The thunderbird battered the city with its storm until mid-morning the next day before finally growing bored and returning to its southeasterly track.
The rangers waited it out with their drakes inside a parking structure.
The people of Atlanta weren’t hostile, but weren’t exactly welcoming.
It had been a tense few minutes while they shouted the pass phrase to each other as rain, lightning and thunder assailed them.
In the end the name of Cal Cruces was enough to buy them a place to dry out.
They were somewhere in Kentucky or maybe that was Tennessee by midday.
The town they needed to reach was near the border of those two old states.
They stopped for lunch spending it under a highway overpass and were back in the air in an hour without incident.
Spicy periodically checked the sun’s position in the sky as it traveled along its daily arc.
She had a clock in her HUD, but it provided her comfort to see the visible passage of time in the environment. It was a good reminder that every mile they flew north meant they were that much closer to their destination. The half way point of their Quest.
The thought made the pit in her stomach grow again.
Not even halfway.
And what if they ran into that thunderbird again?
Clearly, they needed better protocols for dealing with that thing.
Perhaps flying in squadrons of no less that five or ten drakes with a few wyverns thrown in. Then again that was just about all they had brought with them to Florida.
A proximity warning beeped in her helmet taking her out of her ruminations.
She followed the blinking red arrow in her HUD to Maverick’s right front quadrant. Down to a river winding around small hills dotted with shrubbery and the occasional tree.
She zoomed in to a dark cloud.
“What is it?” Valentine sounded exhausted over the comms.
“You got contact,” Wriggles said.
The other drake, Vermillion, trailed after them within spitting distance.
It was the first time she had laid eyes on the giant insects, but she knew what they were immediately from the pictures in the bestiary.
Flenser Ladybugs.
She didn’t know what the name meant, which didn’t matter.
The only thing that mattered to her at the moment was that they could swarm a man and cut him up into thin slices like one of those deli slicers.
The mutated animals looked exactly like ladybugs with their rounded red shell thing with black dots and buzzing wings underneath. They differed in that they were as big as a soccer ball and had a different style of mandible to help them make those long, wide, thin cuts to flesh.
The swarm flying up to meet them looked big enough to cover both her and Valentine.
She told the other rangers.
“Terrifying, but I’m strangely not as worried,” Wriggles said.
“Yeah, nothing’s going to top that thunderbird,” Valentine said.
“Zap them,” Jenius suggested.
“Easy enough,” she concurred.
When the swarm got within range Valentine had Maverick roll slightly to the right to give Spicy a shot.
Lightning Bolt crackled out of the spell staff.
It seared through the swarm with a blinding flash.
Half dropped toward the ground.
Maverick shot forward with a mighty beat of her wings allowing Wriggles on Vermillion to finish of the rest with an enormous fireball from his staff.
“Yeah! Suck it!” he whooped. “Love this thing! Makes way bigger booms than I can on my own!”
“Rein it in. We aren’t out of the shit yet.”
A second proximity alert beeped.
Then a third.
Followed by a fourth.
More swarms rose from the landscape ahead of them.
“Climb. They can’t go as high as we can. You’re slower, Jenius, take the lead, I’ll be on your six,” Valentine said.
“Copy that,” Jenius said.
Maverick slowed to let Vermillion overtake.
The two drakes gained altitude with each flap of their broad wings.
Wriggles burned off a huge chunk of the closest swarm.
Spicy followed it up with another bolt of lightning.
The leading edge of the closest swarm caught them.
“Oh shit!” Valentine said.
Maverick’s jaw snapped shut on a handful of flenser ladybugs.
The drake’s knife-like teeth popped them like jalapeno poppers.
Some of the juice and bits splashed against Spicy’s faceplate.
“Help! It’s on me!”
One had latched on Valentine’s back.
She drew her knife and slashed only for the blade to clang against the black-dotted red shell thing.
The flenser ladybug switched targets and latched onto her faceplate trying to flense it with those terrible mandibles.
The buzzing filled her ears.
She poked and prodded until she succeeded at getting her blade into the softer underbelly.
Blood, guts and other liquids gushed over her faceplate and down her front.
Maverick roared.
“Shit! Spicy, some of those things are on Maverick’s tail!”
She looked back.
