Now, Earth
Cal’s mom had cause to regret her ambivalence toward combat training. Sure, she had thrown herself into it during the early years after the spires had appeared. Her family’s lives had depended on her being able to share the burden. She didn’t want her husband and daughter to get hurt protecting her.
Ironically, her power made her the ultimate protector.
Over the last few years, as the rangers and the county had grown stronger, safer, she had decided that it was time to step away from the violence.
Despite Rayna’s nagging, she had curtailed her hours spent in combat training.
She was content to watch over the neighborhood children as their ranger parents fought for the community’s safety.
Regret.
Cal’s mom tried to fight the Vitiator.
It was no use. He was toying with her.
She struck out with Cal’s heavy axe.
The Vitiator contemptuously slapped it aside.
She slashed and chopped with all the fury she could muster.
The Vitiator moved with eerie fluidity. Seven feet tall, yet he moved like a ballerina. Not a movement was out of place. He was in perfect control of his body.
Which meant that he was letting the axe strike his arms and body.
His skintight clothing shimmered with each hit.
Furious seconds passed as the Vitiator led Cal’s mom on a violent dance through the front living room.
The axe tore chunks out of the walls. The glass coffee table shattered as Cal’s mom stumbled into it.
The Threnosh armor was heavy.
Too heavy to keep fighting in for much longer.
“You are lacking.”
The Vitiator grabbed Cal’s mom around the head with one large hand. He slammed her into the ceiling sending a shower of wood and insulation down. He slammed her into the dividing wall blocking the kitchen. He threw her through the wooden stair railings.
Cal’s mom slid back down head first.
Her breathing came in gasps.
The Vitiator pointed a finger.
A dark-cored orb appeared and struck the chest plate.
Pain coursed through her body.
Manageable.
She roared and exploded up from the ground and dived at the Vitiator’s knees.
The Vitiator’s features twisted as the weight of the Threnosh armor bent his knees back the wrong way. He grabbed the back of her neck. “Agony Touch.”
Cal’s mom felt excruciating pain. Such pain she had experienced only four times before.
The Vitiator threw her into the living room wall. The right side of the house.
Wood shattered as the wall crumbled around her.
“That armor is not of this world. Your family is quite interesting,” the Vitiator said with hunger in his overlarge eyes. “I truly look forward to examining you in great det—”
The Vitiator pitched forward as something big and heavy struck him in the back.
It was their back living room couch.
Cal’s mom rolled out of the way.
She looked past the Vitiator as he pushed himself off the ground.
Rynnen was standing next to the fallen Rodrigo. A look of pure hatred was on his chubby, tear-streaked face.
“Oh no…” What was he doing outside of the forcefield protecting the other children? A horrified through struck her. She had missed him.
“Ry-guy,” Rodrigo said weakly as he fumbled for something on his tac vest. “Pull the pin then throw it at that monster.”
Rynnen had gotten a lot of throwing practice thanks to the games he and his friends had played with Cal’s special effects aid. None of that explained the heater he uncorked at the Vitiator’s head. It would’ve made pro pitchers jealous. Impossible for a six year old.
The Vitiator showed his own formidable reflexes by catching it in front of his face. He stared at the cylinder. “What is th—”
The canister exploded in a great cloud of flame. Volatile gel drenched the Vitiator’s face and chest in flames.
“Incendiary grenade, asshole,” Rodrigo’s voice was soft.
“Extinguish Fire.” The Vitiator quenched the flames with a gesture. “You’ve hurt me. A child and a broken husk. That must be honored. I shall destroy you as you attempted to do with me. I have not used this magic in ages, but one should never forget the path they have traveled. A spell from an earlier Class.” The Vitiator pointed both hands toward Rynnen and Rodrigo. “Greater Fireball.”
The magic coalesced in front of his hands with such heat that the nearby walls began to burn. The glowing ball of flame sucked the oxygen out of their lungs.
Cal’s mom tried to stand, but couldn’t. Her head was spinning.
Rodrigo grabbed Rynnen and tried to roll over to shield the child with his body even though his lower half was limp.
The Vitiator shot the fireball forward.
A shimmering wall of rainbow light snapped into existence from floor to ceiling.
The fireball exploded against it.
