Phi’Scia decided to take her own ship to the thorn wall, with Aurelius on board Aurelius was apparently used to this by now. Phi’Scia just focused on piloting.
She found a good spot on a roof a short distance from the outside of the wall, and landed, allowing her passenger to depart. She and Aurelius leaped off with fly spells.
Leigh and Arika were already at the wall, and Leigh was having a go at hacking it down. Her sword was certainly effective, but the thorns were rapidly regrowing despite her best efforts. “This is not good. My sword slices through these things fairly easily, but they regrow as fast as I can hack at them!”
“To think he could gather enough Energeia to do something like this… Normally this would only be possible unless one was obscenely powerful or were in Thaumia,” Aurelius said, as his eyes flashed, casting a spell as they approached the thorn wall. None of them wanted to make direct contact with it without protection. “This is… A mixture of normal thorns and human hair. What on Earth…?”
Phi’Scia cast her own spell - ‘Analyse Nature’. It was exactly as Aurelius described, though there was also a bunch of curses flowing through it, likely to keep anyone from braving it or trying to break or cut through it with non-magical means, and multiple elemental resistances. “Definitely a bit overkill for keeping people in…”
“It’s a mixture of native magic and… Non-native magic. I thought it was some native spirit or monster run amok, but this is something else entirely,” Arika frowned, as she extended her hair to touch it. From what Phi’Scia could tell, she was examining it in her own way. “The spiritual flow is weird and unnatural, it’s actually kinda unnerving.”
“Either way, we have to stop the growth, or it’ll cocoon the entire campus quickly,” Aurelius said, as he began inscribing something onto the ground, “the elemental resistances are a problem, but this should not be resistant to decay.”
Phi’Scia knew exactly what he was getting at. She switched in the ‘Decay’ rune, and moved several meters away to another part of the wall to start inscribing a ‘Decay Nature’ curse targeted at the thorn wall. Immediately that part of the wall started slowing its growth, and struggling to avoiding wilting outright. “It’s working!”
Leigh tried hacking at the thorns again, and while Phi’Scia couldn’t see her face under the helmet, she certainly gave off an air of satisfaction as the thorns grew back much more slowly than before. “Excellent!”
Arika extended her hair and began using it to climb over the thorn wall without touching it with the rest of her body. “I’ll go inside and help the others! Been kinda chomping at the bit to fight these shadow monsters, and you’re better suited to handling this wall!”
Phi’Scia nodded, calling out, “just be careful! There’s a lot more of them, now!”
“You got it!” And with that, Arika disappeared over the top.
Multiple police and military vehicles arrived shortly after as the pair worked on setting up more curses. Agent Yang ran over to them. “We’ve got people on the inside, but we need a way for the normies to get in!”
“This thorn wall is vulnerable to decay, I suggest you get your mages on helping us set up an array of curses,” Aurelius called out.
Phi’Scia looked over the military hardware they brought, including multiple Bushmaster vehicles with machine guns mounted on top. “The walls are cursed, so it won’t be easy for anything to break through, but maybe some concentrated machine gun fire against areas of the wall affected by decay might be enough! Let the swordswoman hack through, and use that opportunity to drive through before it regrows!”
Yang nodded, rushing back to his people to relay orders. The mages started moving to help set curses, while the soldiers started opening fire on the decaying thorns, aiming low and beginning to rip into them, while Leigh slashed through the decaying thorns and allowed vehicles to drive through.
Phi’Scia, for her part, just kept working, flying between each point. This would definitely take some time, and she hoped the others were doing fine enough without them.
❖
Estella was quick to rendezvous with Jay before he potentially got overwhelmed, clearing out the building completely as she went. She ordered everyone to stay put and barricade any doors if possible - nobody was getting out until the campus was completely cleared out.
“That was nerve-wracking,” Jay sighed as they stepped outside, gripping his sword tightly. “All I’ve got is magic and an enchanted sword, not the fancy armour and demon-slaying sentient magic sword.”
