“Drenar move your ass!” Julia screamed out as she she hauled him to his feet, and shouldered the rifle. “We can forget about Veil Protocol, it's morphing time!”
“We’re in the middle of suburbia!” he shrilled but also didn’t hesitate to start on his own transformation, while the others fought their way against a hail of autobow bullets, and a few alchemical surprises from their foes.
“We’re gonna be dead in the middle of the Jersey suburbia! Which is only slightly worse than having the veil busted!” she was partway into her dragon form when she shouldered that rifle–which now felt someone better-sized for her, and opened up on Val who had just rounded the corner, looking incensed. “Oh bring it, bitch! I got ammo for days!”
She still managed to wobble on her digitigrade legs as the round turned Val into an almost comical ragdoll–except this Disney villainess reject with a musical note to back her up was also turning into a dragon at the same time. Drenar grabbed Julia by the shoulder and worked their way through the back alley, toward the street.
“Your pitiful weapon is sad, all bark and missing sheer trauma! You should just fly like a coward, and not engage in this drama!” Val cackled, even as she threw out a lasso of that infernal purple energy that tore part of a brick wall, just as they rounded the corner into the street.
It was utter chaos. SAF had pulled up in discrete vans had opened fire on Val’s soldiers, who were down a few men and taking cover. SAF agents had no issue in losing their own, and the soldiers were barking out orders and pointed to the group emerging from the alleyway.
“Friendlies in the open, we have civilians we are extracting!” he barked out to the headset now wrapped around his earcrest, and Julia fired off a salvo of plasma at Val, who just seemed to be eating this punishment. Matilda was proving utterly worthless against this superpowered freak, and a few other Talons operatives were trying to claw their way past the alley into the open, with a Nevarran red, a hinterland, and a snow-white dragon that Julia hadn’t seen before. Drenar continued to drive forward along with the rest of the team, and protect Joey and Abigail with his barriers. Angela had picked up the cue and was shielding Rick and Marlene, with Nick trying to get the SAF soldiers rallied.
“Team two, where the hell are you?” Julia barked into the headset. The talons are numerous and making a scene in the public that is going to be the evening news across the entire universe if this is kept up. No response came from them. “Drenar, I can’t reach team two, where the hell are they?”
“I don’t know! They should have met us right here, and there was no gun battle!” Drenar surveyed the situation while keeping Joey and Abigail shielded against unfriendly fire. “SAF, we need to extract high-value targets, we have to go!” he barked out one of the helmeted soldiers, who looked up at the very angry-looking dragon glaring at him, then back at the foes bottlenecked at the alley.
“Go! We’ll cover you! Watch your fire team bravo, we’re in a civilian no-go zone!” he barked out, and Drenar took that as his cue to motion to the rest of the team. Julia in the meantime dug into her ammo pack and grabbed another hefty magazine to slap into the massive rifle. Kyle had been thinking ahead to keep the trigger guard very large, and able to be wielded by dragons. “Radios are out, something is jamming them!”
“Damn it!” Drenar roared. “Julia, we’re making a break for it, back to the teleportal hub! Angela, hold onto those two for dear life, Nick, find out where the hell Levine and company are!”
“Done!” Nick barked out. Meanwhile, Julia fired at the first unlucky bastard to pop his body into firing range with something she hefted using her plasma grapple:
A very heavy dumpster and the man saw it and tried to fire. He might as well have been firing a foam dart gun, and she flung the projectile with astonishing speed.
She had to angle low–a higher trajectory could go through the houses, and the dumpster steamrolled the man, and cracked the brick wall. She was not sympathetic this time around, they’d open fire in a crowded civilian zone, and she hoped to draw them away.
“Oh that was unkind, my dear drake! He was–”
Julia flung a second dumpster at Val as soon as she broke past the alleyway, tumbling that draconic bitch as she smashed through the walls. People were panicking inside and trying to flee–while a few idiots were trying to get this on camera, in the middle of an arcanist gunfight.
She now fully appreciated the meaning of the term ‘too stupid to live.’ She advanced towards Val, having seen how to fight her last time, and shouldered the rifle while she was staggered and let out round after round–popping the barrier and finally scoring a superficial hit on her flank. “Drenar, get the civvies and go!” she roared out and reloaded the magazine while throwing her low-grade plasma to stun the dragons trying to fan out and flank them.