The living room turned into an inferno. The windows exploded outward, flames shooting wildly in every direction.
“Greater Fire Resistance!” the Vitiator howled as his skintight clothing shimmered. He rounded on Cal’s mom. “You cursed animal! Your suffering will be unlike any other!”
“It’s too late… for you,” Cal’s mom’s bared teeth were visible through the ash smudges on the translucent faceplate. She lay in the heart of an inferno, but the Threnosh armor was keeping her alive.
The Vitiator’s eyes narrowed.
He hadn’t heard the same voice in his head that Cal’s mom had.
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“Rayna. Rayna!” Cal descended from the sky to land in front of his little sister. “Snap out of it. I need to leave.”
“What?” Rayna stared up. She rose slowly.
Cal could see the turmoil in her thoughts.
Regret and anger.
Anger at the Cabal for what they had done. For what they had forced the rangers to do.
Anger at herself for approving the Quest. For all the dead that she placed in her hands.
Cal hurt for her, but they didn’t have time.
“I need you to focus. Remember the flares. Dozens of them.”
Rayna’s eyes widened. “Emergencies! Back home! I need to go.”
“Wait. I’ll go, but I can’t leave until things here are taken care of,” Cal gestured at the sleeping people he had laid down on the still intact section of the destroyed mansion’s expansive lawn.
“What’s there to take care of? Everyone is dead,” Rayna whispered.
“We need to secure a defensible position,” Kayl had stumbled over. “The monsters won’t stay away forever. We’ve won this battle. Completed the Quest.” She was subdued. Her face was wan. It was a wonder that she was still on her feet. “We need to move our wounded and the HVT’s into one of the mansions. You can claim it and it’ll be safe from the monsters.”
“I don’t want anything to do with these filthy places!” Rayna snapped.
“The flares Rayna. I need to go,” Cal tried again.
“Fine,” Rayna slapped herself. “I’m okay. I can handle this. What do you need to tell me?”
“There’s a mansion over there,” Cal pointed lower down the hills, “13th Squad took care of the Cabal—”
“What’s the Cabal?”
Cal ignored Kayl. “They have babies and small children. The monsters are minutes away from attacking. You need to get there first. I’ve put the surviving Cabal to sleep. They won’t wake up for a few hours. I’ve already woken up the rangers still capable of movement and I can show you where all the wounded rangers are… if you want?”
Rayna nodded, so Cal placed the information into her head.
“We’ll talk later,” Cal said.
Rayna nodded.
He could tell that she was in shock, but he couldn’t help her yet.
Something about the flares and the whole Cabal was bothering him.
The glimpses into the two Pain Mages’ thoughts had him worried.
They had a greater plan.
Cal rocketed up into the dark night sky.
The sonic boom washed over Rayna and Kayl.
“We need to move these people into the closest mansion.” Kayl whistled as more rangers began to appear out of the darkness. “We need to bring in our wounded, but your brother didn’t say where they all are.”
Rayna rose into the sky. “I’ll grab 13th Squad and the babies first. Bring them back. Then I’ll move these people. They’re the reason we came here in the first place. It’d be a waste to let the monsters get them,” she couldn’t hide the bitterness in her voice.
“Rayna… this was our deci—”
“After that I’ll get our wounded.”
“What about the enemy survivors?”
“The monsters can have them.”
Rayna vanished into the darkness.
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Clothing in tatters, his body covered by dozens of light scratches, Cal’s dad leapt high into the air.
A flock of mutant sparrows the size of hawks swarmed around him, pecking and clawing at his face.
Normally, such weak creatures steered clear of him.
Not this night. It seemed that every monster and mutant animal in the wilderness park had gone crazy with rage.
He clapped his hands together.
The boom sent the mutant sparrows plummeting to the ground.
Asphalt cracked underneath his boots as he landed. It was one of the reasons that he didn’t often jump with his full power. He felt bad about leaving small craters everywhere. Someone would eventually have to fix them. Not to mention the fact that he didn’t want to accidentally land on a person or a vehicle.
Screams from a nearby restaurant.
He leapt to the top of a three-story apartment building for a better look.
There. A few streets over. A mutated black bear was savagely clawing at the front window to get to the terrified diners.
He soared through the night sky, landing in the middle of the street with a spray of broken asphalt.
