Summer passed into autumn, or as they called it around here, early winter. Winter itself buried Wakefield in several feet of snow, and everyone dug themselves out of drifts up to the eaves of their homes, and life went on.
Spring came, or as it was known hereabouts, late winter. It was June and supposedly summer, and you could still find snow back under the pines if you went looking here and there.
Enrollment in Senpai’s School had tripled, and even some skilled swordsmen or long-suffering lesser Powered who’d been stuck at roadblocks for years had come up to the school to learn from her about how to break their roadblocks.
The thing she was most proud of was sending her first class off to their required service, smirking inside that technically she wasn’t even old enough to undertake such service herself... and everyone assumed she had already passed it, and had served in some hush-hush duties that nobody spoke about.
Most of the training took place in the back yard of the property she was renting, now ringed by a low fence and tall bushes so as not to distract the neighbors, and foil gawkers who would disturb the students. Whether it was Meditation on building up their ki for the fresh young Nulls or the older practitioners who just wanted a healthier lifestyle, it all took place out here, occasionally under the pavilion they’d built to keep off the rain, but the cold wasn’t allowed to stop them, and it hadn’t.
She didn’t have the money to set up a Ring of Blood, of course, but she was capable of sucking the injuries off everyone to herself, and they could watch the bloody transfer take place, and her heal up a gushing bloody wound right in front of them. That it was painful for both concerned went without saying, but it also taught them how to fight when injured and in pain, after being stuck and cut and eye-gouged and kicked in the balls, and with their limbs broken.
It taught them the fighting mindset and tenacity they’d need to have to do well in the world. Even if they didn’t like the pain, even if they screamed, they learned to keep going, keep attacking... they could be healed at the end, but they had to fight for it to happen.
She was sweeping out the dirt from the pavilion at the end of the day, a calming process that got rid of the heightened emotions of thrashing her students over and over, forcing them to learn, to get faster, stronger, better, to even have the hope of beating her.
They were all normal humans, so compared to her, they Leveled with incredible speed, and faster if she beat on them more, punishing lack of focus, of drive, of commitment, and forcing them to live in the here and now, getting rid of all distractions.
If they were distracted, they ended up on the ground unconscious, really fast. She had no patience or understanding for those whose minds wandered during her training...
“Senpai!” Edward called out, his voice holding an odd note of urgency. She looked up sharply, and saw him waving her over. “Something odd is going on to the south!”
‘Something odd is going on’ was alarm bells for anyone with brains in a magical world. She tossed the broom smoothly into its corner as she skated quickly his way, to where he was waiting at the break in the trees.
There was a dark cloud circling in the blue sky there, lightning was crackling around it, and toruses of magical energy in bloody red and bone-white hues were coiling up towards the center of the circle, but breaking apart and falling away as they did so.
She heard the rolling boom of something exploding, distant thunder, and people who had also noticed it above the trees were pointing and calling out.
“Call the firehouse and sound the Magic Alarm! Fuck! Someone broke the old Bane by the mines! There’s a fey catastrophe coming this way!”
Edward had been promoted to Senpai’s Operator during his stay here, and had the important locals on his contacts. He called the firehouse up and fairly screamed the news at them; less than thirty seconds later the roaring alarm was up and spreading over Wakefield.
Sama glared at the distance, and the trees swaying, moving, splitting aside, and they felt the rumble of the earth shaking as something old and powerful moved through it, outraged at the damage to the land and boiling for revenge.
“This is Senpai.” Her voice rang out with ki, and everyone within a hundred yards heard her, especially her students. “This is not general knowledge, but there is an old Bane in the woods, where a Genius Loci was Sealed over four hundred years ago. Now someone has set it free.
“I want everyone in full killkit, and I want you running out of this town. That thing is a crazy-mad loci, and it is going to wipe this town off the map, and everything in it. Get your shit and run!
“My people, you need to be aware that whoever freed it might not be interested in having people get away. The roads out may be blocked, which means you’ll have to fight to get through. Be ready for it!”
Her green eyes were flat and cold, and they were starting to turn blue. Edward saw the gold starting to appear at the edge of her hair, and a Tattooed Mask swarmed across her face, while the savage blue-black lines of a Curse swam up from her back and plastered themselves across the side of her face and neck.
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“Where do you want me?” he asked.
“Get the snowplow out and lead the charge out of town. If there’s people stopping those running, they’ll blow trees and collapse them across the road. Clear the way!”
“Got it!” He ran towards the small townhall and fire station nearby, where the garage for the local snow plow recently stored away was. Everybody knew Old Henry, the plow’s driver, who put in long hours over the winter to keep the roads open and clear, and the old fellow lived on the way there.
Sama’s brown hair was going gold as she picked up speed, moving faster than anyone in town had ever seen her run. As she did, her voice rang out, merging with the alarm, telling them that a Fey cataclysm was coming, to get out of town, or they’d die here...
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She noted that incoming traffic was non-existent, which meant that it had probably already been stopped in the distance.