Several flenser ladybugs were busy trying to get through the tough layer of scales on the upper part of the drake’s tail.
Not very smart it seemed.
They’d have an easier time of it had they tried for the comparatively softer skin on the Drake’s underside.
She switched her staff out for the rifle.
Activating her Skills she took care of the problem with a few squeezes on the trigger.
“Thanks… Maverick says ‘thanks’ too. Are we clear?”
The swarms looked to be struggling to climb after them.
“I think so.”
“Copy that,” Jenius said. “Let’s level out. There’s some clouds up ahead and I don’t want to run into any more surprises.”
“Over is better than under,” Valentine said.
“That’s getting up into oxygen altitude,” Wriggles warned.
“It’s no problem for our drakes. Less air resistance will save their energy and give us a bit more speed,” Valentine said.
“Can we go around?”
“I vote over. If there’s something in the clouds I’d rather they have to come at us from below than drop on us from above. It’s your call, though,” Jenius said.
“You two are the fliers. Over it is.”
The rest of their flight was mercifully uneventful and they landed on a winding mountain road right outside the barricade leading into their destination.
Spicy held her empty hands open and over her head as she dismounted. “We’re Rayna’s Rangers. Here to meet with Ms. Teacher or an Emma Larkin on behalf of Cal Cruces. We’re picking some stuff up.”
The men and women on the barricade kept their weapons pointed away from the rangers and the drakes.
One stepped forward. “Um… yeah… we were told to expect you. Just, uh, go ahead and fly in. The kid said that you can just follow the signs,” he shrugged.
They followed the glowing, magic arrows to a large park next to what looked like a school.
A giant, glowing smiley face and pointing fingers hovered directly over the large grassy field.
“I guess that’s where we’re landing?” Valentine said.
“She’s supposed to be some kind of archmage running a school for kids. I wasn’t picturing an actual elementary school.”
“Yeah, I thought there was gonna be, like, a huge tower or a castle.”
“In Tenne-tucky?
“If she’s supposed to be a super high level mage, then I figured, you know, magic…” Valentine waved vaguely toward the school as Maverick circled around the smiley face to come in for a safe, cautious landing.
He had seen the small figures standing on the grass waving.
Didn’t want to spook them.
That was a good way to get a fireball to the face.
Vermillion landed a short distance away putting himself between Maverick and the approaching people.
Not people.
Kids.
Spicy disembarked and hurried forward with her hands open and at her side.
“O.M.G!” a girl squealed. “Are these the drakes? Can I pet them?”
The fuck? Spicy thought.
“Jennylyn!” a second girl hurried to cut-off the first girl.
Three other kids, two boys and a girl in glasses approached in a more dignified manner.
Spicy regarded the kids.
Teens.
They were in that gangly, awkward stage post-childhood and in the throes of puberty.
Most of the baby fat was in the process of being cannibalized to fuel their lanky growth.
“Sorry,” the second girl grabbed the first girl’s shoulder.
“Ow! What the hell, Emma?”
“You’re embarrassing us,” Emma hissed.
Jennylyn scowled.
Spicy cleared her throat. “Are you going to take us to your teacher?”
“No, she doesn’t really see visitors unless she wants to,” Emma said.
“Ah, okay, and you’re Emma Larkin? The Quest said we can get the crystals from you.”
“Yup, I have them right her,” Emma pulled a tiny box from a waist pack at the small of her back and held it out.
“Box of holding?” she took it and opened it.
Plain, clear crystals sat inside.
She pulled one out held the apple-sized crystal in the palm of her hand.
That was the magic.
The transition was seamless.
The crystals looked about as big as a blueberry inside the box and yet when she pulled it out…
Emma smiled.
“Thanks,” she ignored the chime in her head, “I guess that completes part of our Quest. Did you get one too?”
“Yeah, but it wasn’t a big deal. Ms. Teacher just challenged me to fit all nullification crystals into a small box without messing up their enchantment and keeping bleed-off below five percent. The standard bag of holding enchantment leeches up to thirty percent over, like, a week.”
Spicy hadn’t known that.
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“Oh… cool, thanks for, uh, taking care of it.”
“You’re welcome! It was a good exercise.”
“Sup,” a boy approached and gave her a head nod.
He sized her up.
She raised a brow.