The black bear was enormous. As big as those giant brown bears he had seen in that disturbing documentary his wife had made him watch a long time ago.
The bear roared and charged.
Unlike that poor bastard all those years ago, Cal’s dad wasn’t going to end up eaten.
The bear reared up and brought a paw almost as big as his chest swiping down.
He dashed under it and blocked the bear’s arm.
The smell was terrible, especially up close. The stench of decaying meat in between the bear’s teeth wafted out with each powerful huff or maybe that was from the weeping sores all over the bear’s flesh. The giant beast’s muscles had grown too large for its skin.
He tried not to gag as he punched the bear under the jaw.
Teeth went flying.
The bear reeled, taken by complete surprise at the overwhelming strength showed by a person half its size. It plopped down on its butt and sat there with a perplexed look on its face.
It would’ve been comical had the bear not been close to a ton of muscled death.
Cal’s dad grabbed the bear’s head and slammed it into the ground.
He rained punches until his fists and arms were covered in mutant black bear blood and brains.
He was getting a lot of blood in his scratches. He really hoped that his immune system was as superhuman as the rest of his body.
More screaming.
He leapt toward the sounds.
A large group of human-sized gremlins had cornered a small group of people. They had taken shelter underneath the protective aegis of a street lamp.
This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
The gremlins were reluctant to enter the light.
The bloodied ranger wielding a shotgun was with the group. A few others were also armed, knives, machetes, hatchets. The standard armament most people carried about on a daily basis.
The county was mostly safe, but not many were foolish enough to go about unarmed when monsters or mutant animals could attack at any time.
As long as the light stayed on they would be safe.
Unfortunately, a gremlin alpha materialized out of the darkness.
That monster cared nothing for the light.
Cal’s dad hit the ground running. He plowed a shoulder into the gremlin alpha’s back. A loud crack echoed like a gunshot.
He grabbed the gremlin alpha’s head before it could make a sound and twisted with all his superhuman strength. The muscles of his brawny arms bulged like cords of thick rope as a loud crack echoed.
He didn’t stop moving.
The rest of the gremlins fell with single blows as he ran through them.
The people shouted their thanks, but he was already leaping away to the next crisis point.
Cal’s dad moved up and down the eastern borders for most of the long night.
Sometimes he arrived too late.
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Nila crushed gang after gang as she worked her way from west to east across the northern border.
X-Ray was just the first.
She dealt with Thousand Cuts easily. The man’s abilities to extend the cutting length of his and his gang’s bladed weapons didn’t increase cutting strength, which meant that they might as well have been using blunt butter knives.
Threnosh armor was impervious to human steel.
Even the flexible under layer couldn’t be cut.
However, it wasn’t all an easy smash and dash.
One gang had managed to surround a group of people before they could reach an emergency shelter house.
This gang was led by a big, brutal bear of a man with what appeared to be a Warrior class.
They had abused the people before Nila reached them.
Nila saw red.
She crushed the entire gang. Not one member escaped without multiple broken bones and internal injuries.
The Warrior’s Skills didn’t save him from the same fate. His enhanced strength and durability wasn’t up to Nila’s level.
She left him a broken mess on the street surrounded by the rest of his gang.
Nila waited with the gang’s victims a short distance away until rangers arrived.
Then she walked up the street several blocks to confront the militia that had stood and done nothing while the people had been assaulted.
“That’s close enough,” the lead militia man pointed his submachine gun at Nila’s feet.
“What are you doing?” Nila regarded the fifty odd armed men and women behind their barricade of cars and trucks. A spotlight shined in her face, but her helmet’s faceplate automatically darkened to preserved her vision. The road behind the militia led up into the hills. She realized that she had her answer. “Anaheim Hills?”
The lead militia man’s face was inscrutable.
“Begin recording,” Nila subvocalized. The people deserved justice. The helmet didn’t have the full suite of capabilities that it had on the Threnosh world according to Cal. He had blamed it on the cost it added to the travel fee. It was still more advanced then a powerful Earth computer. “Why didn’t you help those people?” Nila deliberately looked back down the road. “The gang’s assault on them was visible from here.”
“Freedom Force doesn’t answer to you,” the lead militia man scowled down at her.
