Take out priority targets first. Cause confusion and chaos. Always keep within eyesight of each other.
I had managed to break one of the agreed rules almost immediately. Maybe I was too used to working solo that I just went with the most efficient way of getting myself ahead in a fight. Now obscured by a cloud of my own making against a group of lizardkin that I’d barely dented, I didn’t need Detect Magic to know the glowing spell of purple energy was nothing good.
At least I had found one of the magic users, however.
The cloud of gray smoke billowed as an unnatural wind swirled around us, parting enough of it to get a better look at my opponent—or perhaps they were waiting to get a good look at me before attacking. Slightly taller than their fellow Horde members, eyes a dazzling white in contrast, and a peculiar fashion sense. I had expected robes and feathered headdresses, but instead they were covered in plated metal like a knight.
Curious, but that’s all I needed to know.
As their hand raised, the glowing purple ball threatening me injury and death, my left hand shakily lifted in protest.
Rappel shot out from my gauntlet, striking their magic-wielding hand. Foam expanded immediately, unable to harden as the spell burst in place. A flash of light ran through the smoke cloud as the spellcaster shrieked and stepped back, clutching at the smoldering stump where their hand had been.
I rolled to the side and staggered back up to my feet. The scream of pain would have been an alarm signal for the rest of the camp. I couldn’t even see if Roxy was doing fine. As I spun on my heel, I could see the red eyes glowing through the gray. The group I had been trying to attack had regrouped and were coming for me.
Stims washed through my system, bringing some brief life to my left arm. I had managed to tear the arrow out of the wound while I rolled, and now whatever tech bullshit ran through my bloodstream gradually put the muscles and tendons back together. I was unaware as to where my metal ball drum or the HE shot mag had gotten to during the scuffle. Time to reset and go back to the first plan.
Selectloader put in a Quake shot and I struck the group ready to tear me to pieces. The smoke wavered back and forth in tune with the pulses of heavy V-Force aftershock, but I turned and ran. Hand pulled out a new mag and inserted it as I burst out from the smoke and into the clear light of night.
Several places in the camp were now on fire, or painted with the deep red gore of the lizardkin. There was also a small group of four in between me and wherever the super had gotten to. Two facing her way, two mine—waiting to see if I would emerge from the cloud.
And I had, at great speed.
Tazer shot struck them, causing their muscles to flinch, delaying them long enough to get in close. My synapses flared up, and I lashed forward with a quick punch, the end of my barrel cratering through the eye socket of the first, cracking open his skull. My momentum knocked him to the floor as I turned to the next. I grabbed his thick leather shirt with my left hand, pulling him closer by the collar. The gauntlet blade popped out and into his neck, but only barely cut through his scales.
They were regaining their senses now. Tazer shot once again into the other two as the one I had my hands on started to pull back against my attempts to tip him over. We struggled for a moment, before he lashed forward with an open mouth. I gave him some food for thought by putting my hand in there, trying to push his lower jaw down away from sinking into my neck.
Even his jaw muscles were strong, and he resisted my attempts to prevent an attack, his sharp teeth breaking through the bottom of my gloves and into my fingers. Before he could chomp down fully, I shot the retracted rappel again.
Clara had been impressed with my usage of it on the rescue mission yesterday. She told me that if she had known I was going to use it as an offensive weapon so often, she would have made the rappel head pointed. It shouldn’t affect the normal usage much, but could pierce soft targets. The techie had then pouted, as I said she should have known me well enough to assume I’d turn everything into a weapon.
Still, I made do with how it worked now.
The lizarkdin found out just how inventive I was, as his mouth filled with expanding foam. As he panicked and tried to move back, it hardened. While he struggled and choked, I turned my gun-arm to the two wavering beside us and recovering again. Tazer didn’t seem to be too effective, but at least gave me a brief window to act. Nerve would have been a decent choice, but I doubted the parts of the projectile that administered the drug would be able to get through their scales.
