Zed squatted behind a fallen tree. There was a phantom pain in his leg he was doing his best to ignore as the others stared ahead. Beside him Oliver kept his face disciplined.
“You shouldn’t have teased her so much,” he told Zed, holding back an amused smile.
“How was I supposed to know she’d hit me?” Zed whispered back.
“I don’t know,” Oliver shrugged. “Maybe after the first and second spell missed? I could’ve sworn that was supposed to have given you an idea.”
“Those were light spells,” Zed refuted. “They weren’t going to hurt. She was just being threatening.”
Oliver snorted before turning away from him. “I’m sure the club was just a threat, too.”
The team was squatted behind a fallen tree in the woods. They’d taken a page from Zed’s suggestion earlier on and while they could’ve gotten to the shed in record time, they’d taken their time with a slow stroll so that they got there when it was dark.
A good distance ahead of them was the shed Zed had found Oliver and the others in, where he’d killed his first ranked monster. Instead of the damaged form he’d met it in once upon a time, it was in good condition now. It was an amalgamation of different colors of wood, but it was well patched and properly renovated.
I guess they also know a guy, he thought, staring at it.
In front of them, too far to make any detail out of it, were people walking with weapons. From so far away they looked like hand guns but Zed felt they were too large. From the memories that were not his, he had a vague idea what the maximum size of a hand gun was supposed to be and those were not it. If anything they looked twice the size.
In their hands, however, the people they watched carried assault rifles.
The VHF platoon soldiers wore actual power armor like those found in futuristic games. Their head gears were without faces. Where Zed expected to see perhaps a visor of some kind was simply a smooth metal grey color of the same material as the rest of the armor. It made him wonder how exactly those within the power armors saw what was in front of them.
In the dark night the VHF armors were a cream color like a very dull and dirtied white, some armors larger than others. Each one looked designed for different purposes but carried the same color coding; cream with black highlights where the armors curved or edged or simply dipped in design. It gave them a sleek look that said the armors were designed for both combat and aesthetics.
Each moving armor was at least seven feet tall.
There were armors that were built like athletes, muscled but not bulky, yet still daunting. Some others looked on the skinny side of muscular. It gave the visage of a speedster amongst a race of overly tall men. There were one or two who wore what could be best described as juggernauts, massive suits of armors with excessive armor paddings that made them overly large and bulky. These ones carried no holstered guns, sporting large rune guns attached to their backs and what Zed assumed were high end automatic rifles strapped to one thigh.
“This is meant to be a post-apocalyptic world,” Zed whispered, staring. “Not some futuristic setting. How do they have power suits and starwars guns? That’s fucking sci-fi not magic.”
“The VHF didn’t suffer the effects of the second awakening like most of us did,” Chris explained darkly. “They were ready, prepared. What you’re seeing right now is almost fifteen years of preparation.”
“They did all that with magic and technology?” Zed asked, surprised.
“Yes. And more.”
“What do you mean and more?” Zed stuttered. “Do they have a death star, too?”
“Not a death star,” she answered, then pointed. “Look over there.”
Zed’s gaze followed her finger and he saw nothing in the dark, despite how good his vision was and the soft moonlight that cast a pale blue over the night.
“What exactly am I looking for?” he asked.
“Just keep looking,” she said. “It’s on stealth mode right now but there used to be a bunch of trees over there. If I was going to park something that large I’d park it there.”
As if boastful and more than willing to flaunt its beauty, whatever was hidden from them in the dark came alive.
Countless lines of light lit up across invisible surfaces. Most of them were florescent white, but there were other colors too. A length of green here, a spot of red there. Mostly there were just green white and red.
The lights climbed high until it was riddled over something as tall as a duplex and as wide as four houses standing side by side. A white light drew a rectangular shape in the side of it and a compartment opened to reveal a white interior.
Zed’s jaw dropped.
“They’ve got a freaking spaceship?!” he gasped. “You have got to be kidding me.”
A tall soldier in one of the armors built like an athlete walked down the cargo bay. The back drop of white light from inside the aircraft cast the person in a dark silhouette. The soldier’s suit of armor was of the same design as the others from what Zed could make out but the air with which this soldier carried themself left no doubt for their position in the platoon.
