There’s no biting retort, no sarcastic reflex, no witty counter for her this time. Lavernius is telling the truth, and she knows it. The whole world seems to close around her a little bit, and she grapples with the fact that her mother is the biggest hypocrite in the world. The radio crackles again for the now-deceased officer to pick up. Everything else is two orders of magnitude smaller than this moment.
She’s the Champion? But, that would mean–she dares not think of how she got the title. She already knows that she inherited the title, most likely. Six years ago, in fact. And her mother has been so much more distant since that day.
“Julia, we can’t dwell on this. I get it, it sucks having your life broken like this, but trust me when I say this, I know the feeling.” Joey’s firm grasp on her shoulder shakes her out of her apathy, and Lavernius and King both have taken somber tones. “King, why are the Valkyries so dead-set on neutrality? You’re saying they’re going to sit out this conflict?!”
“They will, unless drastic action is taken,” King says calmly with a tilt of his head, and he glances at Lavernius from the projection. “I have made the calculations, the Conclave will win, and the Valkyries will sit on the sidelines and do nothing. A proud organization has been reduced to rusting inaction–”
“King, you are still the enemy,” Julia snarls with as much fervor as she can muster. “You made your alignment with the Talons as clear as day, you work with Val. A sociopath and an utter monster. She’s on a warpath to get powers I don’t even dare fathom. I’m not dealing with your bullshit anymore.”
“Val is a necessity to some steps of the–” she cuts him off again.
She’s tired of these men trying to justify reprehensible, irredeemable actions. She’s tired of the lies, tired of the proper authorities being utterly worthless, or those who can do something are relegated to the bench. Nick and Levine are likely facing prison for their insubordination. She and Drenar–assuming they even somehow make it out of this alive–will probably go to prison, too, or her mother will put them under lock and key. They won’t have any freedom to do the right thing anymore.
“You know what King, you were right about one thing. Thanks for inspiring me, if Drenar hasn’t already gotten the idea in his head by now. The Luminaires are coming back, and I think you should be the first to tell our enemies that we won’t be deterred by sheer odds! When we’re done beating that nightmare-level bitch into the pavement, don’t think we won’t forget your transgressions here. I’m doing this because I want to, because I’m tired of choosing bad option A, or bad option B. I’m choosing our way.”
Joey stands beside her, hand held firmly on her shoulder. “Damn right, I’ll get behind that. I’m tired of forced binary choices that lead to bad outcomes either way. We’re taking our third option King, and maybe that’s what you want, but it won’t end the way you think it will. You can rest assured of that.”
“Oh, would you look at that, the alchemist has all grown up. I’m honored that I could be the one to help you realize that,” King says with a slight bow. It doesn’t feel like a mocking gesture for once, and Julia glares at Lavernius.
“Your turn, Lavernius. Are you with us? This is your last shot to be on the right side of history. Don’t do it for me, don’t even do it for Kelly. Do it for yourself, if you truly believe we can pull this off. I know we can. And Drenar does, too, even if his stump speeches need a little work.”
Lavernius sighs, in resignation. “Your mother wouldn’t have wanted you–”
“No, I suppose not, but she’s part of the damn problem Lavernius, if the Valkyries haven’t put Val under a gravestone by now. So she can just deal with her daughter having a burning desire to save the world from deplorable people.”
“Brock, pick up the damn radio, Val’s getting pissed! Why the hell is the teleportal not up yet, she wants the place scrubbed and everyone in this place dead and buried!” That report over the radio is going to be a problem real soon, and she points to Lavernius.
“Well? Wanna go stick it to everyone Bernard, and have a prayer of Kelly chewing your ass out but good if we get home in one piece, by some miracle?”
“Julia? You've got a lot of guys coming your way,” James utters over the headset. “Twenty soldiers, one guy clad in some heavy armor, might be an officer. They're investigating the radio silence.”
“Stall them. I'll set this thing up to blow sky high after we’re clear,” Lavernius pries open a panel and starts pulling arcane conduits with precision, as if he knows what to do. “I can overload this platform even without a navigation circuit, I can link it back to the last known ingress point. A backup in case of damage to the portal mechanism. It'll also seriously damage anything on the far side. We need to not be here when it overloads. This is why I hesitated to do this.”
“Gonna kill more of your own guys? Savage, Lavernius. I might almost respect that,” Joey says with the emphasis of a thawing glacier.
