Alin waited in line to board the R.S. Raynanaut.
For some reason Ranger Captain Mouthy was laying her hand on each ranger’s head for a few seconds before shooing them up the ramp.
He hadn’t seen her in a while and it looked like her close-cut hair was losing the battle to the gray. Face wasn’t any wrinklier though.
The captain still looked strong for someone being, like, in her 50’s. Age and level. Though the latter was only a rumor, opsec being what it was.
He waited patiently, dutifully shuffling a step forward behind Kat while admiring the tightness of her pants.
His mom had already gone on board with the Threnosh and all their equipment, including his power armor. The only things he carried with him were his undersuit folded up in the sleek backpack, a belt with a few pouches of holding, his multi-weapon, a recoilless pistol and a few other things, some magic, some tech, some both.
Thus, he didn’t have to worry about his mom catching him staring at his girlfriend’s butt and giving him the disappointed look and head shake.
“Sword Weeb.”
Kat brought her hands together and bowed at the waist. “Ranger Captain. I will not fail to bring honor to you. You have my blade.”
“And my axe!” someone shouted from the back of the line.
“Haha. You numbfuck! That stopped being funny the thousandth time I heard it.”
The ranger captain glared at the offender for a moment before turning her attention back to Kat. Her scowl was deeper than it used to be. Really brought out the wrinkles and scars on her forehead and eyebrows.
“Sir!” Alin saluted. “You also have my axe… my sword… my spear… my sword-spear… my spear-sw—”
“And that was never funny, Goldenspoon. So, shut that shit spewer of yours before I tell your mommy that you’re being an insubordinate taint smear.”
“Yessir! Shutting my shit hole now!”
“That wasn’t what she said!” someone else from the back of the line said.
“You’re a bunch of limp-wristed pussies!” the ranger captain bellowed. “Back in my day we knew how to really hurt each other emotionally!”
She laid a hand on Kat’s head.
Kat squirmed.
“Ow! Hot!”
“That’s what she said!”
“Ass up the ramp, Weeb!” the ranger captain barked.
It was his turn.
Alin felt nothing beyond a rough, callused hand.
“Um.”
“Huh?” the ranger captain shrugged. “Too bad for you. Guess it works just about as well as a limp dick in a tight hole for you’re kind— whoa! Back the fuck up with that!”
“What? I didn’t say anything.”
“You had that look in your eyes. Like, you’re about to call me a racist. I just meant that my Skill ain’t doing shit since you don’t got a class.”
“Skill?”
“Next!” she snapped.
Alin shrugged and ascended the ramp.
Kat waited for him inside the skyship.
“Didn’t work on me, I guess. What did it feel like?”
“Hot.” Kat prodded at her scalp.
“Hair looks fine. It’s not burned or smoking or anything.”
“I’ve got to get to my station.”
She gave him a quick kiss.
“Me too. Helping my mom.” He rolled his eyes.
“Aww! It’s like a take you kid to work day for her.”
“Man… you too? Never expected the knife in the back from you.” He shook his head ruefully. “The others? Definitely. You? Never?”
“See you when I see you!” Kat waved and sauntered down the corridor.
His admiration lasted too long because she looked over her shoulder and gave him the look. It was in the downward tilt of her head, the focus in the eyes and the slight grin.
He waved lamely, thankful for the firm support provided by his Threnosh onesie underneath his clothes before heading down to the hangar bay at the lowest point of the Raynanaut.
His mom would need his help setting up all the equipment since they only brought one fabricator.
They couldn’t spare more.
The rest were needed back home in the near round the clock effort to maintain and repair gear all while churning out ammo to supply multiple settlements worldwide.
It was a whole logistics thing.
They made the bullets, casings, cordite and primer separately before shipping them out. Gunsmiths and the like at the destinations put them all together to make a working round.
Production was going to take a significant hit because of all the world events without his dad and uncle bringing the raw materials in.
“Hey, Mom?”
He scanned the large hanger.
The fabricator sounded like they were busy behind the large fabrication machine.
“Any word from Dad?”
His Dad was about to take care of a world event down in what was once Brazil when they had lost contact.
They had pointed satellites that way, but there was some kind of interference.
Basically, they couldn’t get anything. No visuals. No readings of any kind from all sensor types.
“Nothing yet. But, don’t worry,” his mom smiled.
“Yeah, but—”
“Don’t worry about him. He can take care of himself. Instant, real time communication has spoiled us.”
She was about to launch into a lecture that he had heard before, so he forestalled her.
“Yeah, I remember the stories. A couple of hours out of contact is nothing compared to days or more. So, what do you want me to do?”
