“I’d rather have crab people.” Rand bolstered his magic shield as a giant claw crashed like a felled tree.
The wizard grunted as cracks spread across the glowing surface. Arcane symbols disappeared. Blood gushed out of his face holes.
Fishmen poured fire into the shield.
Spine projectiles, mundane and enchanted, widened the cracks.
“Rand!” Teresa reached out toward him.
“Get in the hole!” Hayden snapped. “Hurry up it, Potter!”
Barely 10 meters.
Rand was down the steep slope 10 meters away.
The distance might as well have been as wide as the Grand Canyon.
Alin could see that the wizard wouldn’t make it. Not without magic or Skill and they were all running so slow.
Rand’s spellbook glowed white hot as he burned other spell slots to reinforce the shield.
It was his best Skill.
The black-shelled crab as tall as an elephant and 5 times as wide raised both claws.
Shield shattered.
Rand held one hand out.
A sleek staff of dark iron coalesced.
Readied spells erupted from the hand-sized diamond set in the staff’s tip, forcing the fishmen to hold their fire and hide behind their own magic shields.
Rand burned through his spells.
He fired a thin ray of bright light.
Dark water swirled in front of the crab’s controlling rider.
Steam exploded.
“Rand!” Teresa stretched her hand, struggling against Hayden as the latter dragged her into the hole Bolder had made.
A giant hand of ice emerged, reaching.
Fishmen spells blasted it into shards.
Teresa’s last cries were silenced as Hayden pulled her into the hole.
Rand sagged.
His body began to glow like his spellbook.
Alin squeezed the trigger, spitting a stream of projectiles at the crab’s eye stalks.
Black shell cracked as it used one claw like a shield.
It struck with the other.
Monsignor charged, blasting with an automatic shotgun.
Enchanted slugs alternated with ranger war crimes rounds.
The drum magazine ran out quickly as the barrel glowed.
The ranger priest reloaded on the run.
Thumping shots cracked the shell.
White phosphorus burned the meat.
She hurled the shotgun as she reached Rand.
Cooked rounds exploded against the fishmen’s swirling shield of dark water.
Alin threaded projectiles into the sudden opening.
The rider recoiled, covering his face with a scaly arm.
Dark blood bloomed, but it wasn’t enough.
The fishmen were a hardy lot.
Fortunately, Alin wasn’t the only shooter.
A green-tipped bolt thudded into the side of the rider’s neck.
Ibra had hit a gill shot.
The rider died.
The crab went mad.
Rand swept his staff across the crab’s back.
Fishmen died before one of the mages could block his spell.
The crab snapped.
Monsignor, prayer on her lips, dashed in front of Rand.
Round shield glowed yellow, encompassing her entire body.
The claw could’ve cut right through a car, but she stopped it cold.
The crab snipped with quickness belied by its size.
The ranger priest’s holy shield buckled.
She uttered another prayer and brought the glowing head of her mace down on the black shell.
Sharp-edged pieces sprayed.
The crab couldn’t pierce her shield so it did the next best thing and slapped her in the dark water.
Alin could see the yellow glow shining through the surface. He reached with the gray. Saw her struggle with fishmen. Her faith protected her, even from the need to breathe… at least for a time. He tried to help, but the fishmen magic in the water was too strong.
Triage.
He could still help Rand.
Firing, he rushed forward.
The wizard stopped him with a glowing mage hand.
“C’mon, dude!”
Rand shook his head.
“Went too deep. Can’t stop it now. Tell Rupes it was me. I broke his Lego Star Destroyer. Tell him I’m sorry. And tell Ms. Teacher— fuck it. Tell everyone that I regret nothing. Tell them it hurts like shit, but there’s nothing more beautiful than taking magic to the end. See you in the next level, Boy. And don’t tell your dad that he was right.”
A large, glowing hand slapped Alin away.
A hole in one.
The dark night turned into bright day as he stared up before sliding down the bend and out of sight.
“Shit! Rand’s down! Monsignor’s in the water! Didn’t have eyes on the crab!”
“Doomborer. Can you find her?” Hayden said.
“Scanning vibrations that suggest melee combat in the river. 91.34% accuracy.”
Alin never knew he could feel such relief at something so simple as comms working.
The fishmen had dragged her out so far so fast.
He kept trying his power.
No drain.
