“That’s quite a few,” Galileo whistled, looking down at the gathering in the distance. He was covered by an illusion to avoid being spotted as he stood on a relatively distant cliff. The number of troops far overcame anything Galileo had witnessed the Foundation muster before. There had to be thousands of soldiers, trained and armed to the teeth. From what Galileo understood the Foundation usually send merely small elite groups, yet this time around they came in with force. He could see heavy machinery such as tanks and even spotted what looked like helicopter rotors peeking from beneath covered trucks. What they lacked in personal power the Foundation made up for with numbers and technology.
“How many, sir golden,” Galileo’s thoughts were interrupted by one of the 3 people standing behind him. Although they were supposedly equal in position as scouts Galileo had built himself a bit of a reputation over the last few weeks. He had accomplished every assignment given to him perfectly and without any witnesses. That very much included his teammates. Claiming they had become collateral damage he had managed to grasp the basic inner workings of the Covenant and even the Foundation. Funnily he had even killed one somewhat important double agent on his second mission.
“At least 10 times what the intelligence suggested just from those I can see. Assume the presence of attack helicopters and heavy ground support. Return to the base and report that direct confrontation on field would result in crippling losses. I will stay behind and set up an ambush,” Galileo said and the group behind him hesitated for a moment. From this far away they could at most see the people swarming and the dimwits didn’t bring binoculars. Perhaps inevitable when the covenants forces mostly consisted of barely trained mages with little to no discipline but a whole lot of arrogance. Had it not been for the capable people on the top the Covenant would have succumbed to the Foundation a long time ago. In fact, Galileo was surprised it had managed to maintain its influence for so long.
“We will do as you say,” one of the men eventually agreed as he motioned for the rest to follow him. They departed into the forest and quickly escaped where Galileo’s eyes could reach. The mostly desolate forest where the hideout was hidden might just become a desolate desert if things took a turn for the worse, Galileo mused. He could naturally erase an army of this size from the map, but that was not an achievement he wanted to be associated with him. For now, he wanted to keep a relatively low profile while he tried time and time again to defeat Quinn in chess. Wiping out entire legions could be left for later.
As those thoughts travelled through Galileo’s head he was not paying attention to the enemy camp but his observation was quickly resumed as he heard the engines of helicopters in the distance. In the few moments that his attention had lapsed, they had managed to man the helicopters and take off, moreover, there were at least 20 of those huge combat choppers headed towards Galileo and the hideout about 15 kilometres straight behind him. For now Galileo did not move, intending to let them pass. The attack had begun earlier than expected, especially considering that the land vehicles and infantry were far slower than the helicopters. Splitting troops did not seem to be a very good idea when fighting a force of people who excelled in individual combat rather than legitimate warfare.
The helicopters slowed down when they arrived just past Galileo, and to his surprise, they halted after forming a half-circle. Quickly ropes dropped from the helicopters and troops jumped down into the veil of the trees around Galileo. Although he could not see all of them he was undoubtedly surrounded from all directions barring the cliff he had observed the camp from earlier.
Galileo was very fascinated by their actions. Especially because the troops somehow managed to lock onto his position despite the fact that he was still basically invisible. After an instant of confusion, Galileo reached an understanding: Although he was still under the effect of his magic the three idiots he had sent back to report were not. Since that was the case it was theoretically possible to pinpoint his location, but in order to do that, they would have had to be specifically looking for someone with an ability to create the effect of group invisibility, magic that had definitely gone extinct.
Although Galileo could just break through the dozen trigger ready helicopters and the group of undoubtedly well-trained soldiers, he became rather curious. Somehow they had not only found out enough about him to try this entire escapade, they even spotted the three other scouts basically in a moment despite the fact that there was no one anywhere in the vicinity, and Galileo wanted to know how. Probably some fascinating technology he had not even considered, and that made him excited. Even though the list of things he had to research was already long, Galileo was always very eager to pile up more. He had even started taking online courses in physics and chemistry so that he grasped the basics necessary to start reverse-engineering some of the things he found particularly interesting.
Since just charging through would probably appear a bit unreasonable he had to find another way out of his predicament as the troops around him slowly crept closer. Although they were not yet close enough to enter his spell and see him, it would not take long. Looking down the cliff he quickly noticed the vehicles closing in below, clearly locking away the possibility of escaping by jumping down: They would surround him around the time he managed to scale the rock at a reasonable speed, since just jumping down like he usually would not be any better than just forcefully breaking through the helicopters. Just a moment before resigning himself to more focused invisibility magic Galileo suddenly noticed something: The vehicles were moving strangely.
In fact, the way they had moved would allow him to just barely slip through the left and enter a trapped area the Covenant had build around there, effectively allowing him to slip away since the vehicles couldn’t really follow him. It was as though this mistake could not have been made by the same person or group which had arranged for this well-thought-out ambush, but anyone that skilled would not leave such a vital thing to someone else.