“Ah… start setting up the drone bays.”
“Where do you want them?”
“Hmm… how about in those?” she pointed to the stables for the wyverns and drakes.
They were empty for this Quest.
He did a quick calculation.
The stables were large enough that he could fit all the drone bays in one.
He decided quickly that it was better to spread them out so that one shot wouldn’t take them all out.
He checked his smartphone.
Down to almost 6 hours before the Slashers’ Spree started.
Plenty of time for the skyship to fly north.
They had accepted the Questline to stop the slashers and defend the people.
Holly was worth a lot of points as one of the top slashers.
He really hoped that she could be trusted what with the new type of temptation.
----------------------------------------
Vancouver was a divided city.
Neighborhoods were akin to miniature towns and cities using pre-spires standards. Each governed themselves. Some formed alliances. Some had conflicts with others. It was a tangled web of stupid.
At least the Bountiful Decade had forced them to mostly work together against the monsters. It had been a mistake for them to create buffer zones between neighborhoods. Leaving those homes and businesses unclaimed had just given the monsters places to spawn from in the middle of the web.
It would also give the slashers plenty of places to hide and hunt from.
Furthermore, the people didn’t really have anywhere to evacuate to since the same conflicts existed with communities outside the old Vancouver City boundaries in the rest of the Metro Vancouver region.
No one trusted anyone else enough to take them into their homes and buildings
Sure there were plenty of unclaimed buildings, but they’d need to fight the boss monsters and that was impossible when they would also need to defend the noncombatants from the monsters out on the streets.
They spent the hours remaining until start time trying to work with the communities to little success.
Most had told them to go away with varying levels of politeness.
A few leaders had tried to bargain for safe passage on the skyship for them and their closest.
The largest polity was centered around the tallest building in the city.
The Shangri-La tower.
It rose about 200 meters and contained condos, hotel rooms, offices and even a grocery store among other fancy things. The wealthiest and strongest live there while the rest of their people were spread out in the other hotels, homes and apartments nearby.
Those people had wanted a ride across the water to where they had other holdings.
North Vancouver and West Vancouver did not fall within the contest’s boundaries.
They had bribed, then threatened.
Captain Molds laughed in their fat, sweaty faces.
It would’ve broken out into violence had that big, lavender and violet eidolon not slapped his hands together like a thunderclap.
Yeah… they had come too.
Alin took no small measure of pride in the fact that they had been in the city hours ahead of the eidolon and he had come alone.
In fact the defunct American government’s cargo plane was still on the way.
The satellites had been tracking its flight since it left Washington, D.C.
The Raynanaut began ferrying people from the fringes of Shangri-La tower territory north across the water all the while shooting monsters that had the misfortune of being out on the streets.
The clock ticked closer to zero the whole time while they still hadn’t heard from his dad.
Uncle Eron was still flying all over the globe like a burning comet, looking for Vukylokyr.
No one else could be spared to help them.
It was looking like they were going to be on their own aside from his dad’s team, who were somewhere out in the city getting ready to hunt the hunters.
“Are they just going into siege mode?”
His mom sighed. “It looks like it.”
“They should work together.”
“That’s obvious to us since we’re on the outside, but some of them have been fighting each other on and off for years. Kids fighting the fights their parents started. It’s hard to put that aside.”
“They’ll be stronger together. Instead of tiny islands surrounded by monsters.”
“It’s hard for people to change. I mean, why would they if what they’ve been doing this whole time works for the most part?”
“A high level slasher is different from a bunch of medium gremlins. Even an equal level one can cut through an entire apartment building before fighters can corner them. They’ll kill them in the end, but not before a bunch of the non-fighters are dead.”
“Well, let’s hope these surveillance drones can make it harder for them to hide and sneak around.”
He and his mom worked the holographic interface to distribute and direct the tiny, buzzing drones all over Vancouver.
They went for full coverage rather than concentration in high population buildings and areas. Isolated locations were just as likely targets for the slashers.
They had already deployed network broadcasters all over the city in case whatever method the spires used to prevent ingress and egress interfered with Omninet access.
They could only hope that the temporary local wireless network wouldn’t be affected. Otherwise they’d be truly fighting blind.
You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.
They even sent glasses to the least objectionable outside groups, like the eidolon, that had arrived to accept the Questline opposing the slashers. Naturally, they had strictly restricted the functions. Essentially, they would be notified when the drones detected slasher activity and sent the location.
All of this was essentially Plan B.
Plan A had been his dad.