“Val's men, technically, and most of them are depraved killers. The world's not gonna miss most of them.” He pulls out a circuit and points to the doorway. “That resin won't hold them, they'll have breach charges.”
“Gonna burn a contingency,” James utters over the radio. “Got a golem coming in via the vent, they'll give you an eye on the hallway. Also, a dragon wizard gave me the keys to the place, check this out!”
There's a grinding of stone and a clank of metal as several of the decorative statues slowly come to life, light blue mana dancing across their skin. Their archaic polearms and crossbows are still functional, and they line up by the door in a staggered formation. “Okay, Julia, I've marked you guys as friendlies, the golems won't attack you, they're focused on the black-clad bastards coming your way. You might want to switch to your dragon form–”
“No, too much heat for a single target, I need to be mobile.” She grabs the autobow and primes the bolts in the magazine with her plasma–these creeps are about to get an unwelcome surprise that they’re not going to like in the slightest. She takes cover by the first row of safety barriers and Joey is busily flinging canisters that stick to the outer periphery of the wall that glow an ominous orange. “Joey, those look like bombs.”
“They are,” she relays. “Trigger runes will detonate on my activation, keep clear of them.”
“They’re on the door in thirty seconds, they know something is up. Better get ready.” James has an ice-cold edge to his voice. He's focused on this now.
“I need two minutes, and then we’ll have one minute to get clear,” Lavernius relays, all while King looks on from the projection of the arcanlink. “Roland…I don’t need to say it but…it has been an honor working with you. For the good of all Kin.”
“Survive and tell Mirabelle that yourself, Bernard.” King’s somber expression tells more than words can. He knows that this will not end well for his friend, before the arcanlink fades. Julia sidles up to cover and tests her field of fire. And her escape plan. Ten-to-one odds are bad, and she would normally be better served in her dragon form, but now, she needs to play tactically and buy space, and time.
“Soldiers at the door. Those statues are on standby. We’ll get one shot at an ambush, I’ll wait till they’re past the doorway. Planting charges.” James has gone deathly calm instead of near panic like he should by now. “Joey, they have heavy weapons in the rear, if you have anything in reserve to do something about that, you’d better do it.”
“Magnesis canisters.” she flings a few of them close to the door, and they seemingly fade from view. Julia has no idea what they do, but it won’t end well for the Talons. “Fabric armor won’t stop a mage steel bolt.”
“Good to know.” Julia tenses and positions her weapon on the edge of the wall and doesn’t flinch when the explosive charge destroys the resin without much effort. Troops begin to walk in with rifles and autobows drawn, sweeping the room and pressing forward, past the statues that are motionless.
James relays one last piece of information. “Julia, last guy, heavy armor. He’s got a machine gun, Looks like a freaking ma-deuce. I don’t know how well mage barriers hold up against a .50 caliber weapon, but he's the biggest threat." The men sweep towards the teleportal, not seeing Lavernius working on an access panel below the flooring from their angle. One of the soldiers lowers their rifle to look at the statues seemingly frozen in place, and scratches his head.
“Hey guys, were these things here earlier?” he asks, and all of them freeze up. Julia doesn’t hesitate and fires at him first. The bolt pierces his arcane barrier and pins him square in the chest, and he goes down with a gurgle.
Just like clockwork, the constructs all come to life, and ambush the soldiers with poleaxes, swords, and a few with crossbows. The carnage is immediate as three more join the fallen one. Julia would lament that she had killed yet another soldier, but the time for restraint is done as another one joins him on the floor, three bolts sticking out of his torso, and one through his lung. These mage barriers are no match for her plasma-tipped bolts, and now they open fire on her, after having gotten a fix on her position.
Joey has the solution after her hand goes alight with mana, and the canisters go bright orange, like small suns. Julia ducks as the detonation wipes out a few more, and she hears the tumble of corpses thrown by the detonation. She dares not to see what’s left of them and darts to the next bit of cover, falling back closer to the teleportal, firing as she goes. The magazine is empty and she reaches for the next one in her vest, slapping in the magazine and giving the puller a mighty tug, even as bolts ping off her barrier. It’s dangerously deteriorated, and she hugs the wall as the heavy armor knight provides cover fire, peppering the area with deadly weaponry that chunks the golems, and the masonry.
The absurdity isn’t exactly lost on her, with a giant mook in heavy armor firing like he’s a video game boss, and she dives behind more cover as he tries to track her movement, peppering heavy rounds that get dangerously close. Most of his comrades are down for the count, and how is this guy still firing?! How big is that box of ammo on his weapon, or why hasn’t the weapon jammed from overheating?
