Chapter 27 - Billy Flags for PvP

The trip back to the outpost was uneventful. Sure, when they were almost back, Scrappy decided to sprint the rest of the way because he had seen some smoke when he peeked above the trees. But that was just Scrappy being Scrappy, Billy was sure of it.

The others, however, also picked up the pace. They didn’t disappear in a flash of dust like the scout had, but they were certainly power walking their way through the forest. They must be starving. To work this hard just to see what was being barbecued was ridiculous. Even Roland had put away his journal and was hurrying home. He must have really been starving to do that because of some campfire smoke. Billy smiled at the thought of roasting meat over a fire. Ok, fine, he would hurry up, as well.

When they finally burst through the treeline and onto the killing field surrounding the outpost, Billy was sorely disappointed. Whatever meat grilling they were going to do had to be postponed. Rhinus was also clearly upset, as he gripped his hammer with both hands and ran into the outpost, over the half burnt-down walls.

As they walked into the outpost, Billy understood why Scrappy had bolted off in such a hurry. This was no kitchen fire. Buildings burned as beams and stone fell all around them. People screamed, hiding in buildings just to yell to be rescued a few minutes later. The entire outpost was on fire, and it was getting worse. Buildings that Billy was pretty sure hadn’t been close to anything remotely on fire started burning. It felt wrong.

Billy rushed off to the other side of the outpost, passing the ship that was burning like a pyre in the middle of it all. He saw Rhinus leap up and catch a falling Jessum Crowe midair. Gunshots rang out, barely audible over the chaos.

The sound of steel on bone drew his gaze. He could recognize the sound anywhere. Duh. Scrappy was standing in the mouth of a cave that had definitely never been under one of the blacksmith’s forges before today. He was dual wielding scimitars, his arms twirling in seemingly impossible angles. The blender of doom held his ground as waves of giant beetles surged from below. The monsters were clearly higher ranked than the trash they had played with all afternoon. These were massive, spanning half the size of a carriage and no doubt just as heavy. They were, at the very least, E-rank, if not D-rank. Billy couldn’t spare a moment to help. Not if his Gift was right, and it was rarely left, which only really left one option.

Billy skidded around a corner and was instantly ambushed. He was thrown to the ground, his face smashing into the hard cobblestones. His heart hammered a mile a minute as he struggled to get his wand up. He rolled twice, sent a gout of flame in every direction, then sprang back up, holding his shield out in front of him between himself and his attacker. The suit of armor creaked menacingly on its stand, threatening to topple over. A critical hit to his pride. He thought he was going to die from embarrassment. To make matters worse, he had inadvertently caught some papers that were laid out on a table in the alleyway on fire. He didn’t have time for any of this.

“Caleb,” came a hissing voice. “Caleb! You idiot, that was way too obvious. They’re gonna notice and come investigate! Just set the rune and move on.” The chiding voice grew closer, revealing a man wearing a cloak with mismatched leather armor beneath it. He was crouched, clearly trying to avoid detection. They locked eyes.

“Shit, you’re not--”

Before the intruder could finish, Billy sent as much mana as he could into his wand. Fire screamed out, but the man was swift. He raised a bracer in front of his face, a blue shield appearing. It was just large enough to cut the flame stream in half, sending it to either side of himself. Not good. Billy wasn’t sure if his mana pool or his adversary’s would run out first. What he did know was that he didn’t have time to find out. The guy clearly had a friend, Caleb, somewhere in the vicinity.

With haste in mind, Billy awkwardly extricated his arm from his shield and threw it to the ground while still channeling mana into his wand. Then, he momentarily reduced the output towards his wand by half as he sent mana into his left boot, charging the enchantment.

Just as his opponent drew a knife and reached back to throw it, Billy kicked his shield and redoubled sending mana into his wand. The force enchantment on his boot activated, hurtling the shield down the alleyway like a runaway saw blade. It ricocheted off the walls twice, sending sparks flying, before slamming into the man’s legs. The shield invited the man’s legs for dinner. The legs accepted the invitation with grace. Gotta love a guy who sweeps you off your feet. The shield careened down the alleyway, two passengers in tow.

The unnamed man fell leglessly to the ground and tried to scream. Unfortunately for him, he had dropped his bracer’s shield, which was the only thing keeping the flames at bay. Billy didn’t feel overly bad for the man. Play with fire, you’re gonna get brutally revenged upon… Play with fire, you’re gonna get crispy. Nah, it didn’t sound right. If you’re gonna fight fire with fire, be the better firefighter. Don’t bring a lack of fire to a firefight. It was something like that.

