-wave mirage-lines rising in front of Teuila’s goggles, I know she’s blushing enough that I need to let her off the hook, so I comment, “Anyway, get your party to the engagement zone Te, and I’ll be dropping by as soon as I possibly can, with whatever backup I can muster. Probably just myself with some spell components.”

I’m not fond of the idea of explaining why I’m still here, with a now dormant teleportation artifact, to the two smartest people in Verdimenn right now. But I may as well race down there to see if they have anything else, check our stock of Adamantite shavings, and anything Leezahna wants to have transported to the front lines.

A muscle spasm that starts as a twitch between my shoulders quickly escalates. It ends with my muscles knotting on either side of my c3&c4 vertebrae, wrapping around a nerve, and pinching with excruciating precision. The torturous ache this causes has me biting my lips, clamping my mouth shut hard in order to prevent myself from howling in agony.

Ugh, I do not relish the position of anyone who has these sorts of spasms on a more regular basis. Ow. Friggin' hell. Erk, I can't even rattle my head to clear my thoughts, because that'd hurt like a bugger and a half. Sighing, I roll my eyes at my own situation and continue rushing towards Mount Verdimenn. All the while, I'm watching the feeds at the security center. Teuila has rushed to the front to provide backup to Ahliyui, and she occasionally doubles back to check on the pace of the others. She's so ridiculously fast. I envy her speed sometimes.

The two at the front stop to converse, letting Yui catch her breath from her repeated solo duels. I can't tell what they're saying, but I'm pretty certain Te is teasing her about sleeping together last night, based on the blushing blue scales on her cheeks. I can't help smirking as the unbidden expression takes over my face. Teuila can be such a goon. There's a right time and right place for things, and the frontlines in a desperate battle against massively overwhelming odds is really neither for that kind of chicanery. Really Reggie, chicanery? Oh shush. Words pop into my head and you know it. Pft, yeah, I do.

My eyes widen in worry for Yui and Te, when I notice a line of Spellknights approaching through one of the tunnels that'd been bored through my blockade near the corner of Teuila's vision. I'm about to request to be patched in, to warn Teuila and Yui, when--without taking her attention off of Yui--Teuila casually flings her left arm, and sends Mjolnir flying up that tunnel. The legendary hammer obliterates the first few approaching Spellknights, and manages to knock the others back, or over. While they're in disarray, Teuila summons Mjolnir to her hand, makes the, “one moment,” gesture to Yui. Then she leaps skyward.

There goes Te, touching the Worldstorm's edges, before diving at the tunnel while wreathed in lightning, bringing Mjolnir crashing down at its lip, sending a cascade of lightning through the tunnel, partially collapsing it.

I guess the two have it handled for now. Sheesh. I can imagine cartoonish imagery of Terrorzin's forces being electrocuted, and x-rays of their skeletons appearing momentarily as they puff smoke. Terrorzin's advantage of mixing the elemental properties of his forces seems like it's going to backfire. Sure, some of his forces will survive some of our wide-range attacks, instead of us taking out whole platoons in one attack, but the Shellcrackers all have access to more than one way to put the hurt on our foes at this point. We're not just relying on breath weapons of the Onyx Dawn members. Speaking of--Teuila's manifesting her Honoris Causa in order to have it blast a luminous breath down one of the tunnels through the blockade.

Is that... radiation? Is Teuila exhaling gamma particles? If Te's able to emit gamma rays, could we leverage that somehow? Those are really dangerous. Or we might end up turning a bunch of our foes into giant green rage maniacs. Cough, cough. I mean, what with that hammer of hers and the other things that keep popping up from my buggy Fakeworld memorybank. Is this the first time I've seen her fight with her Honoris Causa? No, I think she used it while defending against the Damnations, but it might have been on the fritz from having to recover from being destroyed by one of Al’pa’ca’s meteors. Also, I think I was too worried about her to make note of any properties of her breath weapon. One might be able to excuse me for being a bit preoccupied and distracted at the time.