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“Julia, take him out!” Joey dives for cover after firing two canisters at the man with what almost looks like a miniature grenade launcher. A liquid detonates on his armored breastplate and starts smoking. He screams and grabs a vial off his belt and flings a white powdery substance over the liquid–a caustic agent to counter the acid, perhaps?
She doesn’t wait to find out, and those hidden canisters activate in a blaze of energy and fling out silvery beams of light, locking onto the metal of his armor and pulling taut, pulling him backward and away from the center of the room. Julia sees her chance and summons energy to her core before flinging her like a tsundere rocket at him, landing a kick that sends him reeling. The closer he’s pulled to the canisters still embedded in the ground, the stronger the pull, and he tries to swing his firearm like a massive hammer, and she gracefully ducks. Left, right, she dodges those hammer falls while he holds that massive .50 caliber beast like a primitive club.
He’s too slow for her as she sends out a surge of plasma, incapacitating him and allowing her to jump up and on him, smashing his helmeted face with repeated blows, and staggering him. Meanwhile, the canisters eventually pull him over and he topples, but she stays right on top of him and smashes that helmet off his face, seething in fury.
How many people are dead because of these monsters? She grabs his unhelmeted face and sends a charge of plasma through him, until she can smell cooked meat, and those screams become shrill and inhuman. One last hammer blow finally puts the man out of commission, and the last of the damaged golems are barely functional. She grabs the heavy weapon and hustles back to the teleportal.
Don’t focus on the trauma you inflict. Focus on the lives you protect. Breathe deep Julia. You’ve got this. Some stragglers try to force their way past the blown-out doorway, but she braces the gun against the corner wall and keeps the area denied. Her shoulder and body ache from overexertion, and she lets out a fierce roar. They will not take a step into this room, and she’s going to make sure these monsters are answered in turn for every life they take, and every nightmare they inflict on the defenseless.
The beating heart of a Luminaire resides in her, and no one can take that away from her, and now they’re terrified of coming into the room.
“Julia, Joey, they’re falling back, but I don’t know why. Switching angles!” There’s a brief pause, and there’s a gasp of horror from him on the line. “It’s…oh shit…A woman in heavy plate armor is breaking off from Drenar’s distraction, and she’s bringing a contingent of heavy soldiers and she looks like she’s planning on some murders. You need to finish up and get out of there, NOW! It’s Val, and she’s looking deadly!”
“Lavernius, how close are you?!” Julia roars over her shoulder.
“Almost done! Twenty seconds!”
“James, twenty seconds, is that enough time?”
“Barely, she’s making her way through the halls–I’ll stall them, but I can’t stop them with these golems!” There’s a distant clank and what sounds like a whoosh of flame, and screams. She sincerely hopes Val just friendly fired her troops. “Julia, fall back now, the vents connect to the central office area! You can use them to get to Drenar and the rest! I’m sending the waypoint to your armband!”
“Got it!” She grabs a smoke orb and flings it at the doorway to provide cover, even as intermittent fire comes through blindly. Lavernius has dumped a canister of glowing material into a feed system by the teleportal access panel, and there’s a violent response from the machine.
“It’s done! We need to be out of here in sixty seconds, or we’ll be disincorporated!” She gazes upwards at the shimmer in the air as the teleportal activates, but this has a violent purple outline. Whatever is about to happen, she doubts her immunity to plasma will protect her from this. “Joey, Julia, get moving!”
“Not without you!” she screams out. “I am not leaving here for you to be a martyr, you are going home to see Kelly and Mirabelle, do you hear me?!”
“No, Julia. I won’t. I need to make sure they don't disarm this.” He grabs the heavy weapon and points it at the smoke-filled hallway, eyes focused with deadly intent. “Live today, to see tomorrow. You’ve got the heart of a warrior in you, Julia and Joey. I know why King does this. Despite your hatred of him…he’s a good man forced to do terrible things. I pray you do not have to learn this lesson the same way we did.”
“Damn it, if I have to drag you into that vent–” Her words falter–why is he willing to die for this? “Think of Kelly. Think of your family, please!”
“I have. If they think I’m dead…they won’t have any reason to pursue them.” he pauses to hug her, in one final farewell. “Keep Kelly safe. I know what she’ll do when she learns of this. She’ll try to avenge me. Keep her following in my path, Julia. Even though it’s more than I can ask of anyone.”
