The call arrives early the next morning, Xander entering my office to inform me as I am working on my reports, figuring that I might as well get them done now, rather than later when I return home.
“Lain, we got the call, we’re waiting for you upstairs!” He says in a hurry.
Sam lets out a snort as she wakes up, panics for a bit, fumbles with her sheets before then proceeding to fall off her couch and hit the floor with her face and a loud smack. With her face on the floor and her ass sticking up in the air with her tail freaking out, she yells out, “Yes, Drill Seargent!”
Xander and I just watch her for a second as she tries to pull herself back together, untangling her blanket from her horns as she gets back up.
“Bad experience with Basic Training?” I ask, and she has the decency to look a little sheepish as she blushes.
“I wasn’t exactly Drill Seargent Macraner’s favorite recruit…”
“Ah, I wonder why… Get up and put your pants on, it’s time to get to work. Gra, could you and Vivviv please join us, we need to confirm that we have the correct target.”
As Sam is jumping around on one leg, trying to put her pants back on because she didn’t want to sleep in her jeans and doesn’t care about people seeing her underwear, Gra turns over on the couch with Vivviv held in her arms like a hug pillow, the smaller Hobgoblin still happily in dream land despite all the noise.
Gra looks like she wants to say no and go back to sleep, but after thinking for a little bit, she relents and says, “I should probably be there… Vivviv, wake up.”
Her initial attempts don’t work, and she switches to speaking Goblin, shaking the smaller girl awake as she calls her name.
Vivviv wakes up and gives a big yawn, says something in Goblin that is probably good morning or something along those lines, and then proceeds to slide out from under the covers to get out of bed and stretch, her short green hair sticking up in every direction in a mess of a bedhead. To be polite, I avert my gave away from the busty short stack that had apparently undone her vine-clothing in her sleep again. The girl is just as bad as Sky when it comes to caring about her decency, and Gra quickly flies into a panic as she hurries to get out of bed and cover her in the blanket, speaking to her in rushed Goblin, probably begging her to cover herself or something. Unlike Vivviv, Gra refuses to sleep without her clothes on, and is in fact, usually covered head to toe in layers. I traded her my spare set of gloves and combat boots, and she still hasn’t taken them off yet.
Being able to cover her hands and feet had made her happier than I have ever seen her so far. I traded them to her in exchange for her help with my magic practice while we are here. While the contract we made does say that she has to answer all my questions truthfully -The same applies to me. – she doesn’t have to do anything that she doesn’t want to do, if it doesn’t involve her behavior as a prisoner. Thus, the trade.
Hmm, speaking of naked Hobgoblins, I wonder what I could get from Gra if I trade her some actual underwear? Right now, she is just making do with some makeshift loincloths and chest wraps made from whatever she can get her hands on. That can’t be very comfortable… I’ll have to introduce her to the wonders and comforts of modern clothing later.
As I am looking down at my desk, Xander is looking up at the ceiling, trying hard to ignore the women as they get dressed right in front of him. I decide to spare him, and say, “Xander, you can go. We’ll be right up as soon as they are ready.”
“Right, thank you.”
He promptly turns and makes his escape, and I have to hold down a sigh as Sam trips on her pant leg and falls over. You would think that a Marine would naturally be an early riser, but Sam is Sam…
“Ahhh! Vivviv, no, wait!” Gra calls out in a hurry.
Vivviv goes wandering out of my office in the nude, sleepily saying the Goblin word for bathroom as Gra is still trying to get her to dress herself, fussing over her little friend and begging for her to stop.
I just let out another sigh as I pack away my reports.
Hah… Well, time to go start a war.
----------------------------------------
Standing in our makeshift command room by the window, Gra and a sleepy Vivviv standing beside me, I ask, “Gra, is he still there?”
The ice-blue girl closes her eyes and focuses for a moment, before slowly nodding her head. “Yes, he is still in his tower.” Pointing out into the city, she aims at the tallest skyscraper in the city.
I give her a nod and a thank you before turning towards Frank. “We have our target.”
He nods, “Yes ma’am.”
Turning on the radio, he makes the call. “We have confirmation. Target’s location is longitude –“
As he is reading out coordinates and initial corrections for estimated wind speeds, Sam joins us at the window, detonator held in hand as she looks out towards the city with an excited look like that of a kid about to go to a certain mouse themed amusement park.