10 minutes to start time found the Raynanaut hovering 100 meters over a wooded area teeming with monsters and mutated animals.
The spires had been unclear in regards to altitude when it came to ingress and egress.
Presumably they’d be safe at a minimum height of around 200 meters, which was the tallest building in Vancouver.
Conjecture suggested that if the spires were using the city’s old, legal boundary than it would make sense that would extended to altitude. That meant it’d fall under old airspace rules. So, basically all the way up.
That would’ve been ideal since they could’ve operated completely out of reach.
Sadly, one had to expect the spires to make things more difficult.
Thus, they had to wait and see.
The world event started with a chime and an announcement that sounded too happy for heralding 30 days of murder.
“All hands. This is it. Remember your training.”
Captain Molds’ voice came in crystal clear over the speakers.
The floor hummed this close to the power supply and engines.
The skyship began a slow ascent.
Alin knew the plan.
He could picture the flares firing to determine what sort of boundary restriction they were dealing with.
The spires hadn’t said.
Was it a physical thing, like the barrier his dad had encountered in Tokyo?
Was it a mental thing, like a compulsion that prevented a person from simply walking across the borders?
Was it a magical thing, like a spell that turned a person around without their knowledge?
Would it affect the Raynanaut? Could they simple set it on auto pilot, assuming the barrier wasn’t a physical force they’d just crash into?
An alarm beeped, causing him to jump.
“That was fast,” his mom whispered.
It was from one of the surveillance drones.
It started with one, like a single drop of rain.
Another beep, then another and another.
A sudden torrential downpour that drowned out the hammering in his chest.
“Okay, stay calm. Let’s bring up the map.” his mom gestured, bringing up a large holographic projection of Vancouver from a bird’s eye view. “That’s a lot of red dots. Let’s see who’s close to these and which ones will listen to us. Start bringing up their files if we have them.”
A specific task helped him focus away from the thought that innocent people were probably being murdered while he sat safe and sound up in the sky.
It was the best he could do in the moment, though the voice in his head whispered that wasn’t sufficient. That he was capable of doing more. He only needed to stop being a coward about it.
----------------------------------------
Howard kept both hands on the shuttle’s flight stick as he guided it on a slow and easy circuit over the city. He kept one eye on the cloak indicators.
Time kept ticking.
It wasn’t going to be long now before he and his team were going to be locked in with who knows how many slashers in a veritable orgy of bloodletting.
Shit was fucked, that was for sure.
It was double-fucked since the boss had gone radio silent in Brazil.
Wasn’t nothing he could do about that shit.
At least they weren’t completely solo.
Other boss and the kid were up in that fancy skyship with the rangers.
They had already covered a good chunk of the populated areas with the surveillance drone network.
His team had already synced up with it.
Hopefully, it wouldn’t crap out once the spires did its thing.
No incidents in the hours they’d been on station except for a brief thing when they had to move out of the way of some parachuting spec ops assholes from the old government.
Good test of the cloak though.
Idiots hadn’t noticed shit.
That huge C-130 had dropped off a bunch of soldiers outside Vancouver and a much smaller group directly over the city before turning around and heading back east.
Howard had been in those before way back in the ancient days.
Didn’t remember them having the kind of fuel capacity to go from east to west coast and back in one go. Doubted they had aerial refueling. They weren’t exactly anywhere back to close to where they had been before the spires. Only had a couple of those transport plane usable.
Which meant they were taking a huge risk letting it up in the air for that long without a fighter escort.
Skies weren’t exactly safe even for huge planes.
Must’ve thought it was worth it, which meant that they were all in on this, which meant they were going to be a bitch to fight if it came down to it.
Only other incident was that bird-girl eidolon carrying that big ass eidolon.
He could have sworn she looked him right in the eye from a few thousand meters away.
Didn’t do shit though, so it wasn’t like there was anything he could do about it.
He checked the contest page again for what felt like the thousandth time in the last couple of hours.
Shit was fucked. Him and his team were all on the list. Plus the points they were worth to the slashers. So much for the element of surprise.
The list of slashers was a lot longer than they had projected. Guess the boss’ efforts didn’t exactly work that well. Something must gone screwy with the spires or the rewards were just that good.
Had to be, if what the spires was showing was anything to go by.
Even the most basic Quests were guaranteeing attribute points.
The crazy thing was it was including people like him, the ones without classes, in that.
That was fucking new.
He had maxed out his physicals a long time ago.
These days it was just about maintaining for him.
Spires must’ve really wanted this thing to turn into the biggest clusterfuck.
Even dropped a metric shit ton of other world events to keep the boss and the other heavy hitters busy.