“From my understanding, a militia is required to come to the aid of citizens. You’ve all agreed to that, right?”
The militia man remained silent.
“You know what this looks like to me?”
“Don’t give a shit what you think, bitch. You’d better get a move on.”
“This is you protecting your own. Those hills are what, Hardin territory? I thought Pryce Hardin was talking about returning America to normal… this looks more like feudalism. A private army. All that bullshit.”
“Turn around or—”
“Hardin and Freedom Force will protect their own, screw everyone else. Am I right?”
“I’m warning you,” the militia man raised his submachine gun.
Nila pointed her bat in his face.
“You’d shoot me? The one person making sure that the gangs don’t rape and pillage more than they already have?”
“We have our orders.”
“To protect Hardin interests while letting everyone else get hurt,” Nila said flatly. “I understand perfectly well what your orders are.” She turned with total disregard to the dozens of weapons trained on her.
She was needed elsewhere.
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“You lost!”
Pryce winced as his father threw the glass of scotch at his feet.
“You lost to the soft, bland, pussy! That man’s entire platform was ‘vote for me, I’m nice”, how could you be so incompetent as to lose to that!”
“Maybe, my messaging was too aggressive. The people recognized the value of the rangers in keeping them safe. So, by attacking them, I may have turned away anyone on the fence. Graeme was the safer choice between me and Kaylyn.”
“I don’t give a fuck what the people think! They’re content to get everything handed to them on a platter! Free food! Medicine! Protection! You were supposed to win so that I could set this country back on its rightful course!”
Pryce kept his face neutral. He didn’t want to betray any hint of his true thoughts to his ranting father.
“With you in charge I could’ve made laws to get the rangers under control. Get those damn freaks under control. I refuse to continue living under the thumb of those fucking beaners!”
“Filipino.”
Pryce’s father stopped his diatribe to stare at his son. “What?”
“The Cruces are Filipino-American, not Mex—”
“I don’t give a damn what they are. It makes no difference. One dirty race is just as bad as another. And they are not American. They can call themselves that all they want, but they will never be like us. This is our land. Our forefathers built it from nothing. We are not going to lose it! Not to the monsters! Not to a bunch of foreigners that got lucky when they got those powers!”
Pryce’s father fell into his seat, breathing heavily.
The young Hardin stood still, wary of moving lest he give his father another target to rail against.
The old man was looking rough.
“What do you intend to do about this?”
Pryce knew that there was no right answer. Or rather there was no answer that his father would accept at this moment. “In the short term I will congratulate Graeme on his victory, offering to continue to be of service to our citizens in ways that will advance our agenda in the continued recovery of what made our nation great.”
“I’m not a voter. Don’t regurgitate my own words back at me!” Pryce’s father spat. “What will you really do?”
“I-”
An urgent knock on the door saved Pryce.
“Sirs.” The commander of their militia, Freedom Force, barged into the room.
“What?” Pryce’s father snapped.
“Scouts spotted flares.”
“Where?” Pryce frowned. The rangers were on their mission. He had foreseen the possibility that the minor warlords on the northern borders might take advantage of the absence despite the rangers’ efforts to conceal their troop movements. He had put the militia on high alert for this reason.
“All along the north, to the east… and near the ranger base. I had sent scouting teams out and I just got word back that we’re facing attacks from several warlords and monster from the wilderness park.”
“Assemble everyone you can. We have to respond quickly and defend our people,” Pryce.
“No.”
Pryce’s eyes narrowed at his father.
“Assemble the entire militia, yes. However, you will establish defensive positions at all the roads leading up to our hills. You are not to engage anyone or anything unless they attack directly.”
“I have to disagree.” Pryce waited for his father’s nod before continuing. “Negative optics… if Freedom Force doesn’t join the fight. A good performance will only strengthen our reputation in comparison to the rangers. We could spin it as the rangers going off on pointless Quests at the costs of our citizens while the Freedom Force were here to protect them.”
Pryce’s father frowned. “A reasonable assessment, but no… we protect our own first. The rest of them are secondary concerns. If our holdings appear safe then and only then will we help the others.”
His father was making a mistake, but Pryce wasn’t capable of gainsaying him.
Not yet.