The old mines were scattered along the ridge and ground southwest of the city, a combination of tunnels and pits and old, empty shafts, out of which millions of tons of ore had been taken at one time to feed the forges of industry. They were long tapped out, and searches in at least one direction had been strongly, strongly advised against.
Hulvik, one of the local Druids, had been wanting to get into her pants, and had let slip that there was an ancient Bane out past the mines, erected by old Shamans or something some time ago, sealing in something incredibly dangerous, so much so that not even the stupider prospectors dared to get close to it.
But that didn’t mean there weren’t people or beings who wouldn’t do so for other reasons.
She saw the first werewolf, its body sprouting mismatched spikes and an extra tentacle, come bounding out of the woods and light into an older couple in its dire wolf form. They froze as it leapt for them, and in a spray of blood, it tore them apart with fangs and claws like knives, morphing into Greater Werewolf form and howling in exultation when it saw the two shocked children standing there.
Sama came over the truck and hit it at a dead run, a swirl of mist sweeping past and through its neck as it bellowed its joy at the slaughter. Its triumphant howl devolved into a frothing crimson gurgle. The force of its breath propelled its head forward off its thick furry neck, and it collapsed atop the corpses of the man and woman it had just slaughtered.
“Werewolf attack!” Sama announced to the world, voice carrying. “Call it and grab your silver! Werewolf attack, call it and grab your silver!” She pointed grimly with the chiming length of Tremble, the notes low and ominous, and the kids, gaping at the gold-edged ebon Sword, broke their paralysis, and with last looks at the corpses of their parents, ran for one of the neighbors who was backing out his car.
Two more werewolves came bounding out of the treeline. Sama smiled eight canines for them, and laughed a Hag’s laugh, cackling glee in every note as she headed their way. Even these corrupted things with horns and outsized limbs and doubled jaws and extra eyes and whatnot paused on hearing that laugh, and the Song that began to swell up and rise behind it.
“TREMBLE, WE COME!” she laughed at them, and they howled in fear and rage and rose to meet her...
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“There’s blockage up ahead!” Old Henry called out grimly. He’d gotten the snowplow fired up remarkably quickly, all things considered, and had put the pedal to the metal to get ahead of the people starting to drive out of the town. His continuous pressure on the horn got the people out of the way, and while he wasn’t the first to leave, he was in the top ten as other cars pulled in behind him to form a procession.
“Ram it!” Edward ordered without flinching. Old Henry closed his eyes and said a prayer to Harse and Mithar, slamming a lever down and dropping the plow.
There were two vehicles stopped ahead of them, a minivan and a pickup. Both had the doors torn open where they were stopped in front of three fallen trees, and from the raised view Edward had, he was pretty sure that there were other cars stopped on the far side.
Steel screamed sparks against the asphalt as the snowplow picked up all the speed it could muster. Edward held onto his seatbelt, his Sword before him, staring as the old man chose his angle of approach and the engine roared with the power to push tons of snow out of the way without failing.
The angled plow hit the two vehicles, swept them up and sent them flying with great crashing bangs of metals and glass. He could distinctly see blood splashed across inside them, and bits of human bodies flew out of them as the vehicles were hurled off the road.
Their crash into the fallen trees was massive, branches snapping and smashing like a thousand boards being sundered, and they both ducked as stray branches smashed into and through the windows. Tons of steel at velocity hit tons of wood lying still, and physics did its best work.
The two tree trunks were slammed into violently, and both men would have gone through the windshield without their seatbelts. One trunk actually cracked violently as it was split, while the other was forced up and away in a rending screech of metal and wood. There was only one car in the way on the other side, turned sideways, torn open and apart, and they barely saw it before the plow hit it broadside. The tormented plow dug into the road, and Old Henry heaved to the right to clear the way as the plow began to tip over.
The plow cut a rough furrow for a good sixty feet before coming to a rest, but behind it, a lane was clear. Even as fiery claws tore through his seatbelt to get him free, Edward could hear the horns and calls of the cars zipping past. They weren’t stopping, because anyone with half a brain could see the stalled cars and the larger-than-human forms among them, and knew that to stop was to die.
Old Henry was hanging limp in his seat, knocked unconscious by the impact, but his gnarled hands were still clutching the wheel of the old machine he’d driven for so many years. Edward reflected that this was probably the safest spot for the old fellow, and used his lightfoot to move up to the driver’s side seat, slam it up and open, and emerge from within the toppled plow, his Brothers still in hand.
Cars were whipping past, and even the werewolves didn’t want to stand in front of that much fast-moving metal. Instead of slowing down when they saw the werewolves, everyone was speeding up even faster, and if the creatures were smashing into the passing cars with clubs and axes or bare claws, those inside just ducked and kept on going.
That is, except for the pickup truck with a bunch of grim men and women bearing swords, which skidded to a halt twenty yards from the trees off to the side of the road, its riders jumping right off.
They saw Edward standing on the overturned plow. He stepped aside, and let the door slam shut to protect Old Henry, such as it could.
The weres saw him, too, especially when he drew his Brothers, and the Sword began to burn...