Cal glanced back to the guard who had let him. They didn’t look armed in any way. He also couldn’t sense any mana coming from within it. He had decided on a course of action and quickly scanned the immediate area before starting it. There were two more guard squirrels near him and at least five driving, ordering about the smaller squirrels. It looked like the small ones were divided into two camps. One was gathering fruit. The other was mining some sort of stone.
He started by studying the group that was harvesting fruit from the trees. This was the bigger group, with thousands of squirrels loading apples and a few other unfamiliar items into baskets. Each of the squirrels was fit with a small metal collar. Cal guessed that was used to keep them in line. He reached out again, trying to determine anything magical about them, and was surprised to feel a slight shock in his head when he touched one.
An alarm sounded across the grove. “Oops,” he thought to himself, realizing that he had set off some kind of anti-tampering or channeling detection in the collars. That probably meant even if these ones couldn’t channel, there were squirrels that could. Cal spotted the squirrel that had been leading him to reach for a club on its side while staring daggers at him.
“I’m going to need you to put your hands behind your head and lay flat on the ground,” it said as it pulled the club out and did its best to appear menacing.
“No, thank you.” Cal had no intention of surrendering and instead kicked a chunk of rock he had pulled up from the ground hard into the squirrel. He followed it up by rocketing himself into the squirrel. The squirrel shrieked in pain and surprise and tried to swing the club at Cal. Cal caught it. Ignoring the pain now throbbing through his palm, he channeled lightning into the club, causing it to explode in a blind flash of splinters.
The squirrel further yelped in pain and fell to the ground, holding its hand to its chest. The other two guards were rushing towards them, weapons drawn. One of them had something that looked suspiciously like a crossbow mixed with a gun. Not wanting to wait to see just what it could do, Cal shot an arc of lightning at the squirrel and then spread the shadows around him out to darken a wider area. It was time to liberate some squirrels.
“So here’s the deal: entirely willing to let everyone who surrenders live. I need information about what’s going on down here, and you all have it. You’ve already seen me take down two of you and cover the place in shadow without breaking a sweat. Do you really want to fight me?” No one answered immediately. “Oh, Come on, you seriously all want to fight me? What has Pluto come to? Mutated giant squirrels can’t even understand when they are seriously outclassed? Well, you all better be happy this is happening before Ethel or Frank get here. I’m much nicer, probably, maybe, you know, I’m actually not sure anymore.”
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Cal dropped the shadow and counted the larger squirrels he could now see. He was up to nine. They all had weapons drawn, and two of them were fast enough to get shots off at him before he could raise the shadows again. He threw himself to the ground in the same action as rechanneling the shadows. It wasn’t fast enough to dodge both of the projectiles. He felt something hit his shoulder and pass straight through it. It landed with a clang somewhere in the distance.
He was pretty sure he had just been hit by gunpowder-powered arrows, and it hurt like hell. “If you aren’t a giant squirrel fighting me, run. I promise I’ll get your collars off shortly!” Cal screamed into his own darkness. He silently counted to ten, and that channeled a series of lightning balls all around him. While he poured mana into them he was also making a hole in the ground below himself. As soon as it was deep enough he took a deep breath, closed the hole, and then released the charged lightning balls.
The world above him was rocked by a series of explosions. He felt the vibrations pass through his safety hole. His teeth still rattled. He removed the cap on his hole and leaped back out. Most of the shadow had dispersed in the blasts of lightning he had unleashed. He drew what remained back into himself and looked around.
He didn’t see a single standing giant squirrel, and somehow, despite the force he used, every single one of them still looked to be breathing on the ground. He was glad he had done the lightning bombs now that he understood just how tough these things were. He immediately got to work finding some material to bind them all before any of them regained enough of their senses to resume the attack.
“What the hell happened here?” Yelled an old cranky voice from the entrance just as Cal had finished tying up the squirrels. “How did you manage to get in a fight with the squirrels.”
“They started it, Ethel. I'm glad you’re all here. Can you go work on getting those collars off the little guys? The big ones have them enslaved, and from what I can gather, there are other groves that this has happened to as well. So I think we’ve got some more goals to add to our checklist of things to do here.” Cal walked over to his family and friends as he spoke.
Their squirrel guides came behind the group and surveyed the scene. They quickly darted towards the collared squirrels, probably in search of their missing colony members, cal thought.
“Ethel, Frank, Stan, go start working on the squirrels. Onelder does whatever Cal needs help with. Albert, you’re with me. Let’s get this door functional again. Who knows what attention Cal has attracted.” Jen’s military experience had clearly kicked in again.
“Huh, yeah, that's good thinking. Onelder, come on, we should probably check out the other walls and the scattered buildings.” Cal waved the alien over.