Anyway, stop ogling Teuila and her fight, and get moving Reggie. I am moving. I'm on autopilot, surfing down to Verdimenn, remember? Well, yeah. Ugh, stop arguing with yourself doofus. Right, sorry. Yeah, sorry. Is my psyche actually starting to fracture? Between crafting and losing other forms, utilizing magic that alters the fabric of spacetime, sending my friends without myself when I'd planned to send myself...

If you come across this story on Amazon, it's taken without permission from the author. Report it.

Keep it together Reggie. The last thing the Onyx Dawn needs is an evil-twin you popping up, that's really just yourself but mostly insane. I shudder at the thought of a copy of me, or worse, actually me. It brings to mind teleporter-experiment failures in Fakeworld cinema. Like one that transforms a person into half-human half-fly.

Nearing Verdimenn, I try to recall how many times I’ve been up and down the halls of Solace these few weeks that we’ve been living here, sometimes many times in the same day. What is it, the twenty-ninth of September? When did we arrive here in Solace? Has it really been exactly only two weeks since our reunion with the rest of the SAP, and introduction to Kinzul and the Order of the Onyx Dawn? So much has happened in such a short time.

It’s a wonder, dragons, creatures with incredibly long lifespans, keyed up and forming bonds and relationships in what for them is the blink of an eye before and during a war. I’ve met and fallen in love with a fair handful of them myself. I mean, obviously. Hell, I got engaged and married in that same amount of time. That part still seems ludicrous, absolutely ridiculous. Anyway, stop reminiscing Reggie, no wonder things are so fresh on your mind, as if it were only yesterday. Because for some of it, it literally was only yesterday.

Chuckling at myself, I glide to a halt near the crafting space in Mount Verdimenn. Littlebit waves excitedly my way, and turns the mirror containing Tiktik’s smiling mug my way as well. When Tiktik spies me, she also waves excitedly. Still, I can see the curiosity percolating across Littlebit’s face as her brows peak.

Before anyone can even ask, I explain, “So uh, the artifact worked, but we hit a snag, and it left me behind. Have you completed anything else that maybe should go to the front, or uh, anything like that?”

Wearing a disapproving gaze, Nala responds, “It’s only been a few minutes Schism, friend Reggie. At best we have this additional prototype, but its design is flawed. The completed ones can only be emplaced in the very few spaces in Vieriss Valley that are naturally quite narrow. We tried to create one in which the resonant field would expand much farther. In that regard, we’ve succeeded. But we’ve also increased its fallibility. When it fails, and fail it shall, it will fail spectacularly,” Nala emphasizes the spectacle in a way that almost certainly means explode.

As I’m wondering how or why it would explode, Nala decides to elucidate me, “As you know, our Orichalcum barriers work by projecting a reverberating refractory resonance from the sheet of legendary metal itself, which mildly reduces the sheet’s near-impenetrable durability. This resonance absorbs impact of virtually anything that isn’t light. They are transparent, to my chagrin. These fields of oscillating waves absorb and redirect any force aimed within their protected field regions, back onto the metal itself.”

When my expression doesn’t change from piqued with a single peaked brow, Nala continues, “Thus, unless sustaining a rapid bombardment, or exponential escalation of force, they’re near-impenetrable. Near, except for the likes of our Tenith, and perhaps a few others with monstrous strength. It also is a demanding, and ever so mildly lengthy, process deactivating these resonant fields. For which we’ve only now designed tools in order to accomplish safely and swiftly.”

Nodding in comprehension, I remark, “Ah, gotcha. That makes sense.” At my acknowledgement, the near-permanent frown on Nala’s face lifts and her brow unfurls ever so slightly.

So if we wanted to move the forcefields, and re-deploy them, we wouldn’t be able to do it in the field without our artificers—or at least instructions or a guide. I kinda figured. I also figured that Terrorzin would have some way to bypass them or disable them anyway, if not outright destroy them. It will sap his resources and time to do so however. That’s one of our goals, buying time. If the barriers manage to last for hours, or days, against an onslaught, all the better. I’d be happy with a forcefield barrier lasting even just minutes though.