Estella smirked. “Oh, suck it up, you lasted this long by yourself just fine.”
“As much as I appreciate this witty banter, look alive, you two - more adversaries are coming your way,” Galowye advised.
Indeed, as Estella took a quick scan of the environment around them, more soldiers began approaching them, some coming from nearby buildings, including some larger ‘werewolves’. She smirked as she prepared for battle. “Now this feels familiar. Except this time you can actually put up a fight alongside me.”
“I’m not sure how well I can take the big ones, though,” Jay gulped. Not that Estella could really blame him for that.
But before the fighting began, another combatant entered the fray, attacking the monsters from behind with fireballs and spikes of hair. It was Arika, keeping her distance as she used her hair and a lighter as her main weapons. “Hey, guys! Leigh, Aurelius and Phi are handlin’ the thorn wall, I came to back you up!”
“Well, then! Not gonna say no to that!” Estella grinned as she charged into the fray, hacking and slashing, backed up by Jay, who mainly picked off lone stragglers. Even the stronger monsters were easier to handle, as she moved to dodge and counter their claw and sword strikes. However, she was wary of being encircled by the weaker soldiers, which meant she still needed to fight more cautiously.
That went out the window when the dark soldiers started getting hit by incoming gunfire. Two Bushmaster vehicles came smashing through the back line, accompanied by machine gun fire, with soldiers opening the doors and shooting with assault rifles. While it wasn’t as effective against normal flesh, modern weaponry was still fairly effective at ripping into these supernatural soldiers. The werewolves held up much more, but it still seemed to stun them long enough for Estella to decapitate them.
Once all the soldiers and monsters were down, Estella turned to the soldiers. “Nice of you guys to show up. But seriously, thanks. How many of you are there?”
“We’ve got a whole bloody platoon or two coming in,” said one of the soldiers, “we’ll handle clearing out the buildings, you go after the commander. We know what we’re dealin’ with.”
“You better! Alright, let’s go,” said Estella to Jay and Arika, as she got moving. “I’m betting the Emperor is out in the open. Again.”
“Shouldn’t be too hard to find, then. Hopefully we can rendezvous with the others first,” Jay nodded, as he ran alongside her.
Tharen and Gartho’s ship zoomed across the sky above them, likely headed for Natalia’s position. “I bloody well hope so.”
Arika was running alongside them, but Estella noticed she seemed surprisingly sober and serious. “Arika? You alright?”
“This ‘Emperor’ is abusing and perverting the magics of this land for his own ends. We gotta stop him,” said Arika, her eyes narrowing. She looked more focused than Estella had ever seen from her before. “I didn’t think it was this serious until I saw that thorn wall with my own eyes. If you could see the spirit world, it’d be the stuff of nightmares.”
Estella decided not to think about it too much and just took her at her word. She was much more experienced with these things than her.
And then she saw the main central courtyard. “Oh boy.”
Several hulking canine soldiers that were about four meters tall lingered in the courtyard, some still forming from being fused together, but all of them holding jagged swords and adorned with barbaric armor. And in the middle, was a massive wolf-like beast that towered over all of them, mist forming from its glowing red eyes.
“Oh, there you a-oh goddamn it,” Anja said as she and the Gaians arrived, all of them immediately on edge from seeing the monsters. “Looks like he’s more ready than last time!”
Natalia, Tharen and Gartho arrived in Natalia’s LUV, with Florrie’s power suit close behind, courtesy of its boosters. Natalia eeped as she grabbed her blade rifle, “that’s not good!”
“Ah, ladies and gentlemen, good to see you arrived on time. You certainly kept me waiting.”
Sitting on a throne-saddle on the giant beast’s back, was the Tenebris Imperatoris himself, looking somewhat more relaxed than last time. “I was hoping the thorn wall would keep more of you busy, but I’ll take what I can get.”
“Aren’t you cheery today. What happened to the edgelord attitude?” Anja said, slamming her fist into her palm. “Whatever. We’ll kick your ass again until you finally take a fucking hint.”
