Julia is the first to jump down to the access catwalk overlooking the room, and the foes below them are oblivious to their presence. She hopes to keep this as quiet as possible. She signals to Joey with a tap on her head. Joey, you’ll get the first shot on the officer, he’s got the radio headset. I’ll take the two other guys out, Lavernius has the other two. She nods firmly and sights in on the autobow before resting the frame of the weapon on the railing. At least mages have some safety standards. Lavernius gives a quick signal to get into position, all the while Julia leers at these hardened killers. She hops down to a decorative statue and lands with perfect precision.
I wish Angela could see me now. There’s no other need for reflection, only the deed. And if her plasma isn’t enough, to knock them out, there’s that compact staff that Joey had let her borrow, and she looks at the simple button to click it to full length. An emergency regen potion is in a vest pocket–if she needs it. Hopefully, they won’t.
Because if this all goes well, this room is going to be a giant crater by the time they’re done. She slinks to cover when one errantly glances her way, but there’s no further motion. She glances over to her cover and nearly retches.
There’s a glassy-eyed corpse–a woman with short brown hair and earrings, soft brown eyes, staring upward at the ceiling. She almost recoiled away from the horror of seeing the woman with her fingers wrapped around the lethal bolt that pierced her throat. She’s got a lab coat on–one of the personnel from Asqualia, blood pooled beneath her. She takes a sharp breath–she knew this was going to happen. As soon as the Talons opened fire, she knew there would be casualties. She looks up and sees Joey’s solemn gaze, biting her lip so hard that she draws blood. Her hand trembles a little, and the weapon in her hand sways.
Joey, I’m so sorry. We did everything we could to prevent this. Her response is a slow nod, then a deathly glare down the scope of her autobow at the officer leading this atrocity. Take out the officer when I signal. He’s the radio lead. We don’t know how long before they check back. Joey responds by loading in the tranq round. Julia would suggest she just kill the bastard, but she wonders about their moral higher ground. She can see a few corpses piled up further out–Talon's casualties. With distinct burns across their body. Plasma energy. Somehow, this sight doesn’t bother her.
My mom has likely caused a lot of deaths in her years. Great. I’m not even of legal age, and I’ve racked up a body count, too. I’m gonna need to cry profusely later at the loss of innocence. She pads between areas of cover, toward a nearby decorative barrier where the techs are still working, swearing and getting frustrated.
“Barry. Barry! Watch where you put the repair torch, Or you'll burn your arm like that idiot who left the regulator off,” one snaps, even as he offers a length of silvery wire. “Can we repair it?”
“This is gonna be an ugly-as-shit repair job, but it’ll work. The circuits aren't damaged, just the wiring. Think Val will go eat Victor if we tell her that he got a bunch of soldiers killed?” the other jests.
“Does that make her a cannibal? I mean, dragons do take human form.”
“Yeah, kinda. Poor Rick and Billy. Those sods have had the displeasure of cleaning out bone piles from her lair every great now and then. The ones she hates, she takes the skeletons and puts them up like a macabre collection. I’ve seen it. It’s so creepy.” The first one lets out a deep-throated sound of disgust while reaching for a tool to crimp the wire. “Yeah, you know what, eating any Kin makes you a cannibal, that’s the way I see it.”
“What does a dragon taste like? I don’t suppose it tastes like chicken, does it? Because of… you know, the feathers?” the second one asks. Julia decides she doesn’t need to know the answer, and there’s a thrum of energy on her hands.
Now!
There’s a soft thwack sound as a bolt sails through the air, hits the officer in the neck, and drops to the floor, out cold. Julia mantles over the barricade, grabs one, and delivers a massive shock that leaves him on the ground, incapacitated. The second gets a gasp of surprise before her thunderous kick also puts him out of commission–and likely breaking a rib, judging by a wet snap. The officer is already down for the count, and Lavernius has already taken out his two.