This is goodbye, isn’t it? She knows it by the tone. He’s determined to see this to the end, fighting for the staff of Asqualia. Even at the end, he’d stayed true to his word, and that violet shimmering sphere sparks and arcs with a high-pitched hum, painting the chamber in scintillating shades.
“Lavernius…Maybe I was wrong to judge you and King. But what do we do?” Joey asks, trying to tug Julia to the duct. He breaks focus from his weapon long enough to look at them, and nods solemnly. Julia hands him her fire orbs, and he pulls a pin at the ready, the autobow supported on a railing.
“Do what the Luminaires did before. Stand for what’s right. Defend the defenseless. Be a light to guide the way.” The fact that he knows these things, means that King had done his homework. “Now go.”
And for once, maybe he isn’t being manipulative. Maybe he is interested in the long game to ensure neither the Conclave wins, nor Val gets her keys to godhood. Joey is still tugging at her, but she feels rooted to the spot.
“Julia, we have to run! I don’t want to lose any more friends today!” Joey pleads, and shakes her out of it. She feels that connection, and can feel Joey’s unwavering bravery, in the face of those who had stormed her home.
I don’t want you to lose a friend, either. They turn and dash over to the access vent, where she tears it away with brute force, and they scrunch inside, the bright violet light growing brighter and more ominous. They haven’t gone far when a massive explosion blows apart the wall, and she can hear those slithering words of madness.
“Who comes for you, you mewling Kin? Just a dragon, come stomping in! You should all fear this final hour, for your limbs, too, I shall devour!”
“Go to hell, you musical school reject!” Lavernius screams out, and Julia dares not look back as the heavy machine gun goes off, and fire orbs detonate. This determined defense is met with maniacal laughter. She darts forward and practically drags Joey at speed through the vent, they have to get clear!
“Oh that tickles, you pathetic whelp! Let’s try with–ow, that is unkind! Perhaps I’ll peel you like an orange rind!”
There’s a scream–a blood-curdling scream that sets Julia’s teeth on edge even as they dart through the intersections, and Val’s maniacal laughter in the background. There can’t be more than fifteen seconds left.
“Joke’s on you, bitch! Enjoy your courtesy prize vaporization!” Lavernius screams out in a mixture of pain and laughter. There’s a scream of rage, then the scrabbling of claws and heavy metal boots as the soldiers flee the destruction.
“Keep moving!” Joey screams as they scrabble with another vent cover, and Julia kicks it with all her might. Joey times it and they both kick it in, the metal cover flying inwards, and she pulls her forward and past the wall. She covers Joey with her body and puts her arcane barrier up with as much power as she can muster.
The shrill pitch of the portal breaks–and then a booming wave of violet energy blasts out of the vent and there’s a sound of carnage on the far side, and then a violent pull backward into the vent that nearly sucks her in. She holds firm against a heavy desk, her arcane barrier flaring and she feels burning pain all across her limbs, keeping Joey safe from the violent blast. The suction stops and the motes of violet energy float in the air–it’s a dead silence other than the sound of collapsing brick and distant metal twisting. She feels her strength give out, and she slumps to the floor.
Kelly’s father is dead. Val is hopefully dead. Their only chance at getting everyone out of here alive is gone. All her strength could do nothing to save him, and she looked at the bloody streaks on her limbs–her arcane barrier had failed, and her skin is blistered in places on her arms and face. Reaction finally takes hold, and she holds her arms tight against her chest, and the tears come…not from pain, but from sorrow. Not for lives taken…but for lives lost.
“I couldn’t save him.” It's the only words she can manage to get out, and Joey is quick to wrap her arms around her tightly. All the strength in the world, and she couldn’t save one damn person. “How many more are we going to lose tonight?!”
“We’re not losing anyone else, Julia. Not on my watch.” It’s not just her imagination, she can feel the pain in Joey’s heart, too-the conflict of seeing Lavernius as both enemy and friend. A man who had spent time on both sides of this conflict, and ultimately made the right choice in the end, at the cost of his own life. I’m not losing any more friends tonight.
She wraps her arms tightly around Joey–and knows that there’s someone else hurting just as much as her tonight. And they’re all going to get through this, together. She ignores James and Drenar screaming into the radio, asking if she’s alive. She ignores the sounds of gunfire.
She needs this moment as her last moment of weakness before the impossible task at hand can be done.