“Please, Anja Kendrick, no matter how many times you ‘kick my ass’ you’re just delaying the inevitable. With every battle, my soldiers and I get stronger,” the Emperor smirked.
Estella cursed to herself. Of course he figured it out. But she refocused her thoughts. “We’re still well outpacing your soldiers. These big bastards are just a speed bump.”
“That remains to be seen, Estella. These are my strongest creations to date, and I look forward to seeing how well you fare against them. Go, my minions, lay them low and make them mine!”
The canine soldiers howled in unison, and charged, raising huge, jagged swords.
As the heroines and their companions split up, Estella activated the ‘Fly’ spell stored in Galowye. These monsters were best fought with full movement in all three dimensions. Jay kept his distance, while Arika moved alongside her.
Two of the bestial soldiers charged them, bloodthirsty gleams in their glowing red eyes. Estella took to the air, dodging their swipes as she drew their attention. Arika was already getting to work using her hair to constrict their movement, and Jay was firing off bolts of flame.
Estella dodged an incoming strike, and went for the attacker’s throat. However, the other one ripped through the hair constricting them, and slashed at her. She raised Galowye to block, unable to redirect her momentum in time, and the force sent her crashing into a wall.
She groaned as she recovered, only for the bestial soldier to charge her, slashing at her wildly. She barely managed to defend herself, and thinking quickly, switched out a couple of runes.
As the enemy lunged at her with a stab, she dodged to the side, liquefying the wall behind her with ‘Change Earth’. When the sword passed through, She solidified the wall, trapping the sword in it. It was variation of an old trick, but it seemed to work well enough, startling the monster as it tried to pull the blade out, the shape of it actively working against it.
Estella immediately hacked at the monster’s elbow, severing its forearm with a few quick strikes. The monster stumbled back in pain, howling before taking another swing at her with its claws, but she easily dodged the strike, moving to its disarmed side and decapitating it with the strongest blow she could muster.
With that, her attention shifted to her friends. Arika was trying to keep the other monster restrained with her hair, but it kept hacking at its restraints. Jay was making a valiant effort at slashing at the beast’s legs whenever it was open.
Estella flew towards the monster, rending its head from its shoulders with another mighty swing.
As both corpses burned away, Arika dusted herself off, “well, that wasn’t too hard…”
“I wouldn’t say that if I were you,” Jay said, as two more bestial soldiers began to approach them, “we’ve got the remaining soldiers and the massive hellhound to still deal with.”
Estella’s hands sparked with electricity as blasted them both with lightning, “then let’s show them what we can really do.”
❖
As Anja formulated a strategy, Logos immediately buffeted the incoming beasts with strong winds. “These are not going to be simple foes!”
“Well, good news is, this is my element,” Kat grinned, getting ready to rumble, “gonna need some momentum to really hit ‘em hard, though.”
Anja chuckled, an idea sparking in her head. “How about a classic ‘Fastball Special’?”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about but it sounds cool, go for it!”
Anja picked up Europa, focusing her symbiote’s power into pure strength, and with a wind-up as she curled up into a ball, hurled Europa at one of the beasts with all of her might.
The beast tried to knock her out of the air, but it mis-timed the swing, instead getting hit right in the centre of mass and send crashing into a wall. Anja figured Kat must’ve manipulated her gravitational force to multiply the force of the collision.
The second monster charged, but before it could strike, Logos let loose a gust of wind at its legs that send it toppling forward, missing entirely. Anja rushed it with her arm-blades, hacking and slashing at the monster’s back and head, but it grabbed her and hurled her at Logos, knocking them both down.
Anja scrambled to her feet, blocking an incoming sword strike just in time, her body straining to hold it back. However, the monster suddenly fell through a hole in the ground - a portal. Europa wasn’t sitting idly, it seemed.
Anja looked up, seeing the soldier tumbling out of a portal from a wall high up, and she ignited both arm-blades, leaping up and using the momentum to slash right through the monster’s head and neck, ripping it apart as it crashed to the ground.