I try to wait patiently, my heart beating in my chest in anticipation for everything to start. For us to finally pull the trigger and get this operation under way. Watching Frank as he listens to the radio through a pair of headphones, I can feel a bead of sweat running down my back.
He nods and then looks towards me. “We are good to begin.”
“Right, Sam, start us off. Pull the trigger.” I say, knowing full well that I just ordered her to detonate three buildings full of lives. The vast majority of them being barely sapient Goblins, but also a good number of actual people. I can only hope that they will all die quickly and won’t suffer, being buried alive under several tons of rubble…
Sam smiles, her sharp teeth on full display, and pulls the trigger. “Boom!”
It takes a second for anything to happen, and for a moment, I find myself wondering if something went wrong. Only for that thought to get thrown out as I see the sides of the three buildings simultaneously explode outward, a ring of more explosions on their second floors blowing out their walls in every direction. The buildings slowly buckle under their own weight, shifting to one side or the other as their support is kicked out from under them. The sound of the explosions is quick to reach us from where we watch, popping the air and scaring a sleepy Vivviv into screaming and grabbing onto to Gra for support.
Watching the buildings topple over and fall like felled trees, they collapse onto their neighbors, crushing the much smaller buildings under them. When they finally make contact with the ground, any remaining structure that remains of the skyscrapers simply collapses into rubble, spilling out over the surrounding streets and releasing plums of dust into the air.
“Hahahahahahahaaaahaaa!!! Yes, yes!!!” Sam laughs like a maniac as she watches the buildings go down.
Gra just holds Vivviv as the two of them watch with wide eyes. I’m not sure how much they care about the Goblins that just died in those explosions, but they certainly look tense. Who knows, maybe they just got scared witnessing some of the fire power of humanity’s weapons. Maybe they are already regretting deciding to side with me, though the alternative would have been death. Regardless, we are about to show them much more of what we can do…
Once the cloud of dust starts to clear some and we have a view of the main target, Xander signals to Frank to start. The call is made, and we wait.
The first shell arrives within seconds and smashes into a building not too far off from the target, Xander calls out corrections, Frank sends them.
The second shot hits. Plowing into the side of the building’s thirteenth floor and detonating, blowing out a chunk of the building like a gaping wound.
Xander calls out, “Hit is good.”
Frank, “Copy. Hit is good. Fire for effect.”
…
The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.
Like rain falling from the sky, high-explosive rounds trail through the sky and smash into the building and its immediate surroundings one after the other, carpeting the city in a rain of explosives and American A-Grade fire power. Gra and Vivviv quickly cover their big ears as they huddle together, shaking as they witness death rain from the sky.
As the building starts to look like it is about to fall, a Field like nothing I have felt before spreads out over the city. Even from this distance, it feels like my skin wants to melt off my body, the rage of its owner being cleanly transmitted for all to feel.
“He is angry… I- I’ve never felt him be this angry before…” Gra says as she takes a step away from the window, her legs shaking with fright.
The Field pulses under the sustained fire, a wave of heat spreading out from the wounded tower in every direction. Up in the air, incoming rounds begin to deteriorate or swerve out of control, smashing into other parts of the city, further spreading the destruction as smaller buildings collapse. Off to the side, a gas station gets hit and explodes, surprisingly having not already been destroyed yet.
Fire spreads, feeding off the Field of Father, each explosion serving to further fuel its growth as the city once again goes up in flames.
Another round manages to strike the tower and pushes it to finally collapse, the building going down as the entire thing burns with raging fire that almost looks to be alive.
But, even as it hits the ground, the Field does not vanish. Instead, it only seems to grow stronger and stronger as the rage continues to grow.
Gra turns to me, her eyes wide with fright. “He is ordering everyone to charge. He is ordering us south. He… he is searching for me?”
“Gra, I need you to suppress your Field as much as you can. Force it down with everything you have! Quickly!”
“I’m trying! This is as far as I can go, I can’t make –“
We get cut off as the Field pulses, the weight of its attention shifting towards our direction, the promise of cleansing flames and melting heat smashing down all around us.