One got cute and tried to close–the snow-white one that she figured would be icy cold. They were not, in fact, an ice dragon, because it tried to spit a viscous goo at her–the nerve of that fiend! She blasted him backward with a jet of plasma that scorched his scales, and instantly popped his barriers. “Julia, fall back and cover us!” she heard Drenar call out, with Joey already on his back, holding on for dear life, and Abigail letting out some kind of sound of joy. Angela was hoisting both Rick and Marlene and bounding up the street, away from the gunfire.
“Drenar, Levine’s team is engaged with reinforcements from the Talons, far side! Get the civilians out, I’ll hold it here!” Nick shouted out as he reached out to his draconic form, green scales and poofy feathers emerging across his body and the SAF soldiers made room for him.
Julia took that as her cue, and leered at Val, still trying to recover and striding forward. She hated the idea they were just letting the monsters walk off, but the Talons were going all-in on getting Rick. Whatever happened if she got to him, was anyone's guess, but she figured it was all bad news.
Seconds later she was airborne in a thrust of gold and teal feathers, and cursing the fact that this was happening again. She saw her mother taking flight from nearby, having been engaging the Talons a block away, and giving her assuming nod. “Protect Drenar! I’ll hold off this bitch. She and I have an unsettled score,” she said in a menacing tone.
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“Don’t get killed mom, she’s freakishly strong, and there is something really wrong with her!” She watched her mother break off to distract Val, who had bulldozed through the gunfire and seemed to be utterly unstoppable. There are terse words heard distantly, but she knows one thing: if there’s someone as steadfast and as unkillable as Val, it’s her mother, or Drenar’s mom…wherever she is.
She focused on getting in a flight formation with Drenar and Angela, and everyone looked grim, but not badly hurt. They weren’t particularly high, and the garrison was only a stone's throw away–about a minute, at best. “You guys okay?” she called out over the sound of air rushing past them. At this distance, all they needed to do was glide back down.
“We’re so screwed,” Angela said with a panting breath. “Val knows we have Rick. She will do anything to find him. And Abigail, if she puts two and two together. Rick, you lied to us.”
“I–I didn’t…”
“We’re not having this argument here, we get back to Nick’s base of operations, and we wait for the others,” Drenar called out over his wing. He’s got that look again. That haunted look, that even Joey sees and feels. Her concern is radiating through the link again.
She can’t blame her. They’ve been in two gunfights within twelve hours, are beaten up, lacking answers, and now, a new crisis is brewing that could mean something truly horrible is happening. And they needed answers, fast. But, Abigail, being held on tightly by Joey, breaks the mood.
“You’re confused? So am I, big dragon kid. And I’m only seven,” Abigail said with a sniff. “Dad, we need to tell them.”
Julia sees that resigned look on his face. Whoever this man is, despite keeping a loving family, he has secrets that could have dire implications.
*** *** ***
The good news was, everyone was in one piece.
The bad news was, no one knew how Val had managed to track down Rick–or perhaps, she had been expecting to get information from his family. Every single individual in this room was looking mighty pissed, and Levine was taking charge of this one. He’d had enough, and Julia worried that he was about to blow a fuse, especially considering SAF had randomly showed up, and claimed they’d heard about the Talons operatives being spotted.
She wondered if someone sent them there to collect Rick, too. And all eyes were on Rick–and Abigail now, who was sitting close by to Joey and Angela. They kept giving glances to each other–nervous exchanges that Julia could almost pick out like the link between them was changing.
Levine points at Rick, to set the pace. “I need a no-bullshit assessment, Richard. You lied to us about your employer—the number one villain of the planet at present. We are fortunate that Val and company withdrew using one-time teleportals the second the Valkyries showed up, but we may not have that luck next time. She will send an army after you. And she will not care about how many bodies she has to pile up to do it. I was there in Asqualia and watched that monster–”
“I get it! She’s done awful things!” Rick shouted. “I sit and guard her door all goddamn day. I know awful things. She keeps bone piles of people who pissed her off. I have been one hair-trigger bad mood away from being a dragon’s snack for two years! And I don’t know why I’m important–”
“Stop. If you don’t care about yourself, then care about your family,” Levine said sternly, as Drenar nodded, looking even more scuffed up than usual.