No help from mysterious figures that he didn’t have the brain space to think about in the moment.
He couldn’t concentrate on the fight if he let that creeping horror sink its talons into his psyche.
“Anything on the crab?”
“Vibrations indicate it is wounded.”
“Great. This is what I want you to do. Help Monsignor and feed me the crab’s coordinates.”
“Acknowledged.”
The earth rumbled.
Alin tried not to think about the narrowness of Bolder’s tunnel, nor the immense weight above them.
The small chamber was barely big enough to hold them.
Bolder’s hands shook as he tried to open a small mana potion.
Same for Teresa.
Hayden slapped the potions out of their hands.
“I said no more.” She scowled. “Where are we?”
“The eastern end of the park. It was the furthest I could take us.”
Not that far at all.
“Alright, head back and do your best to keep the tunnel open for me. I’ll take care of the crab once Doomborer gets me its location.”
They left Hayden in that dark chamber.
Alin heard Doomborer’s voice in the team channel.
Temperature warnings in his HUD spiked.
The tunnel got really hot, really quick.
Dark water began to lap at their heels.
He cursed, pushing Teresa as he activated his thrusters.
They erupted out of the hole in the middle of the small hill.
Bolder was nowhere in sight.
Alin had to grab Teresa to cushion their landing with a thruster burst.
The giant black-shelled crab was in two pieces. It had been bisected. Cleanly cut halves smoked. Crab meat and guts spilled out into the dark water. A mix of burned and rare.
Stunned fishmen stared at the carcass.
Then stared at the two of them.
“Retreat!” Ibra roared.
Projectile fire from the building raked the fishmen, but they charged behind shields and spells.
The locals had joined the warrior on the buildings roof and in the windows and balconies.
Old and young, men and women. Children.
Injured or whole.
Bullets rained down.
The odd spell exploded.
Teresa pulled her staff from the ether.
It was a beautiful, elegant thing.
A closer look and one could see what seemed like falling ice crystals within the core visible through the translucent surface.
Cutting cold lashed down the muddy hill, but the fishmen lived in the ocean depths.
Jagged ice shattered against their shields, armor and even scales.
Alin squeezed the trigger until the ammo counter in his HUD flashed red. He thickened the gray around himself and Teresa.
Fishmen flailed.
Bone weapons went wide.
Spines peppered the mud around their boots.
He ignited his multi-weapon, turning it into a poleaxe.
Curved axe head traced a line through the shafts of bone spears.
Fishmen recoiled.
Teresa blasted them in their fishy faces with frost, sealing their bulbous heads in thick blocks of ice.
“You have to get the gills!” he hissed. “On their necks!”
“I know!” she snapped.
The sweeping ray from her staff intensified.
The fishmen dropped their weapons and shields to claw at the spreading ice as it crept down their necks like an implacable glacier.
Alin darted in.
Stabbed with the spiked tip.
Cut with the axe.
Slammed with the hammer for the fishman with thicker armor.
Yellow light cracked, but the multi-weapon did its job.
Behind them, at the building… fishmen swarmed over the earthen wall Bolder had raised.
Ibra and the people fired away until they ran out of ammo.
The latter retreated from the windows and balconies.
The former traded crossbow for a round shield with a manticore’s disturbingly human-like face stretched over the front and a manticore’s stinger turned into a weapon resembling a sword and gauntlet in one piece. The magus had taken inspiration from an Indian weapon from several hundred years in the past.
The black carapace ran from his shoulder all the way to his fist. It was made of segmented plates to allow for maximum coverage and flexibility, terminating in a curved, sword-length stinger dripping viscous green.
Fishmen leapt across the gap up to the roof.
Ibra met the first behind his shield.
The dead manticore’s fearsome gaze became impossibly alive for a moment as he activated the magic.
Fishmen quailed, dropping weapons and turning to flee.
One remained.
Larger than the others.
It lashed out with a wickedly barbed trident the length of a pike rather than a spear.
Ibra activated a Skill, deflecting the blow that would’ve compared favorably to a car crash or a charging rhino. He went low, under the jabbed bone shaft.
A simple charge carried him across the distance quicker than he could’ve otherwise.
Stinger jabbed into scaled thigh.
Venom melted.
Fishmen were more durable and much tougher than humans.
Goo-ification wasn’t instantaneous.