“One down, I suppose,” Logos noted, seeing Kat wrestle with the other soldier. “Good thing she’s so resistant to physical attacks.”
Anja wasted little time rushing it, driving both blades into the back of the monster’s neck, severing its spine. “You alright, Kat?”
“I’m good!” Kat bounced onto her feet.
Two more monstrous soldiers began approaching, and Anja took on a fighting stance. “Right, then. Let’s do this.”
❖
Natalia had leaped off the LUV, allowing Gartho to take the machine-gun and open fire, as Tharen drove around, keeping away from the incoming soldiers. One of them chased after the LUV, while two more focused on Natalia, charging right at her.
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As Natalia braced for an incoming attack, pulling out her Mace Shotgun as well, a volley of mini-missiles slammed into one of the soldier’s side, followed up by Florrie shoulder-tackling it with her power suit and blasting it at point-blank with her energy weapons. The other continued to charge Natalia, who leaped back to dodge the incoming sword swing and fired off two charged shots from both her weapons, which slammed into the monster’s armour and cracked it. It snarled at her, pouncing, and she boosted to the side to dodge before moving back in, swinging the mace upwards and smashing the torso plate, shattering it completely.
Before she could follow up, the monster pounced her again, tackling her to the ground. She barely avoided a couple of attempts to stab her with its sword, before she drove her Blade Rifle’s beam blade into the exposed torso, striking it downwards. Apparently she had struck its heart, because it quickly toppled over, dead, burning away.
Natalia got back on her feet, seeing Florrie fighting the other one. She wasn’t doing too hot - it turns out getting into melee range with that huge beast was not a great idea, and her power suit was taking a beating, despite her best efforts to overwhelm it with its firepower.
Natalia rushed towards the beast, blasting it in the back with another double charged shot, before leaping up and clubbing the monster in the head with the mace as it swung around to face her.
Florrie climbed up onto the monster’s back, put both hands on its head, and let loose with an explosive burst of energy that obliterated its head. It fell over, dead. She flung her arms upwards. “WOO! I can’t believe we pulled that off!”
“Don’t celebrate just yet…” As Natalia got ready for more enemies, the LUV drove over to them, and Gartho deployed his sentry turret. Natalia noticed another burning corpse nearby - seems the LUV’s gun had been sufficient to take it out.
Then, the ship came overhead, its auto-guns firing upon the remaining bestial soldiers. Gartho chuckled, as he and the sentry turret started firing, “I think we’re winning.”
“Think? We’re creamin’ ‘em,” Tharen snorted. He wasn’t wrong - between the ship’s guns and the two turrets, their friends were having a much easier time dealing with the remaining soldiers.
But the biggest problem still remained, and that was the massive wolf, which charged Natalia’s group. Natalia and Florrie boosted out of the way, but the beast’s claws knocked both the LUV and the sentry turret over, and sent Tharen and Gartho tumbling out of the vehicle. The beast seemed to be more than capable of withstanding the bombardment from above, at least for now.
Thinking quickly, Natalia fired a charged shot at the beast’s eye before it could try to make a meal of the two aliens. While it didn’t seem to blind it, it definitely hurt it long enough to focus its attention on her, and it howled, bolting right at her, claws extended and ready to shred anything in their path.
Anja and Kat, however, had other ideas, as they got in the way, grabbing its jaw and stopping it in its tracks, though they slid back a couple of metres.
Natalia immediately switched weapons, storing away the rifle and shotgun, and pulled out the rocket launcher. When the wolf tossed Anja and Kat aside, it got an energy rocket to the face, causing it to howl in pain. However, it suddenly unloaded a burst of dark energy from its mouth, which slammed into Natalia and send her tumbling, her personal shield instantly depleted…
❖
Anja got back up, prepared to go at it again, but Kat suddenly picked her up, “I think it’s your turn for the fastball this time!”
“Not gonna complain. Toss me,” said Anja, getting ready.