“You’re a ranger?”
“Yeah.”
“Cool.”
“Rand, you’re being weird,” Emma sighed.
“Can I—”
“No, Jennylyn!”
“Ma’am, may I approach your drakes?” Jennylyn ignored Emma.
“Jenius, Valentine! Can the kid say hi to Maverick and Vermillion?” Spicy barked.
“What a pretty name!” Jennylyn said.
“Yeah, that’s cool,” Valentine said.
The two drake riders were rubbing down the drakes’ tired and sore muscles.
“Ask them if there’s a place they want us before we start taking off the saddles or are we supposed to camp out here?” Jenius said.
“What he said.”
“Oh… I don’t know…” Emma said.
“Don’t worry about it. We can camp right here. Unless that’s a problem?”
“I’ll have to ask Ms. Teacher.”
“Emma, what about this?” the second boy tapped the girl on the shoulder.
Emma took a second small box and handed it over.
“What’s this one?”
“I don’t know. Ms. Teacher said that you have to give it to someone called ‘Ghost Sorcerer’ or the Dread Paladin and tell them that they should only open it when it looks like,” Emma cleared her throat. “That which your heart desires is about to slip from your grasp,” she intoned. “Well, anyways, she wants you to say it exactly like that.”
Spicy had felt the magic in the words and somehow she knew that she wouldn’t forget them even if she tried.
It was a little disturbing.
“I’ll do that.”
“Um, excuse me, Miss Ranger?” a glasses wearing girl approached hesitantly.
“Yeah?”
“I, uh, is it okay if I may take a look at your staff?”
Spicy followed the pointed finger to the spell staff on Maverick’s saddle.
She mulled the request over for all of two seconds before she whistled. “Hey, Valentine, toss me the staff.”
Captain Butcher had told them to play nice with potential allies especially the powerful Ms. Teacher.
It wouldn’t hurt to leave a good impression on the mysterious woman’s students.
Not to mention the chances that these gangly teen were on the path to being future magic powerhouses.
She caught the spell staff and handed it over.
“Cammi…” Emma warned.
“I’m just going to take a quick look,” Cammi said.
The girl’s eyes glowed faintly. Her glasses seemed to magnify the glow as her gaze swept up and down the spell staff.
“How long do we have to hang around here, Emma?” the boy, Rand frowned.
“What are you talking about? You were super excited to meet them.”
Rand blushed then turned his frown into a scowl.
“Miss Ranger. Sorry about him, you know how boys his age are,” Emma smiled. “Believe me, we were all excited to meet you. We’ve heard bits and pieces about some of the things you guys have done. We had a year long course studying your war against the undead. More from a magical lens than a strategic or tactical one. That course is scheduled for the spring.”
“I’m not as big of a mage as you guys, more of a fighter. But I did see a lot of action down in San Diego. We all did,” she jabbed a thumb toward the other rangers.
“Ma’am, um… can we…” the other boy stammered.
“Out with it, kid.”
“Me and Rand… we… uh—”
“Jeez, Rupes, just get on with it!” Rand snapped.
“Kid, you’ve got an attitude problem,” she raised a brow. “That isn’t the way to talk to a brother in arms.”
“He doesn’t mean anything by it, ma’am. Um… if it’s cool with you, we’d like to ask you questions about… everything,” Rupes said.
“Sure. If he apologizes first,” she regarded Rand with her best hardened stare.
The boy glared at her.
It wasn’t a contest.
She had seen some of the worst shit out there.
He had been protected by his teacher.
Rand blinked first and looked away mumbling something unintelligible.
“What?” she said.
“Sorry, Rupes. That was a dick move.”
She raised a brow.
“And I’m sorry, ma’am.”
“Good enough. Well, we’re going to be here for awhile. Drakes need a good long rest before we fly back. Emma—”
“Yes, Ms. Ranger?”
“I’d appreciate it if you confirmed our accommodations with your teacher. We’re fine with camping out here, but we wouldn’t say no to a warm room, bed and shower. We’re going to need the drakes close to us. That’s non-negotiable. We can bargain for the costs.”
“I’ll do that,” Emma turned and walked a short distance away.
“Ms. Ranger?” Cammi raised a hand.
“Er… yeah?”