The soldier dismounted from the cargo bay with a thud Zed was sure of even if he couldn’t hear it from across the distance, and one of the bulky armored soldier rushed to meet them. It saluted with a fist to its chest, displaying a flexibility Zed wouldn’t have expected from the power armor. The new soldier returned the salute, relieving it.
After that, the two stood in relative silence long enough to be considered a conversation before the new addition reached up and took their helmet in both hands. The soldier turned it once and lifted. Zed could just imagine the hissing sound it was most likely making as what should be pressurized air was expelled from the gap it made. Most of the idea was in his head but he couldn’t help himself.
“Olympians.” Oliver said, naming them. “Cool, right?”
Zed nodded. “It’s like I’m watching that video game, again, what was the name?”
“Halo?”
“Yes,” Zed smiled. “Halo. It’s like halo meets starwars in an apocalyptic world.”
“Zed,” Ash said from Oliver’s other side, “be quiet. And, Ollie, stop encouraging him.”
The soldier Zed was watching finally took off his helmet and Zed’s expression froze. The man had wild red hair he held up in a free bun just like Zed always kept his hair. It was vibrant and looked as if magic had woven fire and gifted it to him as hair.
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Beside Jason, Chris growled something demonic.
“I’m going to gut him like a trout and make him swallow his rune blaster,” she said almost to herself.
Across the distance Zed and the team couldn’t make out any details on each person, but the red hair under the light of their aircraft was impossible to miss. It was the man’s only identifier and Chris’ voice sounded personal.
“Do you know him?” Zed asked. “Or do you just hate every guy with red hair.”
Chris turned to him. “Why do you say that?”
“Well, you hate me,” he said. “And you just met that guy and you already really, really hate him.”
“I have nothing against red heads,” she said. “And your hair’s auburn, not red.”
Then she turned her attention back to the air craft.
“Or you could’ve just said you don’t hate me,” Zed mumbled to himself, returning his attention to the aircraft. “It would’ve carried the same message.”
Still looking ahead, Chris said in a voice so low it might as well have been to herself. “I don’t hate you, Bloodbath…”
“That’s the nicest thing you’ve said to—”
“…I loathe you.”
“—Aaand I should’ve just kept my big mouth shut.”
They continued watching the platoon, taking in as much information as they could. They counted at least eight power armors in the platoon amongst those that were outside. They couldn’t begin to guess how many of the men might be inside the shed or the aircraft. Considering there were supposed to be people from their town held captive and they couldn’t see them, they assumed there had to be people in the shed. If that was true, then there had to be at least one or two members of the platoon guarding them.
“How many do you think are inside?” Ash asked, giving their speculation a voice.
“One,” Chris said with too much certainty to be doubted. “Someone in an Olympian armor would be more than enough to hold them down.”
Zed deferred to her expertise, and so did the others. It left their count at nine people. It was either that or assume the information they claimed Heimdall had been given about their numbers was false. Zed had the feeling no one wanted to consider the latter since the idea of facing higher numbers was a terror.
The level of information Zed and the team could gather from this distance was pitying, and Jason voiced his displeasure at it.
“We don’t know enough,” he said, frowning. “How many guns do they have? How many are they exactly? For all we know there could be more men on the ship and more than one in the shed. We need more information.”
He got up from behind their cover and Chris grabbed him by the shoulder, halting him.
“You see that aircraft they’ve got,” she said calmly. “The one with all the bright light that prevents you from seeing the runes covering it. Well, it’s pretty much a fighter craft that doubles as a sentry ward. Which means it will spot you before you know it and you’d have the entire platoon on you before Bloodbath can crack a joke.”
Jason frowned at her. “We need more information.”
“And we also need to get back alive. If you trigger the sentry alarms, none of us will.”
Reluctantly, Jason lowered himself back behind the fallen tree and Ash let out a deep breath Zed hadn’t realized she’d been holding. They lulled back into a surveilling silence too thick for Zed to concentrate on surveillance. He was fairly certain the same could be said for the others.