With a wind-up and a spin, Kat hurled Anja with tremendous force at the beast’s head. Anja thrust her arms forward, complete with blades, and slammed into the side of the monster’s head, ripping into its flesh and exposing part of its maw. “Nat, you okay?”
“I-I’m fine, my shield’s down, though, need to wait for it to recharge,” said Natalia as she stumbled back onto her feet and retreated, firing off more energy rockets.
Anja reshaped her suit around her legs to stab straight into the ground, trying to hold the beast’s head in place. It snarled and shook, trying to throw her off again.
And then a sword was driven right into the beast’s other eye. Estella pushed Galowye deeper, angling it towards the brain. “Nice work! Let’s take it out quickly before-”
Two fireballs slammed into the eldest and middle sister, stunning Anja and knocking Estella away, as well as dislodging Galowye. The Emperor was holding both his hands forward, and grinned as he started bombarding Anja with fireballs, “did you honestly believe I would simply sit by and do nothing?”
Anja grit her teeth as she hardened her suit. “Fuck… You…”
A tornado whipped up around the Emperor, but it simply smashed against an energy shield. He turned towards Logos, who rushed him with his swords, but the Emperor struck him out of the air with a burst of lightning. “Admirable attempt, but not remotely good enough.”
Anja witnessed Logos crashing to the ground, unmoving. The fires of rage were lit inside of her, as she grabbed on tightly to the beast’s head, screaming as she lifted it up, exerting more strength than she had ever before.
“What the hell?!” The Emperor’s eyes widened as Anja suddenly lifted the beast off the ground in one powerful movement, flipping it over and slamming it into the ground with tremendous force. The Emperor barely held on to his throne. “That… Was impressive, I will admit…”
“Babe what the hell was that?!” Prometheus asked. “I don’t think I’m quite that strong… Yet. But seriously, holy shit?!”
“I dunno. I guess rage is a good motivator,” Anja muttered, glancing back at Logos. Kat and Europa had rushed to his aid - he was moving again now, and thankfully alive. “And I’m not done yet.”
❖
Estella leaped out of the way when the giant wolf came crashing down. Since when could Anja pull off that kind of strength?! But she wasn’t going to look a gift horse in the mouth.
Hair started to wrap around the beast’s legs, preventing it from getting back up - Arika’s work. The witch was panting as she exerted herself. “You’re an abomination, and need to be stopped!”
Florrie fired off beams of energy from her power armor’s hands, targeting the beast’s head. She immediately was attacked by more lightning from the Emperor, however, which was interrupted when Anja charged the barrier, pummelling it furiously, forcing him to switch targets.
“Someone hold that damn mouth open!” said Estella, charging towards the monster.
“You got it!” Florrie called out, as she boosted towards the maw, grabbing the jaw and holding it open.
“I’ve got a better idea,” Natalia said as her rocket launcher formed an enormous energy hammer that she brought down on the jaw. The monster struggled, but a few strikes was enough to render it useless. “It’s broken!”
Estella nodded, and with a sigh, dived right into the maw. “This is gonna be gross…”
She slashed at the tongue, disabling it before she aimed Galowye towards the brain, and thrust. Multiple times. The last one, she slashed across where she hoped the brain was, before getting out. “That should do it!”
“Ugh, I don’t want to be in that situation again for a long time…” Galowye groaned, both of them covered in saliva. “But I’m not sure it’s over just yet…”
Natalia and Florrie were knocked aside by the head as the wolf writhed with spasming, its ‘fur’ suddenly turning red and its eyes turning black, tearing away the hair and getting back on its feet, tossing off Anja as well, with an unnatural howl that no living thing should ever emit, despite having a shattered jaw.
“Oh, you are shitting me,” Estella frowned, “why won’t you fucking die?!”
“Now you’ve done it. It’s a mode I created for this masterpiece of mine - when it ‘dies’, it goes berserk and trades any kind of thought for raw power. Now watch as it razes this university to the g-”
An enormous white sword made of pure energy slammed into the beast from above, pinning it to the ground. Estella looked up, to see Clarette standing on the edge of a nearby building.