Seemed on purpose.
Holly was on the list.
Near the top.
Worth a lot of points.
She’d be a big target.
Not theirs, though.
They were aiming for the rest.
Take out the strongest slashers, except Holly, that was his team’s mission, Quest, whatever.
If training was anything to go by they were in for some shit soup.
It was going to be like going into the jungle with a sharp stick to hunt a tiger, except the tiger was insane and had all sorts of Skills.
Almost time.
He engaged the autopilot and headed to the back.
Last minute huddle and pep talk.
Not that the team needed it.
They were experienced and rested, itching to take out the bad guys.
“Need me to take over?” Marian said.
The teenager was barely old enough for the mission. Her age was mitigated by her skills and Skills as a pilot. The rest of the promising trio was back home where they were sorely needed.
“Nah, I want you to listen to this first.”
He got their attention by banging his armored fist against his armored thigh.
Advanced gear hurt leveling, but the dead didn’t level.
Not that he had that problem.
He regarded his team.
Most wore the same full body, dark gray Threnium armor.
Shootystabby was actually the highest level and most dangerous of the bunch, including him.
Black Cat, Adrian, was one of those lucky few that survived that eidolon asshole’s animal hybridization procedure. The young man had been one of the most transformed by the process. He looked like a full on werecat, but all the time. His armor had to be custom made to account for the changes to his body, particularly his legs.
Dancessassin, Tabitha, sat next to him. The young woman had her monster hood up. She couldn’t wear a full set of armor on account of her special monster cloak. It wouldn’t work when worn over a full body set, but worked fine when she wore a lighter version. Essentially, padded clothing with thin threads of Threnium woven on the top layer like Kevlar.
Her hood sorta looked like Black Cat, like they could be distant cousins.
Howard had kept that thought to himself.
Both kids were sensitive and he wasn’t a dick. Not to them.
The Twice Clever Fox was like Dancessassin. Full body armor messed with her cultivator abilities. She had to settle for a light, supple shirt of thin Threnium plates along with vambraces and greaves. Her fox mask wasn’t plastic anymore. It was made out of the wonder metal and filled with the same hardware and software as the helmet on Howard’s head.
That was his ground team.
Marian would pilot the shuttle, while Willy, Wet, would provide magic support in its safe confines.
They’d use the drones to narrow down a target area and he’d use his scrying and wizard eyes to pinpoint the target slasher. Ms. Teacher had also given him a potent searching spell they could use a few times if they really needed to find someone.
“Not much to say. We’ve trained together for weeks. You all know what your roles are. We work as a team. We take out the bad guys. Nothing fancy. No hero shit. Boss ain’t gonna make it, but we planned for that. Other boss is up on that fancy skyship. So, yeah… let’s fuck these murderers up, eh.”
They were minutes to start time.
Their helmets or ear pieces chimed.
Howard read the message.
Plan A had been the boss and that was out unless he happened to show up in the next few minutes.
Plan B was in effect, which was them. To be honest, they were a bit under gunned. A team of seven against what was looking like a few thousand slashers and who knew how many others looking to toss their die on the table. An eidolon, maybe two, really hammered that home. Granted all those disparate elements weren’t all going to start working together.
A message flashed in his HUD.
Plan C just kicked in.
Shootystabby snorted. “Those saucy bitches!” She grinned.
It had been a long shot.
Plan C had been on a spawn zone clearing mission. An old mine spewing horrors out in the Appalachian Mountains. It wasn’t in the old government’s territory so they left it alone. It was just too bad for the community nearby. Maybe they should’ve reintegrated if they had wanted protection.
Boss wasn’t like that. Even though the community wasn’t with them, he still sent help. The Quest rewards were great, but they usually were for the super hard shit.
Howard had figured Plan C was dead.
A couple days turn around time wasn’t nearly enough for them to rest and recover all the shit they must’ve expended in those mines. But, he should’ve known something was up when they stayed at Ms. Teacher’s community instead of heading back home.
He turned to Wet.
“What is it?” Wet said.
“I know you’ve got her secrets to keep, but we need to know what kind of shape our reinforcements are in. Are we gonna need to back them up? Or are they rested enough that we can stick to the plans?”
“They’ll be at a hundred percent for sure.”
“You know, this would be a lot easier if your teacher wiggled her fingers and took care of this whole thing,” Shootystabby said.
“Yeah, probably.” Wet shrugged.
“Help is better than no help, eh,” Howard said. “I’ll give them a call. See if we can coordinate in the minutes we’ve got left.”
The chime rang in their ears.
This one wasn’t a welcome sound.