“Police the weapons, quick! Lavernius, let’s get to work–”
Lavernius responds by loading the magazine and putting a bolt straight through the back of the two techs' skulls, and she hears that wet crack of flesh being eviscerated. Before she can even respond, he puts two more into the ones on the far side like clockwork, and she’s left in utter horror.
Bernard is a stone-cold killer with the way he just nopes these men while they’re unconscious and then puts two into the officer’s skull. She feels sick to her stomach, and he calmly reloads the weapon and gives the primer lever a sharp tug, the weapon lowered as he scans the room. Joey is also stunned into silence.
“You just murdered them.” It's the most Julia can muster from the shock.
“Enemy combatants. Val’s men are almost to a fault, stone-cold killers. They stacked the staff here like cordwood.” He points grimly to a pile of bodies, and Julia dares to look in his direction, disgusted by it. Three of them are garbed in armor–burnt, scorched by plasma, or impaled by those shiny bolts that were devastatingly effective against soft targets. “Promise me you will never have to do the same, if you avoid it.”
“You just murdered–” she stops when she thinks about his grim logic. “What were you before, Bernard?”
“King’s right-hand man. I wasn’t always on the good side of the law, Julia. Joey knows this, too.” Joey is notably silent while looking at glassy-eyed lost souls on the far side, like she can’t look away. Lavernius pauses only briefly, a calm look on his face. “I haven’t been that man in a long time. But I have to be that man for one last night. For the sake of others.”
“That’s rich, coming from you, the person who wanted to hand research records that could help Val become a new goddess,” Julia growls.
“To King, and to no one else. I trust him and Crosomer. I don’t trust Val in the slightest,” he says calmly. “No one should, given her capabilities.”
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“I’m not done discussing morality, Lavernius.” Julia grabs every bit of ordnance she can. The techs have bolt pistols, but the weapons aren’t the same variant. Joey vaults over the railing and lands perfectly from–five meters high? Julia stares at the spectacle as she peers at her curiously. At this point, with Bernard executing five hostiles, this curiosity is not worth the effort of asking the question.
“Julia, can you…help me with something?” Joey finally asks in a quiet tone.
It's when her gaze drifts to where Julia had been a moment before that their moment of celebration is deadened by the deceased woman on the floor. The grim walk is no less dreadful than before. Julia dares to break the silence. “Did you know her?”
“Betty? I know her. She works in the botany wing. I…would sometimes get reagents from her, for my lab. She has a cat at home, and…there was a guy here that she liked. She never said who, though.” Her lip trembles, and she kneels down to gently pull the bolt out, and give her some final composure in death. Julia helps move her to someplace further away from the inactive portal.
Joey leans down, and closes her eyes. “She didn’t deserve this.” The anguish in her voice is one notch away from tears, and Julia wraps an arm around her back gently. She can feel that pain in her own heart, too, even though she’s never known this person. What had their last thoughts been? Of their loved ones? Of their daily routine, cut tragically short?
She doesn’t have the answers for this one. “Joey. We’ll have time to mourn them later. Let’s finish this, so we can get everyone we can home and in one piece.”
“Yeah. Let’s do that.” She pulls out a few canisters, systematically goes to the doorways, and seals them up–the metal glowing hot and fusing the metal doors to the frame. “That’ll bottleneck them, so they can only come at us from the hallway.” Indeed, the sound of distant combat is present–shouts, gunshots, and the occasional detonation. She taps her ID badge. “How are we doing with that distraction?”
“Even as dragons, we’ve got our work cut out for us, Joey. Make that portal a slag heap so they can’t bring in more of the endless murder army, please? Because you know, our lives kind of depend on it.” Drenar sounds remarkably calm, even when he’s under fire, and she can’t help but feel proud.
“Right. Let’s get the nav board. It’s part of the escape plan for the rest of the staff,” Lavernius grunts while he pulls the just spliced wires, and unscrews the bolting holding the board in place. He places the intact board in his bag and then hands it to her unexpectedly. “Protect that with your life, Julia.”