I needed some anti-armor bullshit. More homework for Clara.
As Overcharge powered up and the suffocating Horde member sunk to the ground, a meteor drew my attention. It was heading right for-
Dry sand burst up from the ground around us as a wave of heated air buffeted this small group. I winced in realizing it hadn’t been a spell, but Roxy landing just in front of us. Her arms were glowing with higher intensity now, a near constant stream of lava running and dripping to the sands. Her head was aflame with a flickering red, and her eyes were almost as bright as the lava. She had several patches on her body—much like the arrow wound from the start—that were also glowing amber.
While the three of us who were still standing gawked at her sudden appearance, her hands came together and she pulped the heads of the two in front of me. They melted away as soon as she touched them, so it was more like clapping her hands once the burning pulp met in the middle, but it did spray me with a little of the molten rock.
“Sorry,” she said through clenched teeth, unable to formulate more words than that.
I nodded and released the rappel, the foam substance melting away as my grapple system tried to reel in the inert head of the dead lizardkin. Thankfully, her lava droplets cooled rather quickly when not on her body, and hadn’t managed to burn all the way through my jacket. This was something we’d need to take into account, however.
[There’s an injured caster behind me. Status your end?]
“All dead, one caster,” she grunted. The super then turned to her side so that I could see the faint glow of purple in two streaks fighting against the radiance of her lava across her back.
I didn’t doubt that she had no problem turning the rest to melted mush. While she-
By instinct, I rolled to the floor. An arrow whizzed overhead and struck the super. She growled as it fell away, the head of the projectile glowing as it had softened from the heat.
I continued up to a crouched position, some odd anger rising through me. Reaction to a threat I had only subconsciously understood. Overcharge whirred into life just as I forced Triple shot at the same time. I could feel the V-Force drive humming and vibrating in my arm, pushing it a little too far.
We had given our allies enough warning. I told Belle that I’d be out with Roxy, and not to worry if the charm signaled I was in danger. It wasn’t like she had a way to get out here anyway. She told me she would take it off, because knowing but not being able to help would be too stressful. Roxy had told Clara not to monitor my vitals, for a similar reason. We were doing this off the books as much as possible. Just two dangerous people kicking over sandcastles.
The smoke had just about cleared now, revealing a regiment of the Gnashing Horde. Rather than rush after me, they had shown restraint and fallen back to assist their wounded leader. What lizardkin remained in the camp had joined them, and now they formed a group of maybe two dozen. A row of spears in a crouched position, with a row holding bows standing behind them. The wounded spellcaster was there too, glaring at us with intense hatred.
It wasn’t any of them I was particularly worried about, however.
There was another, a third spellcaster, perhaps. I could sense their presence clearer than anything that I had through Detect Magic previously. They were super level, I was sure of it. The problem was, I couldn’t see them.
I wasn’t sure if it was even invisibility. Not in a magical or technological sense. There was just this large… my brow furrowed. They weren’t attacking just yet.
At first, I was expecting some dialogue, but the spellcaster didn’t look like they cared for small talk. With the space they had left between us, perhaps they were waiting for… oh.
I felt it through my feet before my brain put the puzzle pieces together.
[Move, there’s a-]
My warning cut off as the ground burst apart, knocking us both back. What light the fires had provided dimmed, or was blocked out by the large shape that emerged from the floor, rising to a good thirty feet. Silhouetted against the night sky was a giant wastesworm.
I’d heard of them in passing. A mix of a tapeworm and a caterpillar that buried their way through the wastelands. Usually a dozen or so foot long and trouble avoidant. This one was easily five times that length, and covered in dense scales much like the lizardkin themselves. Now that my eyes had adjusted, I could see odd purple runic symbols etched around all these plate-like parts of its body.
The Gnashing Horde had tamed and grown this monster, probably over decades. An ace up their sleeve and surefire help when raiding or defending their group when in dire trouble. Like right now.