Their helmets or ear pieces beeped frantically.
Tabitha sighed and pulled a pair of glasses out of a pouch of holding.
Willy already had his on. One couldn’t wear a full helmet along with a wizard’s hat. It just didn’t work.
“This it people. Wet!” Howard barked.
The wizard’s spellbook glowed and floated into his hands.
“I’m ready. Just waiting on Mrs. Cruces to—”
“That was quick,” Shootystabby said.
“We take one of the main threats off the board this early we get ahead of the game,” Howard said.
“Easier said than done.” The glint in her eyes belied the truth of her thoughts on the matter.
----------------------------------------
Holly’s levels were going to be a problem. She was at the top of the points value list for the slashers.
She was closing in on Level 50 in her secondary class and was only a few levels away from 20 in her primary. The timing worked out in her favor. The boost at 20 could come in clutch in case she needed it.
Being the Hidden Knife of the Psionic Prime gave her minor psionic Skills as long as she was operating strictly in the name of her class.
She stuck to the shadows and used a tiny mental compulsion to keep the patrolling guards from glancing her way as she skittered up the side of the small office building. Wall Crawler was a passive Skill as opposed to active, like Wall Crawl, Spider Climb and similar. It was superior because it was always on. Active Skills needed concentration, had a time limit or a limited number of uses and required more stamina. Crawling up a wall was about as tiring as a light jog and she could do it all day thanks to her better than baseline endurance.
Slasher stealth abilities allowed her to slip unnoticed through the most minuscule crack in one of the windows despite the detection spells the mercenary band had layered over the building.
Red Hand Ultras.
The hand print on their gear was paint.
Although, she detected a hint of that familiar iron tang on them.
They numbered a little over 200.
That made them more of a company than a band, didn’t it?
She checked classes and levels as she sneaked past the mercenaries.
Not a one under Level 30 in their primary.
And everyone had the brand new slasher at Level 1.
A picture of the company’s ethos emerged from her silent observation.
They were organized, but operated on strength equating to rule.
Indeed, leadership roles changed hands through bloody duels.
She toured the entire building, forming the shape of her plan as she marked the locations of the strongest mercs.
Only a handful over Level 40.
She didn’t get exact levels and abilities for those because the closer they were to her the less information she gained from her Skills.
A few more almost completely blank to her, which meant they had Skills that countered hers.
She read their surface level thoughts, picking up about every third word of their internal monologue.
Interestingly, the second in command was one of those rare people that lacked one. She got nothing from him.
The plan took shape.
It wouldn’t take much to get the mercs to turn on each other.
It was the fear.
Many of them hadn’t wanted to come in the first place.
Deep down, most didn’t want the slasher class.
The leadership had to lean on them hard with promises of extra rewards on top of what the spires offered.
She settled on killing two Red Hand Ultras.
The first was a young man with a poisoner class on the cusp of Level 40.
He was in a small private office hunched over a desk, working in deep concentration.
She drew a thin red line beneath his chin with her kitchen knife.
Her dark cloak had barely rustled as she hung upside down with her soft-soled boots on the ceiling.
She detached, flipping over to land as soft as a fly to grab a few tiny objects from the poisoner’s desk before continuing her tour.
It didn’t take her long to find what she was looking for.
The leader was a small man, old and gray.
Even if she couldn’t appraise what little she could of his class and abilities she’d have been wary.
Old killers were always more dangerous than young ones.
They were rare while the latter were plentiful for a reason.
Mercs crowded the hallway, guarding the closed doors leading to the office the old man had claimed.
She crawled back outside the building and found another cracked window.
The old man stood over a map of the city spread out over a huge wooden desk.
She used Telekinesis: Tiny Objects to tip a dust-covered glass decoration off the bookshelf.
The old man had some kind of Skill that nullified all damage from one attack. He also had another Skill that would bring his mercs to his side faster than they would’ve been capable of rushing in on their own.
She flicked one poison-tipped dart into the side of the old man’s neck when he turned to the glass breaking.
She hit him with the rest a moment later.
The old man fell to the floor, writhing in agony.
She was out the window as soon as he stopped twitching.
Her first kills.
Her first points of the contest.
Easy.
She hadn’t even use her best abilities.
She had no idea how she was doing compared to the others.
The rules had said that scores wouldn’t be updated in real time. They would be posted twice a day. Once at midnight and again at noon. And, they could only view them inside the spires.
Another wrinkle.
Everyone was going to have to balance the risks to the rewards.
The split-second disorientation upon exiting the spires was an eternity for people like her waiting in ambush.