“You’re coming with us. That’s not negotiable.” Trying to intimidate him, however, has run its course, and she can see that spark is gone in his eyes, and the weariness all edged into the creases of his wrinkled face. For a man not even pushing fifty, why did he look so old, so…defeated by life?
He shakes his head, and his words come slowly, maybe reflecting on the choices that led him here? “Julia, you’re so young. You don’t know what it’s like to grow old…and know that you lost a long time ago, and are just living for others, so that they won’t be alone.” He pulls out the arcanlink from his pocket and dials a number. “King, you know we aren't going to be able to deliver now. You know that, right?”
“Bernard, I made a promise. I intend to keep it.”
“You can’t do that for this one.” King’s soft exhale is barely perceptible. As if he knew this was coming. “Val knows who I am, most likely.” Lavernius’ uncanny calm is disturbing. “You think I've got any room to hide? I am expendable. You are not.”
“Bernard, there are still options–”
“No, King. We are on our option of last resort now.” King waits for all of two seconds before the blue-tinged holographic displays from the emitter, and King looks at his long-time associate, weighing his response. “Tell them, King. Or I will.”
“You know I couldn't stop you. I don't want to. Not this time.” King, ever the pinnacle of calm and grace, has a hint of remorse in his words, she notes. “Julia, Josephine, there are bigger forces at work than just Asqualia. The Conclave has been preparing for this moment, for the insurrection to take hold, and then utterly crush it and finish putting the boot to the throat of all Kin. Val played right into their hands, or she just doesn't care. She believes she has the upper hand, and will push to get results. No matter how many bodies it takes.”
“And what do you propose, King?” Julia demands. “You broke Drenar's world, you know that? Do you think I've forgiven you for that, just because you're a more palatable evil than Val or Crosomer?”
King stands there, stiffly and glances over to Lavernius. “Say what you will about my methods, but my motivations are pure. There is an ancient battle being played here that is more than Val wanting power. It is bigger than Crosomer trying to undo an event that shattered the mage world, with the majority of the dragons disappearing in a heartbeat. This is a battle for the soul of the world, Julia DeVerdra. One I intend to see to the end. And the Luminaires are the key to winning it.”
Every bit of will she has to tell this man to go screw himself fades in an instant, and she’s at attention. “That’s the organization that Alexander Rashalda led, isn’t it?”
“It wasn’t just him, Julia. There were six Luminaires in the beginning. Two of them are still alive. The rest…their souls endured in their kin. They are the light to guide the way…to a better tomorrow. For all of us. And the battle you must face will be the Conclave itself, because it is killing the planet.”
“King, you’ve tried this already–”
“The Valkyries know the Conclave is rotten, and do nothing. Including their leader. Which is why they can’t be counted on to win this battle.” King lowers his gaze for a moment. “Tell her, Bernard.”
“There’s no going back from this–”
“We’re out of time,” King interjects. Almost as if he knew something was wrong, a radio crackles–it’s the commanding officer, and someone is asking for a status report.
“Is this another one of your stupid plays, King?” Joey demands, having gotten fed up with this charade, and Julia is curling her fingers into her palm. “So far, I haven’t gotten one clue whose side you are on, and my prevailing theory is that your goal is to be the one on top. Likely, by pitting all your enemies against each other!”
“Julia…if you won’t believe King, believe me.” Lavernius takes a deep breath and stashes the bolt pistol away. “We need people willing to change the world because there’s no good ending if the Talons in their present form, or the Conclave are allowed to win in this coming battle. And the only people that could do it, choose neutrality over bettering the lives of all Kin. Including their leader, the Champion of the Valkyries.”
“What about her?” Julia has a sinking feeling she knows what he’s going to say, and Joey knows it too when she draws close. “Who is she, so we can go give a stern rebuke–”
“Julia…your mother is the leader of the Valkyries. She is the Champion.” Bernard states with the most restraint she's heard in a long time...
And just like that, she knew exactly what Drenar felt when his world was shattered.