“I’ve seen bigger,” Roxy murmured through clenched teeth.
It was good to know her humor persisted through this transformation. She wasn’t as dense as she had first made out that she would be. It looked more like she was trying to focus while having a migraine, rather than her intelligence actually cratering.
Stolen novel; please report.
[I’ll leave you to handle that first then, since you’re more experienced.]
Her grimace peaked at the edges to reveal a half-smile as she glanced at me. “Don’t die, asshole.”
I tipped an invisible hat and then ran. The worm seemed content enough to see the super as the most important and threatening morsel, which was fine with me. Overcharge faded away, giving the drive a well-deserved break. Triple shot would be enough on its own for now.
That was a brief lie, but I had a renewed confidence. Mostly because the stakes just got even higher, and that had the effect of calming me. As I tried to circle the unearthed pit where the monster had emerged, my lens picked out the discarded magazines, which had been knocked away. I slid across the dry ground as a pair of arrows whistled overhead.
Mag into my hand, then into my gun-arm, I swirled around and flexed in the direction of the regiment. Triple Smoke. This time, I wasn’t about to wander in and get injured. But now they couldn’t see anything. Chamber clacked open, ejecting three empty shells with force, before the magazine loaded in a High Explosive shot. I strode toward some nearby cover, firing off into the smoke as I went.
Shell after shell, the bursting sound and yells of pain and panic told me that these shots were effective. Shame I had only brought the single ten mag of them.
The world vibrated as the wastesworm slammed into the ground, trying to eat up the super. At a glance, the monster had two lines of overheated metal across some of its plates, but Roxy had been unable to pierce through it just yet. I paused and turned to observe her properly.
Always keep each other in sight.
She looked… different. As if she was cooling off. Her glow had diminished, and her arms were slightly slack. Her first proper fight using her new abilities, and she was learning her current limits. I might need to come assist.
An arrow ricocheted from my metal shoulder, and I winced. A lucky shot. As a second arrow struck the wooden barricade just beside me, I figured they had a way of locating me despite the fog. I sighed and ducked down, not wanting to invite a headshot. If only I had grenades.
The worm swept through the area, destroying the burning campground on that left side, piling things up as it pushed the super away in a cloud of raised dust and debris. I got a good look at its face now. A circular maw, smaller teeth within, but the Gnashing Horde had seen fit to do a little dental work on the beast, and it sported a more overt circular row of metal fangs just on the outside of its mouth. No eyes or any other features I could really make out.
I wondered if it was mostly autonomous now, or required the spellcasters being alive to keep it doing as it was told. A thought that sunk away as my current cover was peppered by another handful of arrows. One of which broke through the wood, the metal tip stopping an inch away from me.
We were truly having a time of it. Roxy’s furnace had run out of fuel and was draining away at her strength. Most of my ammunition was ineffective, and I was outnumbered and outranged. I almost wished I had a mouth so that I could smile.
This was the type of situation that could change me. Break off the shell to see what lies within. Perhaps a corpse in training, but I was willing to gamble that I wasn’t yet at my peak. I hoped Boss was watching somehow, so I could give him the middle finger for whatever happened to me.
I peeked from the side of my cover and allowed Reflex to burn through my thoughts, my synapse controlled parts acting with greater speed. I emptied the rest of the ten mag into the obscuring cloud, peppering the group at intervals with exploding rounds. The mag ejected, hitting the ground, just as I pawed in another. Clara might be mad at me for this one.
Trying to ignore the fight going on behind me, I continued to pace toward the regiment. Gun-arm loaded in the top-most projectile from the magazine. While these were just prototypes and not meant to be used, I had stolen the case of metal cylinders that Clara had shown me in the workshop. A variety of different shaped ends, but most of them sharp. I’d explain to her I was doing in-field testing, and request she make one of them to be our designated anti-armor round.
