Dana stared in shock as Ruska was flung what seemed an impossible distance from the school, possibly deep into the surrounding ocean. It didn’t matter much if she could survive such a trip or not, all that mattered right now was that she was out of this conflict.

“I knew it,” Laverne said, wiping her knife off on her breaches. “Been lied to as often as I have you start getting a feel for it. I don’t know what they are really planning but there isn’t much chance it is going to be peace and harmony if they win.”

“That’s why we cannot let them,” Meara stated, her mouth grim in concentration as her bowstring sang repeatedly. “Arrows!” She shouted at the top of her lungs, feeling the fletchings of her last two arrows in her quiver. A runner from the guard station near the campus entrance ran forward with another bound stack of arrows. The security forces and guards had established supply lines for archers already, and their drills were paying off.

Another giant crashed against the makeshift barricade they had erected, tossing aside the ruins of the booths they had used to construct it with a roar, and even more creatures poured in through the breach.

“It’s like there is no end to them.” Dana panted, his clothes a mess of what they once were, scored with little cuts and bruises from various encounters he had run into. Everywhere he looked was littered with bodies of students and families but he could not see any of the attackers. “Something isn’t right here.”

An arrow sank into the shoulder of a gnoll not far from him, bringing his attention back to the present with a snap as he swung at the dog-faced brute.

“What would you do without me, Wilde? Gotta keep saving you all the time!” Maera shouted, unable to contain the glee in her voice as the battle pumped adrenaline through her.

Dana just grinned, as the chaos surged around him he couldn’t help but feel affection for the fiery elf that had brought him into all this.

“Wouldn’t change it for the world.”

* * *

Cherri ran through the dorm building looking for her sisters, combatants even here deeper in the campus were battling students and teachers. The creatures had to be getting in somewhere else than where the guards were making their stand. A blast of energy streaked out of a nearby building, blue and ordered with no unnecessary flourishes… Cherri would know her sister’s magic anywhere.

She tracked the magic backward to a small building near the dorms, a dozen creatures gathered outside the door clawing and bashing at it. Another streak of magic came out of one of the building’s second-floor windows, knocking one of the creatures laying siege to the building to the ground, smoking. Cherri ran around the back of the building, looking for an entrance. She located a small arrow slit about fifteen feet up off the ground.

The reddish slime girl ran up to the building, hoping the creatures around the front would be too distracted to pay much attention to her as she stretched her body as high as it could go, barely reaching the break in the stone, and poured herself through the opening. She found herself on the second floor of what she was guessing was one of the staff housing.

“Blue! Mint! Are you here?” She ran from one room to the next, searching for her sisters.

“Cherri?” She heard Mint’s voice over the noise of the creatures pounding on the door downstairs. “Where did you come from?” The green slime girl came out to meet her, giving her a warm hug.

“A window in the back, no one is watching it we can grab Blue and get out that way.” Mint shook her head, as she held up her hands.

“Wait… wait, Cherri… follow me.” Mint led her into the next room, there were three students in the beds there. “They were hit in the initial attack… two of them were blindsided before they even knew they were in danger. We can get out but there is no way to take them with us and Blue won’t even entertain the thought of leaving them behind.”

“They’re almost through the front!” Cherri could hear Blue shouting from another room, punctuated with more blasts from her magic striking at the sieging monsters. “Everyone still mobile retreat to the second floor and drop everything we can to block the stairs.”

“We have to go,” Mint said, rushing through the other side of the room with the recuperating kids. A few other girls were there, already tipping bookcases, desks, and anything they could find into the narrow stairwell to make accessing the second floor even more difficult. Cherri pitched in quickly, helping to lodge a large heavy cabinet in the doorframe. Below them the sounds of crashing and snarling let them know their attackers had made their way into the building.

The two slime sisters exchanged worried glances with the other three there, none of them knowing if their efforts were to be in vain when Blue joined them.

“Hey sis,” Her normally schooled demeanor was replaced with exhaustion. Pumping out as much magic as she had to defend the building was starting to take its toll on her. “Can you believe I was mad mom and Dad weren’t going to make it for this. Now I am glad they are safe at home… mom never was good at stressful situations.”

The three sisters embraced briefly, taking just a moment to relish the contact before pulling away. The other three girls watching Blue expectantly, looking for her to offer a way out of this predicament.

“Do we have a plan?” Cherri asked, trying not to let how scared she was show.

“Hold out as long as we can and hope for someone to come help.” Blue took a seat, letting out a breath. “We’ve managed to take out a few of them but it seems their ranks replenish almost as quickly as we can knock them out. Though looking outside we are nowhere near the worst off today.”

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

“Well we ain’t dead yet and I have no plans to be,” Cherri stated, looking around. “Someone will come, no one was expecting anything this large scale we just need to make it until we rally.”

The clawing and thumping noises on the other side of the barrier they had erected got even louder.

“Come out pretties! We just want to play a little!” The voice drifted in through the stairs, followed by laughter.

Cherri straightened up at the noise, determination taking over the fear in her face.

“What weapons do we have in here?”

* * *

Sally Mae watched the minotaur as it stalked closer to her, its grin widening.

“After what happened to your friend I thought you would be smarter than to try and take me on again. No claws this time? No teeth?”

The werewolf grinned, showing her teeth to the towering creature. Akuji next to her already summoning even more fire to deal with this new threat.

“Oh no… after what our last meeting I brought something just hoping against hope you would show up to use it” With a smooth yank she unslung a shotgun strapped to her back and fired it right into the thing’s chest.

With a scream, she pumped round after round into it until the minotaur toppled over to the ground. “That was for Trip you ugly…”

In the time it took for her to blink the minotaur’s body was gone, the very next second he was standing in front of the both of them once more lazily swinging his axe.