The fishman clubbed the manticore face.
Despite his Skills and armor, Ibra felt his arm crack.
The fishman loomed.
Ibra threw an uppercut.
The fishy bastard had Skills, but it was clear that he didn’t have any strong enough to deal with manticore venom injected inside his head.
Green-tinged liquid gushed out of eyes, nostril slits, mouth and gills.
Ibra kicked the dying monster off the roof.
Just in time for the others to find their balls.
He fought alone.
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A desperate fight on the rooftop as a handful of fishmen entered the building below.
Back in the park. On a muddy hill surrounded by dark water slick with oil and polluted with offal and viscera, Alin tried to catch his breath while holding Teresa’s hair and hat.
The girl wizard was mana sick all over the mud.
People were dying in the building.
He could hear them.
Fishmen lurked further out in the river.
He could see their large black eyes and bulbous heads peeking.
A quick count didn’t fill him with confidence.
If he was accurate, it meant that they had only killed half.
Fortunately, it seemed that they were out of sea monsters.
At least in this part of the city.
He didn’t doubt that there were more out in the bay to the west and the river to the south.
Those giant flying fish hadn’t made an appearance here, after all.
A red beam erupted out of the water, sending steam billowing in all directions.
Hayden surfaced surrounded by blackened fishmen.
The fishmen in the river exploded into motion. They cut through the water like hungry sharks.
Alin called out a warning.
A violent splash.
Churning water.
Flashes of light.
Then nothing.
“Is everyone out of the water? Bolder where are you? Doomborer, you got Monsignor yet? Cause I really need all of you to be out of the water. Boy—”
Hayden’s strained voice cut out.
“Hayden? Hayden?”
“I’m underground. Insulated,” Bolder said.
“Acknowledged, Designation: Sparky. Have Designation: Monsignor. Will exit water in 2.21 seconds for approximately, 4.76 seconds.”
“Fucking shit! Off— That’s good. Boy get— resa— wat—”
“On it!” He dragged Teresa back to the top of the hill and the hole, which was gushing water like a geyser. He glanced at their feet.
Yup.
In flowing water. Their armor had protections from a variety of dangerous things. He figured Teresa’s robes had enchantments. No way Ms. Teacher would let a minor go out and fight for her life without the good stuff… right? Regardless, there were always limits to such protections.
A simple shock spell was orders of magnitude weaker than a lightning spell.
Hayden was the equivalent of nukes when it came to electricity.
He clipped his multi-weapon to his waist and grabbed Teresa princess style.
“Sorry.”
“Wh—urrk.”
Thrusters fired, carrying them into the dark sky.
At the same time, Doomborer breached the surface of the river with Monsignor curled up inside their scoop-like digging claws.
“We’re clear!”
He didn’t know if Hayden heard him.
The seconds stretched out into eternity.
Alone with the rapid beating of his heart and the girl’s puke dripping down his faceplate.
Suddenly… day turned to night once again.
Lightning flashed from beneath the roiling darkness, but it didn’t disappear in the next instant as it usually did.
So bright that it triggered the faceplate’s protection.
Alin couldn’t look away.
A few seconds turned into a half minute.
Sudden darkness fell.
Like a curtain dropped over his head.
“Hayden!”
Shapes began to pop to the surface. The blackened things bobbed with the waves. Unrecognizable.
Alin landed on the hill.
He scanned desperately.
A splash drew his attention.
It was Doomborer.
“Can you see her? The tracker’s not working?”
“Using echolocation system. Please standby, Designation: Boy.”
“-Help! Anyone!”
Galen’s voice broke into the channel.
Alin pulled away from the gray over the water.
Doomborer would find Hayden.
He had to go.
Teresa had passed out.
He couldn’t just leave her.
There might still be fishmen and slashers lurking like coyotes waiting to scavenge an easy meal.
“Bolder, dude. I could really use your help.”
The ground rumbled.
The young man emerged.
Dark-skinned face was ashen, drenched with sweat, despite the climate control features in all Threnosh armor.
“I will keep watch over her.”
Teresa was light.
Kids shouldn’t be in real battles.
Hell, he figured no one should be in real battles if they really had a choice.
It wasn’t fair.
All the old people and kids that had made it this far staying out of the hands of murderous bastards only to have literal eldritch monsters out for their blood or worse.