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“Absorb Flames.” Every bit of fire inside the Cruces’ living room swirled around the Vitiator’s arms flowing into the space between his outstretched hands. “The natural flames added to the one conjured by my magic increases the potency. As you will learn. Greater Fireball.”
Cal’s mom threw a forcefield over her.
The fireball deflected up to the ceiling.
The massive explosion blew through the master bedroom on the second floor and demolished most of the right side wall.
Dust and debris rained down on her forcefield.
Water from the broken pipes sprinkled down, dousing a few of the scattered flames.
“You still persist. How much more energy do you have to draw on? I have plenty. There has been much pain, suffering, rage all your sins laid bare for me.” The Vitiator loomed over Cal’s mom.
Hang on, mom. I’m almost there.
“The fear in you is gone… impossible.” The Vitiator’s head snapped to the gaping hole in the ceiling. “No—”
Mistakes were made. Your first one was alerting me to your existence. Your second one was coming after my family. I didn’t have a lock on you before. You did a decent job at obscuring your presence, but now… you’re mine.
Booms, like thunder, shook the sky.
They came closer by the second.
The Vitiator hissed as he glared at Cal’s mom with pure hatred. He looked back at Rynnen, Rodrigo and the other children safely behind a forcefield wall. “Your shield only goes from floor to ceiling… a fatal mistake,” he sneered and thrust one hand toward the floor and one to ceiling.
Cal’s mom reacted faster.
The Vitiator’s spellcasting wasn’t instantaneous.
Her forcefields sprang to life at the speed of thought.
Arcs of dark, ugly magic erupted out of the Vitiator’s hands only to strike the shimmering, rainbow-colored forcefield that completely surrounded him.
The Vitiator pointed at the floor.
“Don’t bother. I’ve got you completely covered,” Cal’s mom said. “You can wait right there until my son gets here.”
Nice one, mom!
“Thanks, anak.”
Time’s almost up for you, Vitiator. I’ve seen what you’ve done back in the hills. What you did to those people. Your mind is a disgusting place, but I’ll stomach it to bring you justice and your victims closure.
The Vitiator’s too large eyes were wide as he frantically probed at the forcefield around him.
I’m going to tear every memory you hold dear into shreds.
He spat a curse that the spires couldn’t translate.
I’m going to scour your mind to find out where you came from and who sent you. Then I’m going to show them that our world and its people aren’t playthings to abuse.
He began whispering, his long fingers contorted in front of him.
There won’t be much of you left in the end.
Magical power built between the Vitiator’s hands.
“He’s casting a spell!” Cal’ mom screamed.
I’ll leave your ultimate fate in the hands of those you’ve hurt the most. They can torture you for all I care. You are one of the most vile things in existence that I’ve ever known.
Space began to tear like paper. The magical energies unleashed crackled against the forcefield.
Cal’s mom winced as the feedback sent a spike of pain into her head.
Try to run… you can’t escape me. I’ve marked you. I know your mind. Your thoughts!
The Vitiator widened his hands and a narrow rent, dark and ugly came into existence in front of him. He frantically pulled it open.
Drop your forcefield!
Cal’s mom complied just as Cal flew through the broken front window.
The Vitiator yelled as he managed to pull himself into the portal just ahead of Cal’s grasping hand.
Cal slammed into the remains of the dividing wall.
“He’s gone,” Cal said as he shook himself free of the debris.
“Are you sure?”
“No sign of him for miles.”
“But you said he wasn’t able to hide from you.”
“He’ll find that more difficult know that I know him and what to look for. Besides, he’s scared of me. I’m pretty sure he’s going to get as far from me as possible,” Cal sighed. “Which means there’s a powerful, sadistic mage from another world out there that I’ll have to deal with.” He regarded his mom. “You’re okay… physically.” A statement, not a question.
“I’m fine, but Rodrigo, Rynnen, the kids!”
Cal rushed over to the back living room while his mom dropped her forcefields so he could reach the others.
A quick check with his eyes and telepathy told him everything he needed to know.
“Kids are okay, just scared,” Cal smiled. “Hey, kids! You guys were very brave. The bad guy is long gone, so don’t worry.”
Tear-streaked faces nodded.
More things that the Vitiator would answer for one day.
