General Tronan released his fire blast in Lady Reece’s face—and his attack meant nothing to her. She came through the fire with a red barrier around her, and when she reached him, she grabbed him by the throat and yanked him off his silver glider, sending him plummeting to the ground below.
For a minute, they were in free fall, with the general gasping for breath as cold wind slashed his gums. He tried to struggle, but her hands were a vice grip, clamped to his throat, making it impossible to breathe. And all he could think was Why? Why sacrifice yourself to kill me? But somehow, he knew that wasn’t the case. Lady Reece had baited him, drawing herself into the air on a bucking silver glider, fully aware he would follow her. Then he fell for it, and soon he would hit the ground. As for her? She would survive somehow—and she did. But that wasn’t all—she saved him, too.
Partially.
Lady Reece launched a hot wind attack on the jagged ground when they hit the eighty-foot mark, creating a gust of wind that erupted into a volcanic explosion of dirt and rocks. The wind was so powerful that it temporarily neutralized their fall and even lifted them for a moment before they continued plunging.
That was when she pushed his body (eighty feet above the ground) straight into the dust storm and the rocky area below. General Tronan didn’t know whether Lady Reece used more magic or not because when he hit the ground, the impact broke his back and left him unable to breathe. Then, he lost consciousness.
2
Sara could’ve killed General Tronan, but he better served as a message: I decimated your army—now I’ve broken your strongest. You have no hope. It was more powerful because it was voluntary, and not only did healing mages lack the skill to fix major spinal injuries, but the mana record that allowed people to heal deteriorated rapidly. Eighteen hours was the limit for flesh wounds—eight hours for intricate injuries. Even if Emma had the power to fix spines, Mary's wound became permanent before morning. No one could save Mary—and the same was true of General Tronan. He was alive—but he was out of the game forever. That's why she' had no problem boldly capitalizing on the terror factor of intentionally breaking—but not killing—him and allowing him to speak of her demonic power to King Lemings. But that wasn't all.
Sara walked through the dust storm with her eyes shut, staring at General Tronan through his mana signature. Then she pulled his spatial ring from his hand. A hand that was reliable—a hand that King Lemings could trust could protect a spatial ring, ensuring that the letters sent through the area would be true and accurate. Sara would send a letter through that ring that night—and her message would ring loud and clear. But for now, she had to deal with the rest of the elites.
Suddenly, a silver glider shot past the area. When the mage realized that she was standing above General Tronan, they tried to fly toward the Lemings capital.
“Oh, no,” Sara said, pulling out her bow and knocking a magical arrow. “That’s my message to send.” A bolt of neon purple mana shot through the dust storm, creating a tunnel that swirled until it punctured the sky. Five seconds later, she heard a thud.
3
Andy walked up to Matt with conflicting emotions in his eyes. On the one hand, Matt tried to kill Helen, and the dissidents were on the side that had killed Wiles and slaughtered, looted, and pillaged civilian cities. That was a key difference between the Escaran and Lemings Kingdom—the thing that made his team the Good Guys despite doing Bad Things—and it was significant. So Andy hated them and wished they’d die. On the other hand, these were his classmates—not just some random soldiers. If anyone blamed him for not wanting to kill them, he’d challenge that person to look at their classmates or coworkers and think about decapitating them. It was enough to send icy shivers crawling down his spine and leave lingering thoughts that he was a serial killer. It just hit different.
“D-Don’t do this,” Matt stammered, pushing himself up. His arm was broken, and he cried out, but his pleas fell on deaf ears. “S-She set us up!”
“You tried to kill me,” Helen said.
Matt’s face paled, and he put his head on the ground. “I wouldn’t have done it, I promise! I just wanted to scare you.”
“Shut up.” Darius kicked Matt in the stomach, sending him rolling and screaming on the ground. “Don’t blame other people.”
“I-It’s true,” Robby, someone who wanted to be a mechanic in their last life and settled for being nothing in his new one, said. “E-Elizabeth…. She….”
“Shut up!” Darius yelled.
“No, wait.” Helen put up her hand. “Elizabeth what?”
4
Sara closed her eyes and activated her invisibility as she walked toward her heroes. This is the point where Matt starts speaking, and magic suddenly blows his brains out, confirming the conspiracy, Sara thought grimly. Yet that would only be an omission of guilt, and she had more faith in her heroes. More importantly, if she wanted to kill the dissidents outright, she would’ve already done it. Every decision she made had consequences—and this was one of the ones she chose. Now, she would pay the price. Simple as that.
“Elizabeth… was with us,” Robby said, limping over to the group.
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“Yeah, she saved my life,” Helen said.
“N-No,” he said. “I mean, yes. But…. It was her. I swear to God, it was her.”
“What the hell are you talking about?” Andy asked.
“She led us into a trap,” Matt interjected. “That bitch—“
“Elizabeth couldn’t lead you into a trap—she was in the kingdom the whole time,” Helen said.
“Bullshit!” Matt yelled. “She was with us for months!”’
Two weeks, Sara silently corrected.
“Elizabeth was with us the morning you left,” Andy said. It was an odd choice of words but strangely expressive. “And the day after, and the day after. She wasn’t with you.”
Matt’s eyes trembled, and he looked at Helen and Darius, trying to verify that they were lying. But everyone was looking at him like he was out of his mind. “She was… I swear,” he said quietly.
“Dude, what are you talking about?” Robby asked Andy. “I played games with her for weeks.”
Darius looked between them, furrowing his brows. “Bro, saying it more isn’t going to make it true,” he said. “Elizabeth was with us. At practice. In the dining hall. Every time.”