“Thanks, man.”
Alin watched as the earth mage and the girl wizard in his strong arms disappeared back into the ground.
He sighted the room Galen was in with Chandra and Swan Princess.
Thrusters shot him through the wall.
A fishman had Galen pinned to the ceiling with a bone trident. Sharp spikes dented, but didn’t penetrate his armor.
The cold mist warrior emptied the magazine of his pistol.
Colorful coral vambrace chipped.
Strangely, Galen hammered away at the trident’s shaft with a fist rather than draw another weapon.
On one bed, a fishman straddled Swan Princesses’ unconscious form, trying and failing to pry her out of her armor. His bone knife snapped.
Reaching for another, the fishman caught a glint of yellow light.
He turned just in time to receive a hardlight blade in the eye.
Alin withdrew, turning the sword into a spear as he thrust.
The fishman dropped Galen and fell to one knee, clutching at the side of his neck.
Galen lashed out with a kick, crying out in pain immediately as his twisted foot gave out from under him.
Alin dashed in, turning spear to axe.
The hardlight blade severed scaled fingers and cut halfway through the neck before shattering.
The last fishman lay on floor with a steel sword sticking out of the forehead like an empty flagpole.
There was something strange about the wound.
Practically bloodless and there was no signs of trauma around the blade.
It was almost as if the sword was a natural body part like a horn on a rhino.
Alin checked Swan Princess and Chandra, who was on the other bed.
Their vitals flashed red.
Galen groaned as he tried to rise.
“Thanks. I got one. Had one last trick. Turned out to be a brand new one.”
Alin understood.
Galen babbled on, describing the sudden and desperate fight that had fallen in his lap. “Thanks. I was going to use the last of my explosive stuff when you showed up. Right on time.” He held up his hand, which was still clenched in a fist. “She cut my arm off. A fucking magical scissors girl! Ghost scissors! Like, what the fuck! She got the wanderer too. I mean, she got his arm, but he sent her running. Shit was fucked. Then these fishy shits showed up.” He grew silent for a moment. “He got them all too. But then none of you showed up. Then a water bomb crushed the building. I left him up there.”
Alin let Galen babble on while the cold mist warrior continued to stare with wide eyes at the fishman with the sword in the forehead.
He slathered Threnosh healing gel over his hand.
The cool substance warmed quickly, soothing the throbbing pain into a dull ache.
It not only sealed, but also neutralized infections.
He hoped that it would work.
He had gotten a lot dark, fishmen magic-tainted water on it.
Not to mention Teresa’s vomit.
Once finished, he checked Galen’s vitals.
Yellow verging on red.
The armor’s medical software had held off on using more powerful painkillers at Galen’s instructions for as long as it could. Now, the threshold had been crossed. The danger too great.
“Yeah, man, my arm— my arm is, like, actually cut. I think, about here.” Galen tapped about halfway between wrist and elbow. “Like, I can’t move my fingers.”
“You can get it re-attached.”
Probably.
Straightforward things tended to get complicated when spells and Skills were involved.
If the mahou shoujo had cut Galen’s arm on the conceptual level then not even Aunt Megan would be able to fix it. That wasn’t factoring in his subconscious view on the injury. Something so nebulous as him believing he didn’t deserve healing could impact the result.
“You’ll get it re-attached. My aunt’s, like, done the same for my cousin at least once before.”
“Thanks! You think I should go for a magitech prosthetic? I could add options.”
Yup.
The drugs were working.
Galen’s eyes drooped before suddenly widening.
“Shit! We need to go! More fishmen in the build—”
He fell back with a thud.
“Protective coma…”
Two words that didn’t feel like they belonged together.
Regardless, he couldn’t do anything for the three.
Ibra was on the roof, still fighting from the sounds.
Thus, he crept out into the hallway.
Dead bodies carpeted the carpet.
Fluids leaked out into foul puddles.
Colors mixed like on a pallet, turning into a muddy brown.
He found everyone in the lobby.
Fishmen surrounded a knot of people.
Men and children in the middle surrounded by women, holding the ring of fishmen at bay like a herd of buffalo with horns facing outward in ankle deep water. Cold darkness mixed with warm fluids.
A fishman mage spoke in a high-pitched voice that didn’t fit.