“Stand clear!” Another voice to the right drew Estella’s attention - it was Phi’Scia, accompanied by Aurelius, who were seemingly pooling their power together into a single spell. In the air between them were five large golden rings, lined up in a row and each spaced half a metre apart, spinning clockwise and rapidly increasing in speed, as they crackled with energy.
The Emperor seemed to recognise the threat it posed, as he formed multiple layers of shielding to protect himself and his monster.
Once they were spinning at incredibly high speeds, Phi’Scia thrust her hand forward, “Magic Railgun, FIRE!”
An intense beam of energy surged through the rings, slamming into the shields and ripping through them, tearing the beast in half.
Still, the beast was now freed, and somehow it was able to get back on two legs, charging at Estella, who readied her sword.
Then a charged energy rocket and multiple energy bursts from Natalia and Florrie knocked it off-balanced, with Kat finishing the job with a wind-powered toss from Logos, followed by Anja smashing into its skull, ripping out the brains. And yet, it still somehow moved. Arika began pinning it down again with her hair. “Estella, we need to destroy it entirely!”
Estella nodded, as she began to use Galowye as the focus for an 'Energy Missile' spell, with the 'Beam' modifier, rather than just using her own body.
“This again, eh? Well, perhaps this might actually be warranted this time,” Galowye remarked. “Use me to channel and focus your Energeia. I was designed for things like this, after all.”
Estella grinned, as she held him out in front of her, pointing, charging her Energeia as it sparked at the tip of the sword, also forming an arcane circle, almost like a crosshair. “Alright, let’s finish this with a big bang!”
She fired off a large blue energy beam, which ripped right into the wolf’s head and body, tearing it to shreds. With the front of the body functionally obliterated, the remainder of the body began to burn away.
But the Emperor still remained, as he stepped off his throne, his hands sparking as he prepared for combat. “Fine, then, I will applaud your valour, might and skill, but now you face m-”
A sword went right through his back and out the front of his torso, right through the heart. He looked down in astonishment, and then looked over his shoulder. “You sneaky wanker.”
“You were so focused on the heavy hitters that you completely forgot about me, didn’t you?” Jay chuckled, before unleashing a surge of electricity through the Emperor’s body, “I couldn’t take on that massive beast, but you, on the other hand…!”
“W-Well played, Hayward…” The Emperor groaned, moving his hands to retaliate.
“No, enough of that,” Clarette said, dropping down and rending the Emperor’s head from his shoulders, “we’re done here.”
Estella fell to her knees as her exhaustion finally caught up to her. “Holy shit.”
“You’re goddamn right,” said Anja as she walked over.
“WE WON!” Natalia squealed happily as she hugged her sisters. “We won our biggest fight yet!”
Then she heard cheering from above. People had been watching from some of the upper floors of the surrounding buildings, and were cheering ecstatically. And who could blame them? They had seen superheroes fight and triumph.
“The thorn wall is being dealt with by the Commission,” Aurelius said as everyone began to regroup. “The army is mopping up the remaining enemies.”
“I just hope we can just go home after this,” Natalia sighed. “I just wanna rest.”
“Yeah, well, your identities are exposed now, so that’s gonna be a bit harder,” Florrie noted as she popped out of the power armor, recalling it into its capsule.
“Should’ve figured,” Anja said, scratching her head.
Still, Estella was bathing in the attention, smiling and waving to the onlookers. This was a high that wouldn’t subside anytime soon.
❖
Commissioner Danian Gurumarra looked over the report handed to him late that night in his private tent. The magical field around the tent significantly dulled the sounds of military activity outside - he preferred to have some exterior sign that things were operating as normal rather than isolate himself with complete silence.
The second attack on the university campus had been repelled. Unfortunately, it seems some students had gone missing - Agent Yang speculated the sewage system might’ve been used for for the Emperor’s soldiers to sneak some of them out. While it was good that it was kept to a minimum, the fact that there people missing at all was frankly unacceptable.