“That’s impossible!” Robby said. “Then who was it?”
Andy’s eyes glided to the left. “But we did go on our trips…. Did she go with you?” he asked Darius.
“No,” he said. “You?”
Helen shook her head. Elizabeth didn’t go with the mages, the non-combatants, or the spa-goers for her vacation. “She was sick,” Helen said.
“S-See?” Matt stammered. “That must’ve been it!”
“Shut the hell up,” Darius said. “That was a week after you left.”
5
Matt’s eyes trembled when he heard Darius’s admission. One week? he thought hazily. When he woke up, he felt like he had slept for a whole week—or longer. He immediately felt like he was drugged and had taken that out on Tyran, but the man was so calm and collected that everyone just kind of fell in line. But what if it was true? They were all drugged for a full week, and then he did something to…. “Our cores!” Matt yelled.
“What?” Andy asked.
“Our cores! Right after we left, we woke up feeling weird, and now our cores don’t work!” Matt said.
“So?” Darius asked.
Matt stopped breathing. So? To him, that felt undeniable, a damning truth. But to the others… it meant nothing.
That’s when he realized how fucked he was.
6
Darius was done with this bullshit. He honestly didn’t care one way or the other. If there was some grand conspiracy with Elizabeth? Good work. There was only one question to ask. “Let me ask you guys something,” he said to Matt, then turned to Robby. “Who decided to run away?”
Matt’s face paled.
“Elizabeth? Or….” Darius turned to Matt. “You?”
Matt looked at Robby. “It-It was Eliza—“
Darius kicked Matt in the stomach again, sending him flying. “Enough with this bullshit,” he said. “I don’t care if there’s some grand conspiracy, or if this is a setup, or really fucking anything, man. You betrayed us, and now we’re cleaning up your shit.”
“Darius!” Robby said. “This was a setup! We were led—“
“Tara’s with us,” Helen said, and then repeated, “Tara’s with us…. I’m with us. The heroes. We were both asked to go—by Elizabeth. So I don’t doubt there’s something going on. I’ve suspected that.”
“See?” Matt wheezed. “This—“
“Let me finish,” Helen snapped. Then she paused, choosing her words. “I think you were set up—yeah, I do. How? I don’t know. But what I do know is that everyone who stayed was rewarded the next day. Tim, Marie, and Jacob got their teachers back, everyone started training together, and Sara forced us to get along. If you didn’t betray her, you’d be living easy. But you took the blue pill—and you landed up here. That’s your fault.”
Matt’s eyes trembled, and he crawled backward. Robby did the opposite, dropping to the ground.
7
Sara closed her eyes and then bounded into the distance with low gravity, hiding behind a rock and then cutting her invisibility. As her body materialized, she looked at her hands and sighed a breath of relief. They’re good kids, she thought. Good fucking kids…. She emerged from behind the rocks and walked toward the group.
Matt and Robby stumbled backward when she arrived, and Andy kneeled before her, something that hadn’t been customary. It was a sign of respect, and Darius and Helen followed suit. It was a nice touch.
Once Sara was standing before the group, she turned to Andy and the rest. “Shatter their cores and lock ‘em up?” she asked. “Or treat them like officers. The choice is yours.”
Andy, Darius, and Helen looked at each other, soaking in her words. She had presented violent and non-violent solutions, and she could tell they hadn’t expected that. It was a hard decision, but it was one that they had to bear for the rest of their lives.
8
Raul turned to the other heroes. “Let’s go back. Markon’s attacking from the south. We need to catch up with them.”
Tara and the rest nodded, and they flew back toward Lemora, unaware of how many soldiers had passed them. It wouldn’t be until they reached Lemora’s greater area that they would realize how futile it was to play dodgeball if they only threw a ball in a straight line.
9
Andy mulled over the situation. Over the last two weeks, Andy had lost a massive part of his humanity and had developed a profound understanding of Sara Reece and her drinking habits. She was from the future—she had to be. Because everything that she was when she walked into class three years ago was now reflected on Darius and Helen’s faces when he talked to them. God knows what his face looked like. Damn she’s got a problem, he used to think when she’d drink bottles of wine. Now, he was hesitant to touch the stuff because he felt it was a slippery slope after he had fallen so deep and crossed the emotional Rubicon where things would never be the same again.
Killing officers is common sense.
That was one of Sara’s maxims. You can spare the citizens, you can starve the soldiers—but you can’t let the officers go. Kill fifty, and you can save ten thousand—that was her line of thought. And it was true. Once the officers died, the soldiers would make camp and twiddle their thumbs, hugging their knees, pulling out letters, and crying as they read them. The entire structure crumbled like a sandcastle—and they didn’t regret it. Even Helen had executed an officer. Just one, of course, and she puked her guts out afterward, but she did it, just so Andy and Darius didn’t have to do it alone.
Now, the dissidents were in front of them—officers of the Lemings Kingdom—and he had the option to kill them and end all the problems they could cause. It was the obvious thing to do—and yet…. Sara didn’t kill all of her enemies, either. There was more at play, and anyone who saw Sara knocking back bottles of wine knew that the right choices were often the ones that haunted people the most. So, whatever they did would have consequences that would follow them for the rest of their lives.
Andy swallowed hard and looked at Darius and Helen.
“I’ll follow what you do,” Darius said, unsheathing his sword. “Just say the word.”
Matt stumbled backward.
Helen looked him in the eye. “I’ll love you no matter what.”
Andy grimaced and then closed his eyes. Then he gave his answer.