I was sixty percent sure she would buy it.
An arrow flew past the side of my head, before a second bounced from my gun-arm. I returned the favor, aiming where the last projectile had emerged from. The lens made it easy to calculate the projectiles trajectory and potential point of origin, even if my eyes weren’t too sharp in this low-light situation.
The metal beamed out from my barrel and into the gray mist. A screech of pain. Clack-clack. Second shot went out into the fog. An arrow came out and struck me in the collarbone, just skirting the cybernetic part of my neck. I returned fire, killing them. There were no more arrows after this.
Not because all their bow-users were dead, I was sure. But they were intelligent and could see I was working out where they were when they fired. My mood cooled, even as warm blood soaked through my undershirt.
I went to take another step, and a pulse of energy washed over my feet. Thick vines emerged from the ground, wrapping themselves around my lower legs to pin me in place. The slight hint of purple to the vegetation was all the clue I needed to know that it was-
A lizardkin burst out from the cloud of fog, spear ready to lash into me as he roared. I put the third metal object straight through his chest, assuming his heart was in the same place as most humanoids. The way he stumbled and flopped over at my feet, his eyes shocked and staring, determined it was a reasonable assumption.
Two arrows struck me in the chest.
One hit a rib, the other was dulled by my tac gear, but still cut through to the muscle.
Oh, smart. They had baited out my shot, so they could fire while I was reloading, and now they’d reposition, so even if I shot, I’d probably miss. Analyze ran through my brain, picking out these details of the fight, able to read their tactics as if I had sat in on their training. As I was unable to move, it was easy for them to pick out their target, even from within the smoke.
They hadn’t been able to see through it before, so something must have changed. I felt the edges of threads wanting to be pulled, just out of reach. There was so much magic swirling through the area that part of my aura was almost overwhelmed. The giant worm was coated with it. My legs were encased with it. The spellcaster ahead of me…
While my overactive brain still dabbled amongst the granular parts of this battle, I caught a glimpse of what I was after. Like bringing up the electrical circuit of something, some of the magical components in the campground had a connection. Like threads or wires, the magic-user in the fog had tethers to all the living lizardkin around them. There was one running from there down to my feet as well. A few faint ones in the direction of the monster.
It was a merger of Detect Magic and Analyze. No, something even greater than that. More than the ability to just see the underlying connections of the arcane, I had the strength to… or could I?
A pain shot through my head, and at first I thought I’d caught an arrow while my thoughts spun like a whirlpool. But no, there was no projectile. Blood ran through my nose, going directly into my re-breather, as the pulse of agony in my skull repeated, dulling slightly as time went on.
From the fog, an arrow emerged, missing me by several feet.
My first active spell.
I felt tender now, as if I had stepped into a warm shower. Relaxed. I had plucked out another part of my past, and it had hurt. But it was about to get much worse for the lizardkin.
My left arm went up toward the smoke. Gun-arm switched the pole of edged metal with an Incendiary shot, and blew through the vines restraining me. They twitched and sunk away from me as if in pain. Rappel fired out from my gauntlet and into the mist, colliding with my intended target. The spellcaster.
I walked forward, my lens readying to pick up the outlines of the remaining Gnashing Horde. Selectloaded the sharpened stake back in. Overcharge burned through my V-Force drive. Now I had a tether directly to who I needed to erase, and it slowly tried to draw him towards me.
Feeling like I was on the top of the world, Reflex kicked in again, and I entered the dense smoke.
Eight targets remaining. Arm up and I powered the tube of steel through the neck of the magic-user. Turned and loaded the last of the prototype ammunition, coring two lizardkin with one shot. I rolled to the ground and picked up a discarded spear, loading it down my barrel like a harpoon shot. Overcharge shook as I fired the long projectile through three of my enemies.
Despite their tactical training, this was more than their morale could take. Able to sense the demise of their group, even if they couldnt see them. One of them barked orders to retreat in a language I didn’t know, but understood all too well.