“Is this a ‘Sexchanter69’?” she held up the spell staff.
“It might be…”
“We bought a few of her items from the spires marketplace and I think I can see her signature, but this is way better.”
“Yeah, it is.”
“Can I borrow this?”
Make a good impression.
Build a connection if possible.
The instructions scrolled through her head.
“You want to copy the enchantment?”
“I want to learn,” Cammi’s eyes shined through her glasses.
Spicy weighed the request.
Enchanters probably got touchy about their proprietary rights.
So that was a minus.
Making a good impression on a kid that might be huge in the future was a plus.
She could ask the enchanter herself for permission.
They had time for her to go to a spire and send a message.
But then, the Heddy woman might say no.
Not asking meant there was ambiguity.
Spicy didn’t know the details of their deal with Heddy.
The woman enchanted items and they paid her for them.
Gave her pretty much whatever she wanted.
Spicy made a decision.
There was a saying about permission and forgiveness.
“Alright, just don’t mess it up. And you have to do it right here or wherever we end up staying for the night,” she said.
Her report kept getting longer.
“Thanks so much!” Cammi beamed and promptly set her small pack down on the grass and sat down with the spell staff in front of her. The girl pulled out a variety of magical-looking tools and went to work.
Spicy regarded the two boys. “Rupes, Rand, right? Since it looks like I’ve got to wait might as well get started. What’d you want to hear about?”
----------------------------------------
Hard Rock Stadium, Miami, Florida, New American Republic, January 12, 2037
“You can feel the atmosphere! There’s a charge running in the air!” Chip said.
“It takes me back! Do you remember the Madness? The Final Four? The National Championship? Well, if you do, they had nothing on this!” Lanny said.
“We’re getting closer to crowning a champion for this, our premier event. The Gold Division one versus one tournament has come down to four mighty competitors!”
“The savage man-beast, Rou versus the man of fire, Isaac Freeman! The tiny titan, the Sapphire Smasher versus the Magus of the Ten Eyes! You can’t see it at home, but I’m practically vibrating with excitement, Chip!”
“Oh, I can tell, Lanny! And I’m in the same boat. I just want to give thanks to our king for making this all happen. Such vision, such strength to be able to put it all together.”
“Absolutely! I predict that the Freedom Championships will be for the new world what the Olympics was for the old world. And I wouldn’t trade anything for the gracious opportunity the king gave us to play our small, humble part in bringing it to all the viewers at home.”
“And with that let’s throw it down to the field.”
The werewolf wore a furrow into the dirt as he glared at his opponent a hundred yards away.
The announcer’s prattling fell on deaf ears.
The crowd’s frenzied cheering faded into the growing pit in Rou’s stomach.
What was that unfamiliar feeling?
It belonged to his old self.
Something he had thought dead and buried for nearly two decades.
Fear.
He felt it flowing into him from the waves of shimmering heat wafting from his opponent.
The damn nig—
“Mr. Rou, do not activate any abilities until the match begins,” a voice spoke in his ears.
His head turned to the referee seated in the box over the tunnel on his side of the field.
The man had used a Skill to be heard over the cacophony in the arena.
Rou bared fangs, flexed finger nails turned into sharp claws.
Forcing calm over the beast within was usually nearly impossible, but some outside force, forces helped him.
“Fucking refs,” he spat.
He vaguely remembered that they could do things to make people follow the rules in the arena.
Maybe, he’d track them down later to teach them a lesson.
The wild couldn’t be tamed and controlled.
They could only hope to appease it with bloody sacrifices.
He growled and resumed pacing while glaring at his opponent.
He had one chance at victory.
Swift and overwhelming violence.
Isaac Freeman’s black skin was unmarred, but Rou had seen the fire that roiled just beneath the surface.
He had to avoid breaking the skin. Avoid those flaming pits Isaac had for eyes.
Batter him.
Get behind.
Choke him out.
If that was even possible.
Did a man of fire need to breathe?
To do any of that needed his full strength. To let the beast run free.
He’d only want to rend and tear at that point.
Damned if he did and damned if he didn’t.
He’d need the beast’s strength, but, and he hated to admit it, he needed his weaker self’s brain.
Still… the fear continued to stab into him.
It poked and prodded at the beast.
Mocking.
Laughing.