As is, we’d have to stack barriers to cover the height difference anywhere that doesn’t have an overhang all the way up to the Worldstorm. Also, what’s to stop Terrorzin’s forces from just digging around the edges? Oh wait, resonance. It’s not a solid effect. It’ll impart that force absorption resonance property to the surrounding stone through vibratory wave oscillation. For quite a ways actually. So any attempts to dig anywhere near the forcefields will be impossible while they’re deployed. Natural barriers are that much more effective, and the forcefield barriers are that much more effective, when combined. That extends the effect for probably hundreds of meters, allowing the forcefields much greater reach.

That’s also why Te had to destroy the one blocking the aerie the other night, rather than just plowing through stone to get to me. I heard some pretty thundrous slamming when I was chasing the Damnations after they’d survived my attack. She might have even been attempting to tunnel through stone rather than destroy the barrier, but the barrier was absorbing her frantic digging. I’m lucky that the creation of the forcefield barriers works the way it does, and reduces the metal’s durability. If Te hadn’t gotten free of Solace to rescue me as I was plummeting, I’d probably have died either in the Worldstorm, or upon impact with the ground. Gruesome, eugh.

Anyway, how long can we depend on these barriers as deterrents to Terrorzin’s forces progress? Assuming Terrorzin has Spellknights with short-range teleportation magic, or other abilities to appear on our side of barriers, we’ll still be fighting to protect them, even if using them to fall back. We’ll need people at the front lines, no matter what, for the entire rest of the next week. But if Terrorzin manages to bring enough force to the front of his procession to bear down on the forcefields—and us behind them as they fall—those could be some intense, deadly confrontations.

Well, no sense dwelling on it until we get some concrete data. Glancing about, I see Leezahna cranking a handle on a device that looks like its gearing ratio is one to twenty, or something like that at the bare minimum. Oh, it’s the grinder. Floating by, I snag a couple of handfuls of Adamantite shavings into some spare pouches while checking out the device. Huh, it has vertical rollers beneath the horizontal rollers. Nice. Leeza nods my way, picks up her ledger, and shuffles off to oversee someone transporting goods into and out of the shop system. I’m so proud of her.

With these Adamantite shavings, and knowing the secret I do about the storm, I should be able to airdrop myself onto the battlefield behind Terrorzin’s front lines quite effectively. Now I just need to get there as quickly as possible. It’s too bad all I’m bringing is one flawed barrier, myself, and some Adamantite shavings for my own defense. At least I’ll get myself to where my offensive abilities are most useful.

Speaking of, I query Littlebit and Nala, “Do either of you two have any ideas for more efficient travel or propulsion methods for me? I do what I call LBBTKSL’ing. Lightning burst boosted telekinetic square leaping. I’m guessing both of your minds can figure out how I use my suite of abilities to do that for maximum effect.”

The artificers nod in answer that they understand the applications of my powers that lead to my most efficient propulsion technique that I’ve been able to create thus far. I produce a solid surface from which to launch myself, while remaining nearly weightless, horizontally oriented. From there, I engage thrusters, which sounds like a silly way to describe bunching my legs and kicking off while blasting lightning behind me. There’s not much else to it.

Littlebit shrugs while hazarding, “Whatever you expel as propellant, lightning, combusted gas to expand through explosion behind you, what have you, is probably your greatest source of acceleration. If you can expel more of it, condensed, at higher velocities, your opposite reaction would be gaining speed. Basic physics, but you probably knew that already. Think you can handle any more than you’d already been doing?”

Grimacing, I nod, both that I knew the mechanics of propulsion, and that I can probably push a bit harder than my previous top speeds through more focused expulsion. It’s going to be hell on my joints. Said it before, and I’ll say it again, and again and again. I really should leave speed to the speedsters. Offering a two-finger salute into a half wave at Nala, Littlebit, Alanea, and Luni, I begin racing back up towards Solace’s aerie once more.

Cliff-notes version of what I'm about to do? Go do something dangerously foolish. You know, the usual.