“Be Scions of the Deep Azure. The Deep Azure will provide power. You suffer this because you lack it. Serve and worship with all your being and never be weak again. They will be spared. You will be spared. What is 10 years serving the greatest purpose weighed against centuries of existence? Be mothers for a time. That is all that is required of you. Do this and all will be spared and granted the Deep Azure.”
The fishmen were desperate to get something out of this whole thing.
Grim satisfaction flicked across his thoughts before he banished it as unworthy.
“I’ll go and serve you sick fucks, but you leave everyone else out of it,” a grim-faced warrior woman said. Her spear never wavered despite the pink bandages all over her limbs and body. One arm in a sling. A bandage around her head and over one eye.
“One is not sufficient. Their lives are priceless to you.”
“I’m over Level 40. I’ll do other things. I can train your,” her face twisted, “kids.”
A high-pitched trill echoed across the lobby.
He realized it was laughter.
“I’ll go too,” another woman said.
Gray of hair and wrinkled, but still standing tall and straight-backed with spear in hands.
The cry was taken up by others.
“You are not enough. Life through faith.”
A knife thunked into the wall next to him.
A thin slip of high-quality paper waved from the small ring at the end of the grip.
A second throwing knife pierced an outstretched hand covered in blue-gray scales.
He had wondered where Sakura had disappeared to.
White smoke popped into existence around the knife in the wall. Followed by the fishman mage.
Alin was already striking.
A horizontal cut cleaved bulbous head from wiry body.
Alin leapt over the railing.
Sakura popped in and out of existence, leaving cut logs in white smoke. Finger’s dancing, flame breath technique immolated a fishman warrior.
A bone axe cleaved her forehead.
The steel plate in her headband tanked it.
Her head rocked back, but she got off light for taking a Skill strike.
The plate cracked in half, right down the middle of her carved clan sigil. A stylized middle finger emerging from an explosion of rose petals. A clan with exactly one member.
Violence filled the lobby.
Blood and guts added to the soup around their legs.
People died.
Men, women, children.
Combat had always been an impartial arbiter when doling out fates.
In the end the human side of the scale lightened calamitously, while the fishmen side emptied completely.
An alert popped up in Alin’s HUD.
The tower!
It was a message.
Sent nearly a quarter hour ago.
“I have to go. Ibra’s fighting on the roof.”
Sakura nodded.
A rivulet of blood split at the bridge of her nose as it flowed down from her forehead.
An ugly cut crossed her hairline.
She straightened.
Despite being lightly armored with a Threnium chestplate, arm and leg guards, she was remarkably unscathed.
She rammed her shoulder into the wall. Then worked her arm in circles with a grimace on her face. “Go. Make the other guy die.”
Alin dashed out the front doors and took to the sky with a thruster-assisted leap.
Head pounded.
Jabbing needles more than stabbing knives.
Arms and legs felt heavy.
Hand throbbed, but dulled by the gel. More uncomfortable than painful.
Bright flashes to the west caught his eyes.
The Raynanaut was a dagger in the sky
Tracer fire poured like rain as fishmen-bearing giant flying fish and deep ocean spells launched skyward in response.
No.
He couldn’t think of all the precious people aboard that ship.
One had to focus on a fight or die.
“Anyone? Come in? Anyone?”
The comms spat back static until he got to within a street of the tallest building in the city.
“Goldenspoon? Can you hear me? Check. Er… copy? Check?” Marian said.
The shuttle hovered into view around the southeast corner of the tower.
A dark cloud assailed it as small arcs of electricity surged over its hull.
“Status?”
“Undead bugs and birds. No biggie. They can’t get into the thrusters and the I’m just frying them when they get too close. Wet Willy’s freaking out though.”
“That’s cause I can feel her death magic through them!” the man in question snapped. “Goldenspoon. I lost contact with Rand. If you’re here then—”
“Situation at the park’s mostly contained.” He didn’t add the ‘I hope’. He also wasn’t going to give the wizard details. Bad news at the wrong time could be disastrous. “It was bad, but we have to focus on the fight in front of us.”
“Yeah, then it’s the same in there,” Willy said. “I can’t penetrate her protections. Can’t even identify the spells she’s using. All I can tell is that scrying doesn’t work and my eyes are being violently popped when they get more than a few feet inside when I send them in on my own.”
“So, I’m going in blind?”
