Scene 15 - November 6th

Exterior Training Grounds, Continuous

Holly Koval

“God,” I wheezed, emerging from invisibility to give Sequoia a high five. “Finally.” Anima had taken a long time to go down, even with me breaking her golems. She had animated their shards to harry me whenever she caught a glimpse of my location, used the inimitable light of her aura to spot my illusions - which wouldn’t reflect its light properly - and held Sequoia off the entire time. After several minutes he had managed to get a lucky blow and coat the woman in green paint, knocking her to the ground as he did so, but only after several blows from her that had, I suspected, nearly taken him out. He was still in the game, but I doubted he could take another hit even from a dagger-sized bat.

Anima pulled out her earpiece. “Finally... is right...” she said, clearly still trying to catch her own breath. “I thought that would never end.”

“Well, you didn’t exactly make it easy on us,” I pointed out, still breathing hard myself.

“Of course not.” She held up a hand and sparked a bit of aura, wincing as she did. “I probably shouldn’t have gone quite so hard, though. I burned through all the stored power I had, and was starting to use up my own reserves at the end there. Not terribly healthy for me.”

“Take some of mine,” Sequoia offered, extending a hand to help Anima up at the same time. He, of course, was as fresh as a daisy. In his dryad form, he was tireless, having a nearly endless store of energy - it would take a huge drain for him to feel it.

Anima accepted gratefully, pulling herself to her feet and drawing zoetic energy from him at the same time. “By the way,” she asked me, “how were you multitasking like that?”

“What do you mean?” I said, deciding to play dumb a bit. Loki was the god of mischief, after all - even though it wasn’t entirely natural for me, I had to be at least a bit of a prankster. Apollon would bug abut it me if I didn’t.

“You’ve been directing the other Journeymen this whole time,” she said confidently, “but I know you’re not good enough to be keeping five people connected manually and have the mental space to handle tactics as well.”

“Not manually, no,” I agreed. She had been knocked out of the game, at this point, she couldn’t tell Canaveral, so... “but I wasn’t doing it manually.” I gestured at my ear and made an illusion of an earpiece appear. “I’ve been working on a spell to replace earpieces for two years - these can’t be hacked. I cracked it maybe... six months ago? ...and have even added some improvements!”

Her eyes lit up with interest. “So you were able to do tactics and keep the lines of communication open with the rest of your team!”

“Yup! And Starling couldn’t hack into them. You might be able to, now that you know about them,” I admitted, “but...”

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“But it wouldn’t be easy, with how far from zoetic your tricks are, and we didn’t even have a chance of knowing about it.” Anima chuckled. “Very well done, Loki! I’m proud of you. You’ll be sharing them with us from now on, I hope?”

“Of course. They don’t offer many advantages if you’re not facing a tech villain - not yet, anyway - but if you are...”

“Motael hacks into our comms networks almost every time we fight him,” she agreed. “Jokes on him, next time.”

“Exactly. Now shoo, I have plotting to do!”

She shooed.

“What’s next?” Sequoia asked.

“Broadcast:” I said, making sure that Hypnos could hear us as well. “We’ve taken down Anima, which means that it’s the three of us against Vulcan and Canaveral.”

“The two strongest fighters on the New Champions,” Hypnos commented grimly.

“Yeah. Which is why we’re not going to fight them.”

“No?”

“Not exactly.” I tapped Sequoia on the shoulder and he faded from visibility. “Hypnos, are you somewhere hidden?”

“Yeah, why?”

“I’m about to cancel your invisibility.” I did so with a swipe of one hand. I could keep a lot of spells going at once - they were far easier than manual control - but I would need all the concentration I had for what came next.

“Sequoia, I want you to head over to the flag,” I told him, using my map to point it out to him. “Hypnos, I’m going to draw Vulcan out, then I need you to distract him. Use your new trick.”

“How are you gonna do that?” Sequoia asked.

Instead of answering, I concentrated on the map, zooming in until I could see the details of Vulcan leaning against the frozen-over flagpole. My powers had excellent range, allowing me to create spells like the map, but manual detail work got harder the farther from me I was working. I had to be very careful here...

I magically spoke into Vulcan’s ear - the same one he wore his earpiece in - in as near an imitation of Canaveral’s voice as I could. “I’ve taken out Newton, and Anima and Sequoia took each other out,” I lied. “Hypnos and Loki are the only ones left. They’ve got no chance of getting through your ice, so I want you to come out and help me hunt them down.”

“Are you sure?” Vulcan asked - I swiped the soundwaves away before they could enter the earpiece, bringing them to me instead.

“I’m sure,” I repeated. “The flag is safe, all we need is to mop up the last stragglers. I think I’ve got a bead on Loki’s real position - although who knows with her - so focus on Hypnos.”

“Him,” Vulcan corrected, standing up from his leaning position and stretching. “He’s Loki right now, he’s a him.”

I couldn’t help but smile, hearing the man correct Canaveral even without me around to hear - as far as he knew, anyway. Canaveral still had trouble keeping my pronouns straight, so I had thrown a mistake in, but I hadn’t expect Vulcan to bother protesting. He had never been all that close to me when he was on the Journeymen, after all. “Right, him. Sorry.”

“Don’t apologize to me...” It sounded like a familiar refrain, too.

“Broadcast:” I said, cutting off the communication with Vulcan and reopening it with my team. “He’s heading out now, Hypnos. Try and catch him in a minute or two and lead him as far from the flag as you can.”

“I’ll do my best,” he swore.

“I know you will. Sequoia,” I said to the wooden man, “I know stealth doesn’t come naturally to you-”

“Hey!” he protested, and I smirked.

“-but try to be as silent as you can. It’s on you to win this.”

“What about you?” he asked. “You’re taking on Canaveral?”

I glanced at the map one more time, eying where Canaveral was - he was pacing thoughtfully, but before long he would come to a new strategy. I had to act and distract him before he contacted Vulcan for real. “Yeah,” I confirmed. “I’m taking on Canaveral.”