[Kr’aad slul, ghrads.]
My eyebrows furrowed as I wavered in place. I had told them to never come near the city again. But, how? Through my lens, I watched them move away.
Hmm. No, I had made a deal with the hobgoblins.
They were broken, and before they could leave the cloud of gray, I ran them all through. No survivors allowed. I stepped from the triple fog into clearer air, covered with both my own blood, and theirs.
The worm lay dead, part of its throat area blown through and tore out. It had bled a lot, painting the area with a weird red-green mucus. Against a few crates that had somehow survived the battle, the super sat slouched, her head hanging low.
I stumbled over; the adrenaline sinking away and allowing me to feel all the pain I had earned during the battle. As much as it would have been nice to help her with the giant monster, I knew my place in this kind of fight. I was a covert assassin, not a giantslayer. The best I could do was take out the magic users and potential distractions. And I had.
With a grunt, I kneeled down beside her.
[You doing alright there, princess?]
“Fuck off,” she murmured. No energy to it. She sounded like she was half asleep.
I gave her a once over to see how badly injured she was. Her arms were encased with cooled rock, dark brown. She hadn’t flexed it off. Most of her suit was covered in the gross mucus of the dead worm, but there were a few marks of deep red from the wounds she had sustained. From the looks of it, the lava form weakened some of her durability in exchange for the intense temperature. She could usually brush off gunshots, so a few arrows and spears shouldn’t have left a dent.
No bone breaks or severe trauma, but I estimated some bruising would show up tomorrow. With my gloved left hand, I put my fingers beneath her chin and lifted her head up. Yeah, she looked exhausted as shit. She glared at me with barely open eyes, which were dull rather than fiery.
[I will lift you now, and take you to the quake-wagon.]
“No,” she murmured, her mouth turning down at the edges.
[You want to stay here a while?]
Roxy shook her head softly and close her eyes fully. “No, just don’t… call it that… dork.”
I exhaled through my nose in lieu of a smile. Something slightly diminished due to the dried blood in that tube. Another day when she was at her weakest. For a change, I didn’t consider ways in which I could kill her right now. At present, she wasn’t a powerful super that could be a threat to me, but my squadmate and partner, who needed my help.
With plenty of awkwardness, I managed to get her up to her feet and prop her against me. A difficult task with the single hand, but eventually I shuffled her over to the vehicle. The green headlights were still on, painting a stretch on the empty wastes in a comforting hue. I bundled the super into the passenger side—with only a few complaints—and shook my head at the arrow-holes now in the side of the wagon.
Things were just destined to go through it around me. Before heading to the driver’s side, I looked back at the camp. Large corpse amongst the smaller ones. Smoke and smoldering wreckage on the outskirts.
I had used Dispel. Removed whatever magical ability was granting the former Gnashing Horde to see me through the fog. Even more curious than that was the ability to speak their language. Something from my past, or… well, I had an idea what it truly was.
My aura was three passive abilities. I had already used an extended version of my regeneration when I meditated. Dispel was the active version of my Detect Magic, something along the same route, but with an extra push. As a bard… as the Bard… there was a chance I had Speak Languages or something similar.
Even thinking now, I didn’t know how to produce the words to speak whatever lizardkin language they had. It had just been something that slipped out after turning my brain to mush in casting my first spell.
I shook my head again, as if to reset my thoughts. Personal progression was agony, but I had risen up to meet any challenge time and time again. There would be a point where I met my peak, and anything further would just end up getting me killed.
We both needed practice and training. I needed grenades.
Before any further malady or surprise could take us, I got in the vehicle and started it up. I now had a metal working factory under my control. Whether the League knew it or not, I just couldn’t help but empire build.
Next stop was herding the cats and getting them to fight as a team, something that might be even more agonizing than our present date night activities.
With the warmth of the stims keeping me together, I set off into the darkness.