“Maybe… but your powers could work?”
“If you can locate her I can take shots. Been saving the seeker minimissiles. Anti-mana warheads just for the necromancer.”
“Monsignor’s abilities would be perfect. Is she—”
“Combat ineffective. I’m heading inside. I’ll contact you when I have her location.”
He launched upward, crashing through a window and into a dark, rubble-strewn office.
Starting at the top meant he only had one way to go when the time came.
The gray answered his call.
It felt stronger here.
More responsive without the presence of the fishmen’s magic.
He filled the floor, pushed it into vents, spreading it down with speed born of worry.
For Howard and Adrian.
For the people.
He found presences in the gray.
Warmth battling with cold.
Living and dead.
The latter tinged with what felt like a sickly green color verging on black.
Death-aspected mana.
It permeated the building.
There was no vitality to drain from the varied undead.
The necromancer remained hidden from his efforts.
A thought struck him.
She was here to gain contest points.
He found a security office and the PA system.
There was power even if the bank of security monitors showed mostly static.
“Cindy Traynor. This is Alin Cruces. Am I worth enough points to come after? I’m in a security office in the upper floors. Which one? No idea. Find me before I find you.”
Was it stupid to paint a target on his back?
Yeah.
But, he wasn’t going to actually stay in the office.
With luck he’d draw the necromancer and any other slasher that lurked in the building.
With even greater luck, Holly was out there somewhere just waiting for an opening.
Then again she had been done pretty badly by the demon clown and she lacked the medical facilities of the Raynanaut.
It was smarter not to expect help from that quarter.
The tower shook as he relocated.
Stairs and elevators were the obvious ways to travel.
Then there was the expedience of simply climbing through the floor and ceiling.
Outside too, if one had the ability to do so. Such as a wall-crawling Skill or spell.
He continued his search through the gray, which he had spread to encompass the entire tower.
A sudden rush or air crushed him through the wall and into a room.
“Are you a moron?” Death’s Dancer pressed him against the window with an arm across his neck.
“No.” He ignited the multi-weapon, stopping its expansion until the tip of the hardlight blade just touched the bottom of the soldier’s chin.
Blue eyes bored into his from behind a brand new American flag skullmask.
“You’re worth good points to everyone not named Holly Foster. Killing you can push slashers into the top 10. The necromancer will have to act because she can’t afford to let anyone take you and the rest of the points available from the bloodbath. That means every person still alive between the two of you are going to get steamrolled.”
“They weren’t going to let them get out of this alive anyways.” He tried to shove the other man off, but the grip was implacable. Class 10 strength going by his uncle’s informal category system dwarfed his own normal human strength enhanced by his armor’s artificial musculature.
“Yeah, but they had time while she took hers, which would’ve given me time to find her.”
“How’s that going?”
Death’s Dancer grunted and released him.
“Cruces, huh? And a Rayna’s Ranger. You her kid or something? You’re about the right age. It’s weird how we’ve got next to nothing about that. Skill or spell? Or a mix? How’d they keep you hidden so long.”
He refused to answer.
Truth detection methods couldn’t work if he gave nothing away for them to use.
Death’s Dancer moved pretty good for someone with an opened up gut just a few nights ago.
But then, Alin looked closer.
The black-clad superhuman soldier was unnaturally still, holding one arm over his stomach ready to ward off blows.
The demon clown’s claws had left healing resistant wounds.
Even Howard’s immense healing factor had been affected.
“Or is your dad that flying dick with a weird name?”
“Are you going to help?”
“More like I’ll do the hard work. I’m not about to get blamed for what could happen to you. Last thing I need. Just do whatever it is you were going to do. I’ll be around. Try not to stab me with that budget lightsaber.” Death’s Dancer shook his head before vanishing. “What kind of laser sword doesn’t burn shit?”
His sensors failed to penetrate Death’s Dancer’s invisibility.
“Alright, guys.” He mouthed the words, not trusting the helmet to keep them between him and the gray. “I’m here to save lives before anything else. I feel like that’s what you all want… I hope. So, some help would be great. Not for me, but for the people in this tower…”
Silence.
He was alone with his boot steps echoing through the empty hallways as he stalked with hardlight longsword at the ready.
Sensors in his HUD picked up vibrations a split-second before the floor crumbled beneath him.