Cal carefully rolled Rodrigo over. “Rynnen is out cold. He’s going to be okay. Rodrigo— Rodrigo is—”
“It’s okay,” Rodrigo’s voice was barely a whisper. “Can’t feel my legs… know what that means.”
“Not necessarily. Healing magic’s a thing.”
“Strong enough to fix something like this?” Faint hope bloomed in the young man’s eyes.
“From what I’ve heard, my sister in-law could fix this in minutes.”
“Great… I’d really appreciate that.”
“Sorry, but she’s away and might be gone for awhile.”
“Why you gotta get my hopes up like that?”
“Yeah… I guess that was kind of a dick move,” Cal shrugged. “Still, there’s something we can try… if you’re willing.”
“Is that even a question…”
“Alright, do I have your consent to put you to sleep?”
“Sure, bro. Just don’t make it permanent. Worse comes to worse I can wait for your sister in-law.”
Cal telepathically sent Rodrigo into unconsciousness.
“What can you do for him? He saved me, us,” Cal’s mom said.
Cal turned on the extrasensory portion of his powers. “I’m going to basically get the healing process started.” He levitated Rodrigo a few inches of the ground. Telekinetic hands supported the big man perfectly, better than a spinal board. He looked into the man’s broken back. Catastrophic damage had been done to the soft tissue. Several vertebrae had been shattered. The spinal cord had been severed in multiple places.
Cal hesitated. He had only used his telekinesis to manipulate things at the microscopic level once and that had been a metal wall, dirt and rocks.
A human being’s body was much more complex.
Or was it.
Molecules were molecules.
Cal got to work.
He pieced Rodrigo’s vertebrae back together like a puzzle then partially fused them together. He’d leave it to the healers to continue the process later.
The spinal column proved more difficult.
He had to identify the individual broken strands before joining them back together. He wasn’t sure how it all worked, but it made sense that he needed to return everything to their pre-broken state.
The healing magic they were capable of worked by quickening the rate at which the body healed. If Cal had attached things incorrectly then that would cause problems.
Cal wiped the blood from his nose as soon as he came back to the physical world.
His mom was comforting the children with hot chocolate in the living room.
He smiled, total mom move. Brought back good memories.
Three rangers stood around him and Rodrigo’s levitating body.
One looked like a bulldog, short, squat and muscular. “What’d you do?” he growled.
Cal stood to look the ranger in the eyes. “Hopefully made it so Rodrigo will walk again. I need to get him to someone capable of healing, magic preferably. I’m not sure what I did is enough.”
“We’ve got a mage back at the base,” the bulldog-like ranger said.
“If the Ranger Priest survived the Quest then she can do it,” the tall, thin ranger said.
“You have Priests with healing spells?” Cal remembered Bastien had similar abilities. Magic by way of prayer. “Are they any good?”
“Not at the base, but there’s a bunch of the women at that church school in Santa Ana.”
Cal had his telepathic walls up, but he had a feeling he knew exactly the location the bulldog-like ranger was talking about.
“Brighteyes,”
The tall, broad-shouldered sprang to attention, “Sarge?”
“Run back to base, get one of the ambulances and some medics.”
“That won’t be necessary,” Cal said. “I’ll take Rodrigo there myself. Just need you you to confirm the location.”
The sergeant shook his head. “The women won’t trust you just dropping down out of the sky. Dastardly, you go with them.”
“Yessir,” the tall thin ranger saluted.
“Sergeant…?”
“Muttley.”
Cal raised a brow. “Sgt. Muttley, can you defend this location?” he regarded his mother on the recliner, cradling a sleeping Rynnen on her lap. The other children sipped hot chocolate while clustered as close to her as possible. He saw two rangers laying on the floor, unconscious. He checked the woman. She would be alright. The young man was— Curious. Cal couldn’t read him. There was a wall in the way. Something like a void in the young man’s heart. If he pushed a bit stronger—
No.
That would be an invasion of the young ranger’s privacy.
And he needed to get Rodrigo healing as soon as possible.
“I imagine your mother can defend it better than any of us, but I’ll promise you that we’ll fight like hell if any of those bastards come back.”
Cal nodded.
“I don’t think that’s going to happen.”
Cal took off through the gaping hole in the ceiling with Rodrigo and Dastardly in tow.