Something… halts in my mind. It’s the casualness with which Gisela wants to walk into an active warzone. I’m the one that has to protect her. But she’s acting like it’s already said and done–even when I can see the mech that towers over the trees shuddering and slowly moving. A normal-ass person like her should be hesitant at the very least.

“Gisela.”

She sighs. “Yes?”

“How much of this did you know was going to happen?”

“Ah, that question.” She purses her lips, but doesn’t let go of my arm. “If I’m being honest, no answer I give to you is going to be satisfying. And no matter what I say, you are going to think I’m lying to you, right?”

I grimace. Gisela nods.

“You see? Any explanation I can give will only raise more questions. So instead of an answer, I’ll tell you this; I am extremely competent, but I’m not a god. Any information I have is because we gathered it through realistic sources. Don’t treat us as all-knowing gods who manipulated this to our advantage, and don’t think we’re bumbling idiots running around blind. Just imagine what might’ve leaked about what happened so far, and assume that’s the information we’re working with.”

As an explanation, that’s about the worst one I’ve ever heard. But… I have to admit it makes sense. Gisela has no reason to actually tell me the entire truth. It benefits her far more to keep me guessing, so she doesn’t reveal any sources or alliances that I might not like. Even if some of those people are dead now.

Not much I can do about it, anyway. And if the truth ends up being too horrible, well, that’s where Noland comes in.

“Fine.” I take an insistent step forward, and Gisela follows. “We’re done with you in a few hours anyway.”

Her fingers tighten on my arm ever so slightly. I barely even notice it through the anticipation, and when I check her face for any emotion in my peripheral vision, she’s all pleasant smiles. Must be the nerves finally starting to hit her.

We retrace our path, and in a few short minutes, we’re right back with the crowd. Zeze, Shout, and everyone else from the Preservation are nowhere to be seen, but the mind-controlled crowd still stands and cheers as if Noland staring down a massive mech on his own is the greatest form of entertainment.

He lazily glances over at me. “Shelby! Need your help with this one; they’re being a real pain in the ass, and the mech doesn’t technically use spells or skills. So I can’t, you know, instantly win this one.”

“You sure you should be saying your weaknesses out loud like that?” I ask as Gisela breaks away from me and beelines for… Ava and Gasp. “Shit, they’re still here? I thought they would’ve run or died by now.”

Gisela walks right up to them with a confidence Dora was emulating just minutes ago, and even though she’s a class-less normal person, she doesn’t show an ounce of fear. I focus my awareness on her just in case Ava gets obliterate-y, but the rest of me focuses on the mech that’s still powering up for some reason.

“Sure takes a while, huh?” Noland notes casually. “If any Shellraisers were watching this right now, I bet they’d be pissed about how their tech is being butchered.”

“Yeah!” Pearl vigorously agrees with a wicked scowl. “Kill them for it!”

There’s her bloodthirst in the face of misuse of her people’s tech. I wait for Fleur to chime in, but it doesn’t look like the salt elemental has a horse in this race.

“I bet they would be.” I say flatly and stare up at the mech’s chest. “So… are we staying here? It looks like everything’s dissolved into chaos… well, as chaotic as it can be when the crowd’s hypnotized. Why the hell can Psychics brainwash people anyway? That feels like an insane advantage for a normal class.”

Noland shakes his head. “It has an insanely high mana cost, and the skill to actually use it is pretty difficult to get a hang of. Shout can’t work it at all–that’s why they just kept cheering after Gasp got killed–and since he has no control over it, even if I hijack it, I can’t do anything.”

“So how does it end?”

“He runs out of mana. Or he dies. Or he passes out.” Noland shrugs. “There’s a lot of ways, but honestly, this works in our favor right now. A panicking crowd leads to much more collateral damage than a stupid, controlled one. I thought you already knew that; why else would you keep Shout alive?”

I… don’t really have an answer for that. “Guess I didn’t even register him as a threat with how pathetic he was.”

Noland’s eyes go wide, then he throws his head back and laughs raucously. Gisela turns around at the noise, but neither Ava nor Gasp react to Noland’s outburst. They must be used to weirdos in the heat of battle.

“I love that reason so much.” He smiles and wipes a tear from his eye. “Next time I see him, I’m going to shove that in his face before I rip his head from his shoulders. Oop, looks like the mech’s finally about to do something. Toss me a few shields and projectiles, please.”

Two shields and projectiles fill an equal amount of coins. I toss them to Noland, and before they even touch his hand, they start to glow gold. Having seen what he can do with empowered spells, this isn’t going to last long. At all.

He flicks a shield forward. A brilliant, golden wall shimmers into being just a few feet away from us–protecting Gisela and the rest of the hypnotized partygoers. Then he flicks the other shield towards the mech–which materializes and starts shoving it away. He rolls his wrist and motions in the direction it’s being pushed in.

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“Shall we follow it?”

I roll my eyes. “Not like we’ve got a choice. Mind explaining something?”

He breaks into a run. I sprint right after him, leaving Gisela to her own devices. The mech struggles against the shield, slamming its hands clumsily down on the top of it, but all that manages to do is put a single hairpin crack down the left side.

“I haven’t destroyed them because they’re better off alive.” He says through the whistling winds. “Zeze has to deliver a message, Ernest’s a constant we can build plans around, and Shout’s scared shitless of us. If he can spread that fear through even a little of the Preservation, he’ll save us dozens of skirmishes in the future.”