Quickly spreading out my Field and forcing it to mix with Gra’s and Vivviv’s, I try to mask our presence, to become a shadow under attention.
Gra and Vivviv collapse to their knees under the pressure of their leader, while I and my Demons remain standing.
“Turn off the radio!” I yell, but it is too late.
From within the heart of the city, within a blazing inferno that is steadily growing up and towards the sky like some angry god’s wrath where the tower used to stand, a laser of focused heat shoots out and slashes through the lower levels of our own skyscraper, leaving a diagonal glowing cut in its wake from where it sliced clean through.
Looking out the window and down at our own tower, I can’t help but gawk in surprise.
Well shit… that can’t be good…
The top of our building shifts to the side a little, jarring everyone inside as the floor moves beneath us.
Everyone starts moving immediately, not needing to be told to get the hell out of here. Grabbing their stuff, Frank and Xander throw their radio packs on and make a run for the window. My Demons jump out without hesitation, not caring in the slightest about a twenty-plus floor drop.
Vivviv and Gra are still on their knees, holding each other tightly as the building continues to move, furniture shifting and sliding around us. Moving my shadows, I grow out a tentacle and wrap the both of them up and lift them into the air. Gra screams, “My books!” With her hand reaching out desperately for her backpack. She had left it sitting next to a pillar on the other side of the room, never going anywhere without it being somewhere close by. It is currently sliding away with everything else in the room.
For a second, I consider just leaving it, but that bag literally contains all of Gra and Vivviv’s stuff, and they, or at least Gra, would probably be devastated if they lost it.
“Fuck it.”
Instead of going out the window with the others, I dive for the bag as our half of the building continues to tilt to the side, the angle of the floor quickly becoming steeper and steeper, bringing the two Hobgoblins, screaming in fright, with me as my shadows carry them behind me. Sliding down the floor, I pull a Spiderman and shoot out a line of shadows from my wrist toward the bag, even doing the hand sign and everything. The line spreads out and expands as it hits the thing to grab the bag. Quickly yanking it up towards me, I have another shadow limb grow out and grab it from me, passing it off to a screaming Gra before completely wrapping them both up in a safety bubble.
The top of the building slips and tumbles from its bottom half, and for a second, gravity seemingly stops working as I am floating inside the falling building.
“Hahahaha!”
I can’t help but laugh in all this chaos, enjoying the feeling of weightlessness for just a moment as furniture and bunch of other crap floats around me in a free fall. Part of me, one definitely fueled by way too much adrenaline, is tempted to see what it would be like to have a building collapse on top of me, not even doubting for a second that I would be just fine. But thankfully, the rest of me is rational and sane, and I still have my contract with these Hobgoblins to consider. Trying to protect them both from a collapsing building is doable but is also too much of a risk to be taking.
So, I grow out a pair of void-black angel wings and flap them, pushing myself up and toward the wall of the falling building. Lashing out with my shadows, the wall is demolished, and I am suddenly flying up and away from the falling half of the building. It collapses beneath us, plums of dust filling the air as I continue to rise up the side of the now halved skyscraper, the line where it had been cleanly cut still glowing red from the heat, my massive wings pushing the obstructing dust away with every flap as I get higher and higher.
From on high, I look towards where the laser had come from, but find nothing but fire and smoke, Father’s Field still radiating with anger as it seemingly searches for us.
Thankfully, with Gra and Vivviv being in my safety bubble, I can keep their Fields suppressed, my own probably being difficult to pick up from this range. Still, he can most likely sense his daughter’s general location, the same as how, even now, I can sense my Gremlins and my other Demons back at home if I were to focus.
So, he definitely knows that they are alive and that they are over here, he just can’t pinpoint their location.
Looking down, I find my Demons. They have landed on a nearby parking garage, having pancaked some poor cars to break their fall.
Messily flying through the air like a drunk pigeon and almost crashing a couple of times, I make my way down to them and land hard, almost tripping as I hit a patch of ice. Catching myself with some shadows, I quickly sprint the rest of the way over to them and set my passengers down.
“You guys all good?”
They nod and return some yeses or other affirmatives, looking just fine despite probably having reached half of terminal velocity.
Opening up the safety bubble a little, I take a look inside.
“Hey, you guys ok in there?”
