Josie looked at the model. The scry bird marked the house Emily had taken. She

seemed to be holding it against anyone who tried to get in.

Emily’s reply letter dropped in her hands. She read the words with its strange spelling

and frowned. She could have just rescued Emily with a simple teleportation, but Cairn

was a company town and it was full of the Montrose and its victims.

“Is something wrong?,” asked Fass, the leader of the adventurers she had ferried to

this point.

“Emily says that all of the houses in Cairn are full of captives and guards,” said Josie.

“I can get her out fairly easily. But the rest will have to be worked on. And I have no

way to get them to safety if I did rescue them all. The quinjet only has space for so

many people even if I bundle them in like logs in the cargo deck.”

“It’s a long ride back to Hawk Ridge, even if we steal their horses and wagons,” said

Fass.

“First, we have to get them away from the Montrose who want to ship them across the

border,” said Josie.

“We could take the houses with the captives, and hold them while you get rid of the

guards,” said Fass. “I think we can do that as long as they don’t set fire to the

buildings.”

“So we set aside what we do with these people after we raid the town,” said Josie.

“And we start by saving Emily and working our way outward.”

“Can you show us where the captives are?,” asked Fass. “That will help us with our

planning.”

“Combatants and noncombatants,” Josie asked the map in front of them. Combatants

lit up in green, noncombatants lit up in blue. Emily was red like the scry bird.

“All right,” said Fass. “We can get into those houses and kill the guards. The women

are probably going to be chained, or caged. These other two buildings on either end

are probably barracks. They are stationed to let people in and out with a challenge.

If we cleared them out first, the guards on the women would have hostages against

us.”

“I can get us inside those houses,” said Josie. “But we’ll have to spread out and move

up and down the street.”

“All right,” said Fass. “What kind of options can you give us?”

“I feel I can put all of us into one of those houses from here,” said Josie. “I can go in

alone and form a distraction while you guys save everyone. I can burn everything

down, but that’s not something I want to do for obvious reasons.”

“Can you move us from house to house?,” asked Fass. “I think that will be useful for

what we want to do.”

She thought Fass would back out from such a challenge. Saving Emily could be done

with one teleport, maybe two. She hadn’t expected him to pick up the gauntlet and

start planning to help her.

“I can move us around, but each move will cost me,” said Josie. She hated to reveal

that weakness. “I wouldn’t be able to fight because I am conserving my strength.”

“What would you do if we weren’t here?,” asked Fass.

“I would set one of the end buildings on fire and try to catch as many as I could

inside,” said Josie. “Then I would shoot as many that try to put the fire out as I could

before I tried to do something else.”

“We can make that plan work,” said Fass. “We just need to be on the other side of the

town when you set the fire. Then we can try to catch their forces between the two of

us. Their greater numbers make such a scheme hard to carry out, but still doable.”

“So I send word to Emily that is the plan,” said Josie. “Then we go in and do the

deed.”

“Yes,” said Fass. “We’ll need a signal paper to let you know when we’re in position.

Once we send that, you can cause as much of a distraction as you want. We’ll try to

pick off as many as we can with our bows at first, then with swords.”

“Are you sure you want to get involved with this?,” asked Josie. “I can get Emily, and

you guys can sit the rest of this out.”

“We could,” said Fass. “But helping you gets us home that much faster. I don’t think

that your Ducklings will much like us if we do the bare minimum and nothing else.”

“All right,” said Josie. “Go ahead and get into position. This is your paper. Send it to

me when you think you are in the perfect ambush spot. Then I will set this other end

building on fire and we’ll see what happens.”

“I think we won’t be able to kill all of them, but we will be able to get the women

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

back,” said Fass. “Then we’ll have to think of some way to help them back to where

they belong.”

“All right,” said Josie. She wrote out a note and sent it to Emily. She wrote out

another note and gave it to Fass. “Just tell the note to return to me when you think

you’re ready.”

“Then let’s get started,” said Fass. “We have a long walk ahead of us.”

“Take this with you,” said Josie. She offered him the model map with its moving

spots. “You’re going to need it more than I will.”

“Thank you,” said Fass. He took the model. “Are you sure you are up for this? It will

be akin to open war.”

“I will do the best I can with what I have,” said Josie. “All that matters is we save

whomever we can. If we have to let some of the Montrose run off into the wilderness,

that will be fine. I can hunt them down later. Killing all of them would help satisfy

my quest, but it’s not strictly necessary.”

“We can do the job,” said Fass. He led the way into the trees. His group spread out

around him with Lou, their ranger, vanishing as soon as he decided to get ahead of

them.