“But–”

Noland cuts me off with a wave. “I know, I know, they’re horrible people and deserve to die. But they’re a huge organization–until we can destabilize them, another Ernest would rise to fill his spot before lunch. Can’t risk that while we’ve got other things on the go, yeah?”

I grudgingly nod in agreement. Call is too important a piece to risk, and if the structure of the Preservation suddenly shifts, he might get shoved somewhere unimportant. So if we’re going to take out the Preservation, it’s going to have to be in one continuous attack. It’ll take years to build up to that.

“I get it. Don’t like it, but I get it.” I flick another shield at Noland, who deftly snatches it out of the air. “If we’re not destroying it, how are we getting it out of here?”

“Easy; we beat it an inch from being destroyed and let them get away. But we need to make it look like we aren’t letting them get away, or else they’ll get suspicious.” Noland shoots me a sly grin that sends a shiver down my spine. “And wouldn’t you know it, but there’s a nearly abandoned city with a subwyrm problem that hasn’t gotten out of hand just yet. It sure would be convenient if that happened to spill out of city limits just as they’re about to lose, giving them an excuse to retreat?”

Wow. He couldn’t be clearer about what’s going to happen if he suddenly turned transparent. I start to open my mouth to ask how he’s going to manage that, but quickly decide that it’d just be a waste of time. It’s obviously got something to do with the portals we’ve been using like candy and his seemingly bottomless Worth.

“Sure would be convenient for us, yeah.” I say flatly. “Little warning about the projectiles; you have to regulate one aspect of them to affect another. Make ‘em smaller and they’re faster, make them immobile and they get more destructive, make ‘em bigger and they don’t last as long. Mix and match those and make a projectile that won’t obliterate the mech.”

He looks down at both projectile coins between his thumb and forefinger with a nod. “Thanks for the heads-up. So if I want to make one that’s the least destructive as possible…”

He trails off and sneaks a glance over at me.

“Just ask and I’d be happy to tell you.”

“Then please tell me.”

…If you have no trouble asking, then why the hell did you… no, whatever, not worth bringing up. I push spells into my own coins as Noland’s shield starts to wither under its own insane magical burden and picture exactly what Noland wants in my mind.

“Make it as big as possible, as long lasting as possible, and give it some complex movement commands. Picture as far into the future as you can, and if the spell feels too weak, pull back on the foresight until you get the right sensation.”

Noland nods. “Okay. So, say for instance I can’t actually ‘feel’ spells; what would I do then?”

I raise an eyebrow. “You can’t feel spells? How’d you cast the shield, then?”

“Simple. I put dimensions into it and gave it a direction. Everything else was done by the spell.” He shrugs. “I’ve never really had to do more than that. If you didn’t know, most spells aren’t as flexible as yours. You put mana or Worth in and you get the spell out.”

“Psst!” Pearl quickly pipes up. “It’s your awareness that’s helping you!”

Mmhm, I already figured that out. “Then just input the parameters you want and toss it at a tree. If it’s too destructive, make it bigger or longer lasting or whatever for the next one. I have enough Worth left for at least a few trial runs.”

“For you, maybe, but this is costing me a pretty penny…” Noland mutters, but it doesn’t feel like he’s actually complaining. Actually, it almost sounds like sarcasm. Yup–he’s grinning at me. Definitely sarcasm. “Okay, here we go. Parameters; as big as a wrecking ball, lasts for thirty minutes, and constantly draws a five-pointed star in the air as it slowly travels forward. Let’s see how this–”

As the coin leaves his hand, the world erupts in salted gold. A blur of whirling magic devours the landscape before me in the blink of an eye, shredding trees and sending thousands of splinters into the air like a spray of water droplets. I come to a complete stop as I watch the horrible spell fly off into the distance, rip a hole through the side of the concert venue, and keep going.

“I thought you said you made it slow.”

Noland snorts out a humorless laugh. “I thought so too. But I guess fifty meters per second is still a little too fast for something that’s meant to be used for threatening people.”

“Fifty…” I turn and glare at him in disbelief. “That’s not goddamn slow! That’s over a hundred miles an hour! You just threw a projectile going freeway speeds and you thought that was slow?!”

Slowly, he nods to himself. “I may have briefly forgotten how meters per second converts.”

“You think?” I sigh and shake my head. “The destructiveness was way too high, too. It chewed through everything like it wasn’t even there. Try increasing the time to, like, four hours and lowering the speed by a bunch. That should do the trick.”

“New commands input. Ready to roll.” Noland flicks the coin from one hand to the other, turns, and frowns. “Where the hell did they go?”

What? I snap around to where the mech was just a few seconds ago, and sure enough, there’s a whole lot of nothing behind the last dregs of Noland’s shield. We share a worried look and he motions for me to keep going.

“Your awareness will feel them. Find them.”

“Will do. Here.” I flip him three more shields and projectiles, along with two relocations. He returns one of them and pockets the one focused on me. “I’ll call if I find it, and you do the same. What’s the chance they have stealth generators?”

“Extremely high. Be unbelievably careful.”

With those words, he turns on his heel and sprints back in Gisela’s direction. The thought that maybe I shouldn’t be the one hunting the mech comes more than a few seconds too late, and when it reaches my lips, Noland is out of earshot. Sure, I could relocate or send him a message, but I kind of want to see how strong my version of the salted projectiles are.

So, against my own best interests, I turn and run after the shield. And quite possibly into a trap.