“A trap then,” Galileo chuckled silently as he began to scale the cliff. That was the only reasonable explanation: They wanted to catch him alive. Whoever lead the Foundation mission had assumed that he would be forced to avoid the helicopters and take the only path that their convenient screw up created. Since things quickly became obvious it only made Galileo that much more interested in going along with whatever his foes had in store. He watched as the vehicles slightly slowed down, apparently seeing him but not opening fire despite the large total number of cannons among the tanks. That only confirmed Galileo’s suspicions as he descended. His speed was about what he would consider reasonable for someone powerful in the new world.
Just as he had expected, the delayed vehicles on the left allowed him to slip right through into the trapped field he knew by heart, something not particularly rare with Galileo's memory. A few cannon shots were fired, but none came even near Galileo as the vehicles shifted and followed him, only stopping at the edge of the trapped field. Around this time the attack helicopters were once again over his head, apparently including most of the soldiers which had previously dropped off based on what Galileo could see with a quick glance. Although they did not land or send the troops they used bursts of machine-gun fire to detonate some of the explosives scattered around the trapped area, basically navigating Galileo in a direction where they wanted him. It took about 5 minutes of this crazed run for him to reach an edge of the field as he was forced onto a single elevated path going alongside another cliff, this one far steeper than the original. The helicopters gave him a moment of respite as he ran along, backing off. Soon enough Galileo saw what they were leading him to: A gash in the path, apparently broken off by some sort of landslide. It disconnected the path Galileo was traversing into two ways with a large pit in between. Without hesitation Galileo did not even slow down as he leapt over the pit, making sure to jump just far enough to make it.
A correct choice as far as it came to playing along with the Foundation's plans as the end of the path he was attempting to reach exploded while he was mid-air, leaving him to fly headfirst into a rock wall and then straight into the deep pit below. Instead of just punching a handhold into the stone Galileo allowed his body to ragdoll down, even taking the extra step of changing his regalia's appearance to be a bit scuffed.
It did not take too long for his limp body to hit the ground. Besides the loud thud that naturally occurred when someone fell from that height, the surroundings turned silent for a moment. Looking around, Galileo noticed that he was surrounded from a distance. The rock behind him was unscalable while a large half-circle was formed by sandbag barricades manned by soldiers with machine guns stability aiming from behind the cover. In a few gaps, Galileo also noticed some even larger weaponry aimed at him.
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“Is this it?” Galileo laughed towards the relatively distant soldiers, making sure to amplify his voice just enough to be clearly hearable even by them.
“No,” a voice sounded from behind Galileo, definitely originating within the rock wall. The tone was robotic and heavily filtered, making the speaker's identity impossible to define, though Galileo felt it had a bit of a feminine sensation to it, thus designating the speaker as a woman in his mind. That inner process did not get to last long when Galileo felt electricity sparking around him. He finally realised that he was surrounded by many electronic devices imbued carefully into the cliff and ground as to blend in with the environment. With a mighty crackling, electricity dense enough to ionize the air into visibility began to shift around and onto Galileo. It was as though bolts of lightning danced around him, piercing his body and attempting to burn the upper layer of his flash. Attempting being the important word, as usually lightning would find the path of least resistance by passing through human skin into their very liquid and conductive blood and then straight into the ground. Since Galileo’s flesh possessed properties that didn’t allow the electricity to pass, the lightning just slipped down through his far more conductive regalia and down into the ground.
That, of course, didn’t mean that Galileo couldn’t pretend that he had been smitten. With a screech, he collapsed to his knees, and although his body was not visible beneath his robe he decided to indulge his audience by creating an illusion of rising hot steam and even a burst of flames coming from beneath his mask. That apparently freaked the owner of the voice a bit as the lightning ceased a moment later.
“You burn out of mana surprisingly quick,” the robotic voice said. That confused Galileo for a moment before he realised what this whole thing was about. Since electricity was also energy it could force mana within someone’s body to transform into a copy of itself. Galileo had witnessed it in the past with heat as a very inefficient way to drain the source of mage’s power. Considering its nature, electricity was likely more efficient, though still abysmal when compared to the methods purely magical in nature.
“You have been chasing me around for quite some time,” Galileo sighed playing along, “Rather rude, it brings back some bad memories.”
“I command you to surrender yourself or die,” the voice ignored Galileo’s complaint.
“You could at least tell me what to call you before you give me death threats,” Galileo argued. If he wanted to learn what he wanted he could not be suppressed.
“I am not joking,” the voice said seriously, and as though to warn him the soldiers manning the machine guns all re-aimed to ensure their accuracy.
“You went through all this trouble to capture me. You won’t let them shoot me dead,” Galileo stated matter of factly, “However, it might not be so easy to take me alive,” he chuckled as a gun appeared in his hand and was quickly placed next to his temple. It was not an actual weapon, just an illusion, but Galileo was not planning to fire it anyway.