“Look who it is… I would have thought you learned your lesson.”

She didn’t let him finish, using the last two rounds in the shotgun to take off half the thing’s face at the same time as Akuji let loose a torrent of flame.

“What the hell is this guy, Sally?” The demon girl asked, as the flaming minotaur sank to his knees again and keeled over. Once again blinking out of existence and reappearing with that same annoying grin.

“Ah… you again.”

“This… isn’t possible.” Akuji stepped back from the hulking thing advancing on them. “How does he keep getting up?”

“Just means we keep hitting him until he stays down.” Sally fumbled with the shells in her pocket as she tried hastily to reload the shotgun.

“It won’t work.” A voice called over the noise of the battling crowd. Ajuki and Sally Mae turned to see Phoebe, Jett, and Daeva running up to them. “They don’t die… not permanently anyway.”

“How is that even possible?” Akuji sent another gout of flame at the advancing minotar, hoping to keep him distracted.

“I don’t know,” Daeva said. “They don’t have any life force… nothing for me to drain… they aren’t constructs but they aren’t quite real either.”

“Kill them four, five, times… it seems like they just reset. So many generic-looking creatures it is hard to notice but find one with a few unique features and it becomes much clearer.” Jett explained as Phoebe who almost reached similar heights to the minotaur squared off against him.

“Seems like they can hurt us but we can’t do anything lasting against them.” She swung her hammer at the horned menace only to have him block it with his axe.

“More friends to play with little girl? You are such an endless fount of entertainment.” He looked at the sasquatch with the hammer as if only just seeing her in truth. As Phoebe swung the hammer around for another strike the joy drained from its face, suddenly realizing this sasquatch might be a more serious threat than he first assumed. “Oh… this might prove fun.”

“We should tell the Security forces, this is a fight no one can win.” Jett grabbed Sally Mae and spun her around from the minotaur. “There has to be a different way to close the rifts and stop all this.”

“Phoebe can keep this guy busy while we go… she can follow during one of his… ‘reboots’, there is a little time between them going down and returning she can take advantage of.” Daeva looked to the sasquatch, having seen her fight she had confidence in her abilities but in all this confusion she could only hope her words proved true.

“There!’ Akuji pointed, “Looks like several of the teachers and the security guys are trying to establish a perimeter. We can make it there and help the other students better.”

The four women gathered close and began moving as one through the melee. Other girls, as they moved, gravitated towards the safety they offered in numbers, some moving in the middle of them for safety and others joining the protective ring fighting against the onslaught. They started out as four, but by the time they reached the secure area closer to the campus entrance, they were nearly ten.

Two of the security officers came out to meet them, helping them through the barricade to the somewhat safety they had established. The small area looked like old pictures you would see of war zones… injured people laying on the ground as one of two tried to help them, a constant tension among all, not knowing when their fragile hope would shatter.

Dana Wilde and Marea Oleran joined them not long after their arrival, an older mermaid girl carried over his shoulders that they brought immediately to join the rest of the injured.

“Piercing wound in the side looks pretty deep… dehydrated badly. Other bumps and scrapes but those are the most threatening of them.” Dana relayed what he found about the girl when they located her on the battlefield.

The healer nodded, already motioning for someone to bring water as she examined the woman.

“Mr Wilde!” The girls ran up to him. “The things attacking… they aren’t all the way real.” The four students tried to relay what they had learned to their teacher, each speaking over each other in their rush. Finally, Dana nodded.

“I think I understand…” He scanned the enemies still scattered on the field, this would explain why all the bodies on the ground were students or family members. At last, he spotted what he was looking for. “Maera!

Purple mohawk on the left, think you can take it down?”

“I don’t think, Wildman… I know.” In an effortless seeming movement, she nocked her arrow and let it fly into the chaos. Her arrow streaked toward the goblin Dana had pointed out, lodging in his throat and knocking him to the ground where he lay motionless. Dana continued scanning the invading army, examining the throng that was assaulting them. Finally pointing eagerly out into the yard.

“She’s right… the odds of two goblins with that same awful haircut cannot be great… they are coming back once we take them down.” He thought to himself, trying to piece together the information they had and his eyes went over the dozens of injured on the ground nearby. He grabbed one of the city guardsmen as they ran past. “Captain! Do you have casualty estimates?”

“We’ve been lucky so far,” The tired guard told him. “We’ve clocked over a hundred in various states of injury but so far only one reported death. We can’t know the full numbers from everywhere, however.”

“With this many attacking why are there not more bodies… unless they are trying not to kill anyone…”

“They are keeping our attention here, on our injured…” Maera said flatly… “They are trying to keep us from moving to what their real plan is about.”

“The iris…” Dana looked at the towering figure made of mist over the army. It hadn’t moved again since it had ordered the creatures to mobilize. “They are trying to complete the ritual while we are running around just trying to survive. I have to get to the library!”

“We could get you there, Boss,” Sally Mae said. “It might take some time but we take it slow and steady we can get you there safe.”

“Time might be the one thing we don’t have. We don’t know how long this ritual is supposed to take or even how far along they are.”

“I… um… I think I could get you there much faster, Mr Wilde.” Zerys, the colorful harpy from the class spoke up from the injured area. “They got my leg but I can still fly okay. Please don’t let them take the school away from us.”

Dana looked at the girl, she barely ever spoke in class… sitting in the closest seat to the door she was often the last to arrive and the first to leave when the bell rang but here and now she was speaking up.

“Okay, I’ll go on ahead, the rest of you follow as fast as you can.” Getting a nod from the other girls he helped Zerys to her feet.

“