Vivviv is currently upside down, her eyes spinning like she just got put in a laundry dryer and set to tumble. “Bweh?”
Gra is holding on to her from behind, shaking her hair out as she pushes Vivviv’s thigh away from her face, knocking the dizzy girl onto her side.
“Uhh, please don’t do that again…”
“Sorry, how’s your injuries doing? I didn’t hurt your arm, did I?”
Gra lifts her broken arm in her shadow cast and moves it around.
“Arm is fine. Thanks for grabbing my bag…”
“No problem, question though. Why did Father just try and kill you?”
“I have no idea. But it definitely feels like he is angry with me. Maybe he found out that I am with you? Can you let us out of this thing now?”
“Hmm… I’ll just have to ask him and find out, I guess. Also, sorry Gra, but you gotta stay in the bubble for now.”
“Wait, what, no, don’t –“
I close up the bubble and carry it with me over to my waiting Demons. Down in the streets, Goblins are already streaming out of every building and from the sewers in great numbers, flooding the surroundings in green as they go running south. A bit further ahead of us, artillery is still raining down on the city, reducing it to rumble one building at a time. Frank and Xander are currently busy calling in shots, probably trying to get the shells to hit and take out large pockets of enemies while they can.
I have to give it to them, they know their job and not even jumping from a freaking skyscraper will make them stop.
“Alright guys, plan A has failed!” I call out to get everyone’s attention for a second. “The artillery couldn’t do the job, so now it’s my turn. You guys are to fall back to Forward Operations. On the way there, continue guiding the artillery to try and thin out the Goblin army. When you arrive, you are to do as the Lieutenant Colonel commands. We need to thin the herd as much as we can before they reach the base.”
Nathaniel gives me a look. “And what about you?”
“Plan B. I’m going to go assassinate their leader”
“Are you sure that’s safe? After how badly you got burned against that other Goblin? This one is clearly a lot stronger, and you are planning on going alone?”
“Yup, I can’t be stealthy if I’m taking you guys with me. And I intend to finish this quickly. Plus, Forward Operations will need your help, especially if they end up needing to evacuate. Take the prisoners with you and guarantee their safety. You can let them out when you get there. The ball is thin enough for you to break, and it lets air in, just try not to shake them around too much.”
Growing some straps onto the safety bubble turned Goblin transport orb, I have my tentacle pass them over to Sam, since she is the only one without a backpack right now. I also take off my pack and toss it to Nathaniel.
“My reports are in there, and I really don’t want to have to rewrite them.”
He passes the bag to Xander. “No, I’m coming with you. You shouldn’t be going alone.”
“Nathaniel, this isn’t open for discussion. You have your part to play, and I have mine. I can’t be sneaky and move fast at the same time if I am also focusing on keeping you hidden as well. I need you guys to work on thinning the Goblins numbers as much as possible before they manage to reach the base. That is our job.”
Nathaniel looks concerned and steps forward, “Lain, I know that you don’t like doing this kind of stuff. You don’t have to; let me. I can- “
“Nathaniel, do not make me order you. I have this handled; now go before we get another freaking laser sent our way. I have work to do.”
“Lain-“ Nathaniel tries, but Frank steps up and stops him with a hand on the shoulder. “We have our own job to do. Let her do hers. Come on, we need to go.” He calls to the others and gets them moving.
As Sam moves past me, the safety bubble strapped to her back, she gives me a worried look.
I give her a smile and say, “Sam, when we get back, you can have one of the rooms in my mansion. We keep the place nice and warm.”
She goes wide-eyed and then just has to make joke, “Already asking me to move in with you!? Wow you work fast! Hahahaha!” She grows serious and gives me a little smile, her hand touching the mark on her cheek as she looks down at me.
She turns and joins the others, jumping over the side of the parking garage and disappearing from view. Nathaniel is the last to go, giving me one last worried look before jumping down to the streets below.
Turning toward the burning city, I put all my power and focus into reducing my presence, to become nothing more than a shadow. One second, I am there, and the next I am gone, already sprinting across the city and going completely unnoticed by everyone and everything I pass, heading deeper and deeper into the heart of the city that used to be an overgrown, monster infested, hellhole, but is now just a barren wasteland of rubble and ash mixed with dirty snow and Goblin shit.