“Stop!” the voice commanded.
“How about this: You answer some of my questions and I won’t waste all your efforts,” Galileo suggested.
“Alright,” the voice agreed after a moment of hesitation.
“Off to a good start,” Galileo nodded, “First of all, what should I call you?”
“Wisdom,” the voice answered after another few moments of hesitation, “I will just call you golden mask.”
“Fair enough. First of all, I want to know why. What made me so desired that you would arrange this entire ambush just for me. I had been very careful not to leave any witnesses,” Galileo asked the first question that bugged him. He did not know where to even begin and decided to just ask.
“You were caught on a satellite recording disappearing into thin air with a group, and eventually reappearing in the same place. Considering this is the first time we have encountered legitimate invisibility, the Foundation had decided that capturing you and hopefully scrying the secret of that gift would be worth a significant amount of resources,” the voice said, and things quickly made a lot more sense. Galileo had read bits about the artificial satellites when he was figuring out which phone and provider he should choose, however, he had no idea they would also be equipped with cameras good enough to see down to the ground. Something he would have to research once he got home.
“That answers my second questions. You tracked the three dimwits through the satellite as they left the guise of my spell,” Galileo quickly deduced.
“Yes. Even though your magic can surprisingly escape even heat scanners we still managed to estimate your location thanks to those three you sent off,” the voice confirmed.
“You are wasting a lot of time with me,” Galileo looked at the almost setting sun, “The information about the unexpectedly large army will have reached the Covenant by now. Once a bunch of mages truly hole themselves in, the losses required to breach their positions will be massive. You will lose more than you gain.”
“You are misunderstanding something major,” the voice almost scoffed, “The Foundation has had enough of compromises with freaks of nature like you. You belong in cells, laboratories and graves, not among us humans. This is not a skirmish, but a declaration of war,” Galileo noticed something moving through the skies in the distance. If he was right the object was headed for the hideout, “It’s good that so many of them had gathered here. Operation Shock and Awe had begun, and by the end of this week the Covenant will be no more.”
“Once you corner a beast it will bite back,” Galileo reminded. It was not so easy to uproot such a large organisation. And even they did, the remnants would haunt them for years to come as desperate mages would be forced to commit worse and worse acts.
“Not if you kill it first,” the robotic voice laughed or perhaps chuckled, it was difficult to tell. At that moment Galileo felt something shift. He looked at the object he had seen earlier, it had gone lower to the ground and probably right above the hideout, with his sharp eye he noticed it was some sort of missile. The sun was about to set and the skies were already orange and vermillion, even leaning toward the darkness of the night.
The next moment the heaven became as bright as though it was the middle of a cloudless noon. A flash of blinding light traversed, so intense it managed to blind even Galileo for nearly two seconds. In that short time frame, a bullet flew past him, flying straight through the illusion of a gun he had conjured and placed on his temple. As soon as his vision recovered there was an entire group of soldiers rushing him, however, he just ignored them and looked in the distance. The sun seemed like a dim dot compared to the radiant sphere in the distance. It was as though a new star was born right here on earth in a mere instant.
“What is that thing," Galileo muttered, his altitude was too low to see the effect the magnificent light had on the ground beneath as it shifted and began to form a different shape, much akin to a burning cloud. A third eye appeared beneath Galileo’s mask as he attempted to understand what was happening there in the distance, and what he saw was astounding beyond belief. All the forces in the region were rampant: The ground was still shaking from shockwaves; air boiled with immense heat; the light was so intense it birthed a sun of its own while the magic of the region was disrupted and turbulent.
“The magic of Gods,” Galileo gasped. Such pure and unconstrained destruction, the power to evaporate entire cities and destroy entire regions. The might to force reality into submission. That was undoubtedly the power which had once belonged to the Gods of old.
Yet this power was manifested by the weak and pathetic mortals.
It was beyond belief. The dozen men who were rushing at Galileo were about to reach him when suddenly a deafening sound spread through the air. It was as though thousands upon thousands of explosives were detonated right by everyone’s ears, as though the very concept of silence was destroyed forever by that single shriek of the desolate choir. And with it came the shockwave which bent trees in its way, and made most of the man attempting to reach Galileo stumble and fall or at least slow down.
“Wisdom was it?” Galileo laughed out loud, madly and heartedly, applying some force which pinned the rest of the approaching soldiers to the ground, “Oh, thank you. Thank you so much.”
“What are you talking about?” the mechanical voice was cutting off a bit and was generally harder to hear.
“You just showed me the world!” Galileo nearly shouted in his excitement. His feet lifted off the ground as his altitude rapidly increased. All pretence was given up in the face of his immense excitement. His speed rapidly increased until he became far faster than any plane or man-made vehicle could be as he broke the sound barrier in a mere moment, the soldiers aiming at him did not even manage to react. Without any hesitation, Galileo was headed straight for ground zero.