The pot had been simmering at first and with how slow the pre-match bullshit was going it threatened to boil over.
Let the beast out, he thought. No, control it.
The announcer stopped speaking.
The siren blared.
Let it—
The beast always won.
Rou’s body contorted.
Joints cracked, bones lengthened, muscles grew.
All changed shape as dark brown hair sprouted from all over his body turning into fur.
His head grew and his face lengthened. Mouth turned into a muzzle filled with knife-like teeth.
He threw his lupine head back and howled striking something deep in the hearts of the suddenly silent crowd.
Rou was a relatively short and stocky man, though burly and muscular.
In his full werewolf form he stood several feet taller although he was no less powerful looking.
His long arms ended in clawed fingers.
His feet and legs had changed to better let him chase down prey.
They coiled beneath him as he eyed Isaac Freeman across a hundred yards of dirt.
The fear remained.
And what did beasts do when afraid? When they couldn’t run away?
Rou sprang forward covering close to 30 yards in one bound.
The intense flare of heat suddenly sapped the strength in his limbs, the air from his lungs.
He was already too late to do alter his path.
The beast had been set loose.
Eyes like the heart of an industrial forge flared as Rou bounded closer.
Pain! Pain! Pain!
The beast was confused.
It yelped and whined.
An unfamiliar sound uttered from deep in its muzzle.
Only prey made those noises.
He couldn’t see his opponent.
All he knew was heat and fire.
Hot tears ran down the fur covering his face.
He smelled something burning.
Fur and flesh.
Tasted something unfamiliar as the tears dripped into his mouth
He couldn’t see.
Couldn’t smell.
“Primal… Rage…” he growled out with a guttural tongue.
The pain was washed away by the comfortable red.
“True… Senses… of… the… Hunter… Wolf…”
They returned to him.
He didn’t need eyes to see or a nose to smell or ears to hear while the Skill was active.
His opponent stood revealed.
Isaac Freeman gazed streams of billowing flames bathing Rou in fire.
All beasts feared fire.
At least part of him did.
But normal beasts didn’t have Skills.
They didn’t have the Rage.
Rou burned. Rou attacked.
He bowled Isaac over.
Slashing.
Biting.
All plans had fled from the red rage.
The soft, dark skin parted with ease underneath Rou’s savagery.
Instead of that sweet blood and tasty meat, he tasted burning fire.
The weaker part of Rou expected this. Only the stronger part was surprised, not that it stopped the beast.
His rage was such that pain was no longer but a faint suggestion banished to the furthest reaches of his mind.
The man of fire was weak. He couldn’t fend off the beast.
Until the wisps of flame licking at the edges of his torn skin turned into a torrent.
The crowd’s frenzied cheering suddenly stopped as they shielded their eyes from the eruption of fire.
Such was its strength that they felt the heat even through the magic shields protecting them.
Several of the mages fell unconscious, blood leaking from their face holes at the backlash.
Fortunately, their backups were quick to take their places.
Isaac stood.
A man of fire.
The werewolf had torn him up.
Much of his clothing was gone. What hadn’t been shredded by the monster’s teeth and claws had been burned to nothing.
His torso was more fire than flesh. Along with the right side of his face.
The fire needed to be fed.
It wanted to burn.
The werewolf was a writhing chunk of burned meat that seemed to be healing.
Although, much slower than Isaac had seen in older matches.
Was it quantity or quality?
His flame had both.
“Surrender,” he said thankful that his mouth and tongue had been untouched by the monster’s savage assault.
Charred, blackened flesh began to flake away to reveal fresh pink.
Brown fur began to grow back.
The werewolf’s eyes, which Isaac had melted, slowly emerged in the hollowed out sockets.
The look of rage in them…
Isaac shook his head.
There would be no communication possible with a monster.
He bathed the werewolf in fire.
Burned away that which he had just healed.
He’d be careful to use just enough flame.
His well was as deep as the deepest magma chamber.
He could burn nonstop for weeks.
But that wouldn’t be necessary here.
There was a time limit to the fight and they would call it in his favor when it became clear that the werewolf wasn’t going to do anything except be the roasted pig at a barbecue.
There was an irony to that.
Isaac clung to it to re-affirm that he was in control of the fire and not the other way around.