“Rick, weird stuff has been going on for months. Above and beyond what’s normal for the mage world. I need to know one thing.” Drenar gives it a pause for a second. She knows that narrow-eyed gaze. He has a theory. She’s got one, too, based on what Abigail has said so far. It is an utterly horrifying theory, and she hopes she is wrong.
“I care about my family. You think I don’t?” Rick shot back.
“Rick, you need to answer one question, right now. Joey, let me know if he’s lying, I’m pulling out the stops,” Drenar stated with measured calm. He takes a deep breath, and shakes his head as if he knows what he’s about to ask is going to sound insane. If she were in his shoes, she’d probably feel the same. “Do you hear the mana singing?”
Rick looks at his wife and kid, then back to Drenar, who has gone solemnly quiet. After a second of hesitation, he nods slowly. This is a confession he’d hoped he would never have to make, a secret he likely would have protected at all costs.
“I’ve heard it since I was a kid. People told me the mana could make weird noises, for a few people. Some trick of the mana in the air, they said. I’m not sure why, but…I think it tuned it out, after a while. Muted, indecipherable whispers became white noise. After a while, after…months of therapy, I didn’t hear it anymore. I grew up, got stiffed on an education with no prospect of a job, and worked dead-end jobs in the mage world while trying to raise a family.” Rick looks up, and gazes at Nick’s study room, all eyes on him.
He continued after a slow pause. “My parents were followers of Gaia. they thought I could hear the calling of the goddess. They said it was a blessing, a sign that she was still protecting our world, and alive, hidden away, somewhere. I told them they were liars, and they were crazy. That I was crazy, even, it got easier when I could just…pretend I didn’t hear it. Convinced myself it was some neurodivergence or some oddity of mana in my body.” Julia notes her mother leans in, eyes etched in curiosity. Does she know something, too? If so, it must be pretty far out there.
“Yeah, let’s be real, ignoring a problem is always the best way to solve it,” Drenar states deadpan, and Julia groans softly. He could sometimes be just off the mark, a little bit. “Rick, do you know why you can hear the mana?”
“Or why do the crystals talk to your daughter?” Julia sees the opportunity and goes for it. This is too important to leave to later, and all eyes are on her. “Rick, Abigail can hear the crystals, too. And so can’t one other person that we know of.
“I can. Or, Samarina–my drakensoul, can,” Angela states quietly. “There’s a piece of mana crystal embedded in my heart that we don’t know where it came from, or if it’s a natural occurrence. And I am worried it’s a ticking time bomb to something horrible. So if you know anything, you need to tell us, for Abigail's sake, and mine.”
Rick slumps, all the wind out of his sails. “Marlene and I…we thought she would be fine. Perfectly normal birth, she’s our healthy baby girl, everything was going right for us, just...we didn’t have a lot of money. But–”
“Dad, please tell them,” Abigail said softly. “They want to help her, too.”
“Rick, you have to tell them. Just like you need to tell me, why you worked for such dangerous people, and never said a word to me,” Marlene said, tears in her eyes. “We could have found money elsewhere–”
“No. I don’t think we could have.” Rick exhales softly, and cups his hands to his mouth, briefly. “Three years ago…Abigail started to hear the mana singing. The leylines are pretty close to the surface in Jersey, for some reason. But…then, she said she said she could hear it talking. Whispering to her. The same way it did to me, and it took me years to tune it out, to convince myself I was just crazy, and not…not in touch with something so far beyond my comprehension.”
“When, exactly?” Julia presses.
“October. Three years ago.”
A piece of the puzzle clicks together. It could be a coincidence. But, she suspects, it probably isn’t. That was the same time the Kilntstar'noth was first activated by Crosomer in his rounds of tinkering. And three years ago, was the approximate age of the strange mana crystals that Joey and Kyle had discovered.
Crosomer might have accidentally set this ball in motion, and put a discomforting crack in reality. And that wasn’t their only problem. “Rick, what do the crystals say to you?” Julia demands. “Because Drenar and Joey didn’t find you floating through the aether by chance. Dreanr’s ability–we think–puts him in direct contact with that funky place."
“Gaia is awakening. She’s pushing back against the prison that was placed over her, while the monsters bled the world dry. And that her champion is in this room.” Julia didn’t need to follow his gaze, to know that Angela–down-to-earth, brave, best friend Angela, was suddenly wishing she wasn’t the focus of this discussion.
“I wanna say I filled my bingo card, but…gods damn it,” James sighed.