The corpse poofed into, you guessed it, motes of light. Billy didn’t have time to check the loot before he heard pounding footsteps approaching. He scrambled for a moment, taking two steps towards his shield. Not enough time. He ripped out the silver tarot card out of his pouch. Cogs to E-4. Bingo! No, check mate! That’s the one. He pointed the card down towards the footsteps and sent mana into it just as he saw a man, who he figured was Caleb, run into the alley.

The silver E-IV card seemed to burn up, consumed by magical fire and disappearing in a flash. Then… THUMP. A sort of cannon with legs materialized in midair where the card had been and promptly fell to the ground. It wasn’t that big. Billy could certainly have held it in one hand if he hadn’t been so surprised at its appearance.

Dual orbs of darkness slammed into Billy’s chest, sending him tumbling a few feet down the alley. He returned fire with, ahem, fire. The wide, panicked and uncontrolled stream was easily deflected by Caleb and shunted into the alley’s wall. Even the more concentrated follow-up blast was knocked aside with ease. He apparently had some sort of fire, heat or mana shaping skill. Billy shoved his wand into his belt, then picked up a rock and a brick before getting to his feet. When another two orbs of darkness came his way, he dodged the first and blocked the other with the brick he was holding while channeling mana into his boots. The orb slammed into the brick, shooting a few shards into his hand before it crumbled to dust. He winced in pain, but it wasn’t nearly as bad as what the bear had done to his arm.

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He rushed forwards, grabbing the cannon that was laying on the ground before triggering the enchantment on his boots. He hurtled forwards, arm extended, rock in hand. Just before the rock slammed into Caleb’s face, the man seemed to blur with inky darkness. Billy passed right through him, landing hard on the other side. As he slid on the rough cobblestones, he realized that it wasn’t all bad. He had landed a few feet from his shield.

Billy scrambled forwards with just enough time to hide behind his shield, blocking the next volley of dark magic bolts. He had to channel some mana into it, though, or risk it breaking. He begrudgingly sent enough mana into the shield to block a few more orbs. Hunkered behind his shield, he took a moment to look at his cannon. There was a key in the rear portion for him to wind up, just like a tinker’s toy. He spun the key a few times, not taking the time to appreciate the satisfying clicking noises that were produced by the construct. Not knowing what else to do, Billy pointed the cannon over his shield and towards Caleb. There was no trigger, so it-- BOOM! The cannon shot out a blast of shrapnel at Caleb before ripping itself out of Billy’s weak and unprepared grip.

The enemy tried to deflect the projectiles, but whatever skill he had tried to use didn’t work on the shrapnel. Pieces of what Billy was perversely happy to note were slivers of beetle chitin tore into the man’s arms. Billy glanced down at the cannon. It had landed on its tiny mechanical feet. He gave the still-ticking cannon a slight nudge, turning it slightly, before sprinting down the alley towards a reeling Caleb.

Billy lunged at Caleb, shield extended horizontally in front of himself. He didn’t send any mana into his boots or his shield this time. As expected, the man panicked and phase shifted, dodging the attack by becoming a sort of incorporeal dark smoke. Billy stopped his charge and pivoted around, leaving his shield at about chest height, directly where his opponent had phased out. He funneled mana into his shield, making it glow brightly with reinforcement magic, then fought the urge to close his eyes as his opponent rebecame corporeal.

Caleb’s skill clashed with Billy’s shield’s magic, the two pushing at each other like magnets. Caleb screamed as his body tried phasing into an occupied space. Billy drained more and more mana out of his core and into his shield as the enchantment was continuously sucked dry to oppose the contesting skill’s magic. Sweat rolled down Billy’s face as he kept up the torrent of mana. His core couldn’t keep up. Caleb screamed in rage and fear, shunting as much as he could of his own mana into his skill. He was mostly corporeal at this point, all but the center of his chest having materialized into being.

Billy locked eyes with his opponent and grinned dickishly. “Bang,” he said with a wink. Caleb’s eyes had just barely enough time to widen before-- BOOM! The conjured mechanical beetle cannon shot shrapnel once again. Chitinous projectiles ripped into the back of Caleb’s legs, eliciting a pained scream. The attack was just enough of a distraction, giving Billy the moment he needed. The guide wrenched his shield out of his opponent’s chest cavity, spun and brought it down hard on the crook of Caleb’s neck. The reinforced edge of the shield parted the flesh of the exhausted foe, who was unable to defend.