While the report noted that the larger monsters and the huge wolf were likely something the Emperor wouldn’t be able to pull off for at least another couple of weeks, likely more, Danian knew it did not portend well. Their main adversary was getting stronger, and likely not even using his full power, instead relying on large reserves of Energeia. He was still keeping his cards close to his chest.
Danian was still mulling this all over when he suddenly received a secure video call request on his personal laptop. He saw the name.
EAD Director Marcus Rhodes.
The EAD stood for ‘Extranormal Affairs Division’, a United States government agency answering only to the executive. Marcus was the first and only director the agency ever had, having served since the Civil War, and for good reason. Danian sighed, and tapped the green answer button. “Good evening, Mydros.”
Appearing on-screen was not a human being, but rather a bipedal black dragon with black and crystalline dark green scales, wings and horns. He was adorned with a very nice custom-tailored suit, and had a comically oversized candy-cane in his mouth. His dark green eyes stared into the camera. “Morning, Danian. How’s the situation down there?”
Mydros was one of the few remaining dragons on normal Earth, several centuries old, and while he had been around long before the American Revolution, he had sworn his service to President Lincoln and had served as the EAD’s director ever since, his tenure being repeatedly renewed because, firstly, dragon, and secondly, he was damn good at his job. The paranormal community over in the USA was fairly orderly under his watch. He was very independently wealthy from being involved in human commerce over the centuries, and currently happily married to a human woman with multiple half-breed children.
“The ‘Emperor’ attacked the campus again. Attempted to enclose it in a massive dome made of black thorns, and summoned the largest monsters he’s created yet. The attack was thwarted, mainly thanks to the sisters and their new allies, but some people went missing,” Danian frowned. “He’s still accumulating captives, and he’s not the only one. He and his soldiers have been getting into confrontations with the coven. The coven itself is preparing for the ritual, and I’m fairly sure some other paranormal beings are slipping through the net. Trying to keep the situation under control without pulling in all of my resources from across the country is getting increasingly difficult.”
The dragon stroked his chin in thought. “Thankfully, things are quieter over here. I’ll see if I can spare some agents to send over to help wrangle the situation.”
“I’m not sure how much help they would be against more native problems… But I’ll take what I can get. Thank you.”
Mydros chuckled. “Keep your chin up and your head held high, my friend. We’ll get through this. Hopefully I’ll be able to send some of my best people - they’re damn good at getting situations like this back under control.”
“Right, I hope so. What’s the word from the rest of the paranormal community?”
“Evacuations of paranormal beings in certain regions are still ongoing. It’s something of an unfortunate humanitarian crisis.”
Unfortunately some regions (mainly Africa and South America) either simply lacked the resources to have departments to handle and defend the paranormal, or simply didn’t care, especially some authoritarian regimes. This meant that with the planned slow pulling back of the curtain, the benign paranormal elements that lacked proper advocacy and protection in their own countries needed to be relocated, at least temporarily.
“The planetary shield was something we could manage, aliens were one thing, but the mess in Angel Bay… Damnation, I wish I was more prepared,” Danian sighed, arms crossed.
“There are few things you can truly be completely prepared for, even when you’re as old as I am,” Mydros said, licking at the candy-cane idly. “From what I understand, what you’re dealing with is old and forgotten enough that its re-emergence blindsided you. Don’t beat yourself up too much about it, it happens. I knew this day would come at some point, anyway.”
“Well, either way, I’m done just sitting on the sidelines. I’m getting directly involved from here on out. I’ve got some old scores to settle as well.”
“Don’t get too carried away. Keep me up to date on the situation, and I’ll let you know when I’m sending people over. Good luck, Danian.”
“Thank you. Talk to you later, then,” Danian said, as he hung up.
He sat back in his chair, and took a look at the report again, staring at some of the included photos. In particular, the Kendrick sisters celebrating their victory. “I damn hope those three are prepared for what comes next.”