Josie waited for a few minutes. She could get to the spot she wanted in a couple of

minutes. She had to wait on them to get where they wanted to go. Once she turned

into Fire, the rest would be how many could they ambush trying to stop her.

She turned into a hawk and flew toward the town. She landed under a tree and

became normal again. She checked her watch, glad that it was refilling. She would

be putting it to heavy use in a bit. She would need all of its invisible fuel.

She walked forward to the edge of the woods. She spotted the target building ahead

of her. She looked around. No guards. Once she hit the building, she would have

plenty of guards to deal with.

She wondered if they had sentries to keep an eye on the road. She hadn’t seen anyone

on her approach. The alarm hadn’t gone up as Fass and his group made their way

around to the other side of the small town.

Finally a letter dropped in her hand. She nodded. It was time for her to go to work.

She started walking toward the building as she dialed in who she needed. She hit the

activate button and started the timer just as she threw her shoulder against the door.

The wood shattered as a column of green flame filled the coach house. She tried to

ignore the men screaming as she went about her business.

She spread the fire. A look out the back windows showed her tattooed men running

towards the burning place. She would have to greet them with someone else in a

second.

She wondered if Deadshot was any good. Green Arrow and Bulletgirl had been filling

her long range needs. Could the villain be an even better shooter than what she had

already used?

She decided to stick to her proven personas first. She could experiment after the job

was done.

She turned into Bulletgirl as she stepped out of the burning house. Wherever she

pointed her segmented fingers, metal slugs tore through a target. Some she killed

outright, some took a wounding because they saw what had happened to their closest

colleague and turned at the last second.

She made sure to shoot them again before they could try to get away from her.

It was better to not let them live and get in the way if she could do that.

Other deaths she wasn’t responsible for kept the numbers on her quest going down.

She thought that was Fass’s party attacking from behind. She was attracting all the

attention, so she could see where they could easily catch people before they realized

they were caught between two forces.

Josie remembered that the houses lining the street were jails for whomever was inside

of them. She didn’t know if she had cleared the guards out with the dead bodies she

was laying down. She had to check the houses and make sure no one could use the

captives as hostages.

She put bullets into targets as she moved down the street. The slavers started to run

from her. They knew what she was doing, and they wanted no part of it.

She entered the first house and found women chained together. She frowned at them.

A guard raised his sword to stop her. She shot him with a wave of her hand. She made

sure he was dead before she returned to normal so she could talk to the women.

“I’m here to get you out of this,” said Josie. “My friends and I will provide means for

you to get home after we clear out the rest of these scumbags. Until we do, I need you

to barricade the door and wait for us to get done.”

“The chains,” said one of the women. “We can’t do anything until we’re free.”

Josie changed to Zatanna and unlocked the manacles. She changed back and checked

her watch. She still had a little bit of time she could use to kill some more of these

beasts.

“All right,” said Josie. “Stay in here until we have things sorted out. If you don’t want

to wait, I would suggest you head into the trees and away from the fighting. I’ll give

you help as soon as I am done.”

Josie checked her watch. She had to free the other houses as fast as possible. How

many had they just wounded and could still be a danger? She had no idea.

She looked at the battlefield. A lot of dead bodies clustered around the burning coach

house. She saw some with arrows in the midground. She worked her way along her

side of the street, letting the watch fill up as she checked for movement in the houses.

She needed someone like the Vision. She should work on that when she was looking

for people who would be mad at her for killing some of their friends and coworkers.

She spotted a woman in chain armor killing someone with a sword. Neither seemed

to be the best fit for her. She looked at Josie. She raised her sword.

The quest ding went off to let Josie know she had found Emily Budd.

“Emily Budd!,” shouted Josie. “I’m the rescue.”

“You need to work on that,” said Emily.

“Two days is good in my opinion,” said Josie. “Can you guard that house down there?

There is some women stowed in there. I’m afraid they need someone to keep them out

of trouble.”

She pointed at the house she meant.

“What are you going to do?,” asked Emily.

“I’m going to finish what I started,” said Josie. “Keep your head down, and look out

for your brother. He’s here somewhere.”

“You brought Thad?,” said Emily.

“I brought his whole crew,” said Josie. “Now, I need you to keep an eye out so we

don’t bungle everything at the last moment.”

“Markam?,” asked Emily.

“I killed him the first thing when we started looking for you,” said Josie.

‘I wanted to do that,” said Emily. “How could you take away my satisfaction?”

“It was easy,” said Josie.

Emily shook her head as she went to the house and knocked on the door. The women

inside let her in to guard them.