Something nagged at Billy as he watched his opponent poof into multicolored lights. He felt like he could aaaalmost put his finger on it. Right! Loot. There were two piles, of course. He leaned over and scooped up the first pile. Four gold, nine silver, 37 copper, a weird-looking square piece of metal engraved with runes, a few pieces of cloth and an ability stone. Caleb, you wonderful man, you.

“Thank you for your kind donation, sir.” Billy chuckled at his joke as he pocketed the loot. Hey, if they were gonna attack, Billy wasn’t going to sit around and cry about the loot. It wasn’t the same as with Jared, the merchant mage. Back then, he hadn’t had the time to process what was happening or why. He had lacked perspective. Not this time. He headed over to the second loot pile. It had nine gold, two silvers, two potions and a short sword. He yoinked the loot, but left the short sword. It was far too big to comfortably carry around, especially with all the rest of his belongings. He just leaned it up against the wall of the alley and hobbled back towards the center of the outpost.

The fires were still raging, but portions had evidently been taken care of. Roland had withdrawn a potion and was spraying foam all over buildings, instantly extinguishing the fire. It was wicked effective, but he had too much ground to cover. His usually meticulously clean brown robes were soaked with soot and sweat, and he was breathing hard. Billy ran up to him.

“Anything I can do to help?” Billy asked.

Roland shrugged tiredly. “How much… How mana? Your…” He barely got the words out.

“My mana is about at ‘nope’ out of ten,” Billy said unhappily. “Got anything good for me?”

Roland barely managed to open the satchel at his side. He fumbled around in it before eventually passing Billy two bottles with shaking hands. He grunted, then sat heavily against a nearby wall, groaning as he did so.

Billy didn’t even attempt to guess what was in each potion. One was red, one was blue and Roland had given them to him. That was enough information. He uncorked both and downed them while Roland closed his eyes, resting as best he could. Billy felt a surge of power as, not only did his injuries heal, but his core was flooded with new mana.

“Roland, my man! This is… This is the best gogo juice I’ve ever had!”

Roland scrunched his nose and raised a single, halfhearted thumb in acknowledgement.

Billy assumed it was a recent discovery, as Roland had never hinted at any form of mana potions. He blazed his Gift brightly as he felt his core fill with more and more mana. Now that he had plenty of mana to burn, he let his Gift guide him once more. He rushed over to Roland and withdrew one of the exploding potion vials and another blue potion from his sack. His friend didn’t even budge to stop him. Then, he ran to the crafting district, where he had last seen Scrappy. Indeed, the monster of a scout was still hacking away, holding the line against innumerable massive beetles.

Billy rushed up to the gaping hole in the ground, careful not to run into the whirling scimitars. With a quick word of warning, he lobbed the vial over the heads of the beetles and deeper down the tunnel. The explosion shook the courtyard as the tunnel started collapsing. Scrap Heap took the opportunity to quickly finish off the few remaining gargantuan beetles before sheathing his blades. He was absolutely covered in viscera and surrounded by loot.

With no time to stand and gape at the machine of a defender, Billy ran to the next location that his Gift pointed him towards. There, he found a half conscious Jessum Crowe, his hands moving as if he were playing a lute, though the instrument lay at his feet. Spurred on by his Gift, Billy uncorked the blue potion and poured it into Jessum’s beak. The bard’s eyes flew open, his pupils dilating until his eyes were almost completely black. He instantly snatched up his lute and started sending spell after spell around the outpost.

Billy looked around, trying to figure out where to go next. He was quickly realizing that this was his home, and that he wanted - no, needed to protect it. He hadn’t shown the saboteurs mercy. He hadn’t felt the slightest bit of remorse. Not because he was a stone cold killer, but because he was defending something he cared about more than himself. He was defending his home and the home of his friends. Something welled up inside of him, in the deepest recesses of his stomach. A force that could not be tamed, could not be reasoned with. It would take at least four seals worth of symbols to lock the beast inside him back up. No, he didn’t want to soothe the beast. He wanted to let it out.

Power surged through Billy as the world seemed to shrink. No, he was growing. He was growing taller, his arms were lengthening, his skin was shimmering. Power cascaded from him as rivers of water seemed to spring out from his pores. He let out a burbling roar as he let the monster within himself take over.