Whether it was for the sake of everyone or for just his sake, he didn’t care to ponder. All he knew was he disliked the silence and needed it to not be so heavy with tension.
So he broke it.
“How possible will it be for us to get our hands on one of those guns?” he asked nobody specific.
“Those are third generation T-69 rune blasters equipped with high caliber rounds and mana stones,” Chris answered. “VHF are the only ones that make them and the cost is astronomical. You can’t get your hands on them.”
“What of the one Jason has?” he asked. “What’s the cost?”
“The same,” she answered. “And VHF already discontinued its manufacturing some years back. Only very few of them exist anymore, and they’re all locked away in VHF armories. An Olympian would rather die than let you have their weapon.”
“Uhm, if all of them are locked in VHF armories, how come Jason has one?” Zed asked.
Chris turned to look at him. “What?”
“You said Jason’s rune blaster was discontinued,” he said slowly, looking at Jason. “Then you said an Olympian would rather die than let you have their weapon. So how did Jason get one?”
“Don’t look at me,” Jason said. “I’ve never killed an Olympian before.”
“Oh,” Zed said, a bit disappointed. There would’ve been a certain level of security in knowing one of them was capable of taken down one of those masses of metal armor. “Then how did you get the gun? Was it just lying in the town’s armory? Because if they’ve got rune blasters they’re willing to just give out, that’s the first place Oliver should’ve taken me.”
“I don’t have one,” Ash scoffed. “So what makes you think they’ll give you one?”
“In case you haven’t noticed,” Zed said. “I’ve got this thing called a witt—”
“This is the only rune blaster we have in town,” Jason cut in before Zed could finish. “And before you ask how we got it, Chris brought it with her. She traded it for permission to stay.”
“I thought anyone could just stay,” Zed said.
“Anyone can, but it’s always good to have a little incentive to sweeten the deal.”
“If that’s the case,” Zed turned surprised eyes on Chris. “For the record, before I continue, I just want to say that I can totally see you killing one of those guys. That said, how’d you get it?”
Everyone’s attention was divided between the shed and Chris, except Zed. Zed’s complete attention was on Chris.
Chris sighed.
“There’s this thing called the black market,” she said. “In case none of you have heard of it, it’s where people who have what they are not supposed to have and are too scared to keep, or possess what they don’t necessarily need, go to sell it to people who shouldn’t have it but are more than willing to keep it until someone who shouldn’t have it but thinks they need it are willing to pay for it.”
“And how much does a rune blaster like Jason’s go for in this black market?” Zed asked.
“A million rune-dollars.”
Zed paused. “You bought a rune blaster for a million rune-dollars?!”
Chris slapped her forehead. “Of course not. If I had a million rune-dollars why would I even be here. I got it off some guy during my travel. I don’t know how he got it, all I know is that he had it and I needed it. Now can we go back to the task at hand?”
Zed nodded, returning his attention back to the shed. He had it, and she needed it.
The implication of her words were not lost to him. He wondered if all of them had killed at least one person and how they’d felt about it.
Zed had been hoping one of them had faced an Olympian before. It would’ve given him more assurances that a battle with these guys was winnable, because from what he’d seen so far, they would put a bullet in Heimdall’s skull before the man could blink.
Zed and the team spent a while longer trying to gleam whatever extra information they could from the distance. They spent another hour in the dark and saw one more person in armor leave the shed before the man with red hair made a gesture and the aircraft’s lights went dark, plunging the world back into darkness. The aircraft camouflaged into the background like something that did not exist.
With nothing else to see, Zed and the team got up.
They were ready to leave when something heavy struck Zed in the chest. Zed felt his ribs cave in as he shot across the distance, flying into a tree that did nothing to help his case. He struck it heavily and dropped to the ground, helpless.
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* You have been dealt a fatal blow.
* You are critically wounded.
* Attribute [Regenerate] is in effect.
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Zed found himself gasping for air as the others slipped into combat mode.
Before them, a power armor stood, a hulking figure perhaps larger than seven feet. It towered over them all with the promise of ruin and it was the herald of everything gone wrong in their lives.
An Olympian had found them.
Ash summoned a shield of water and the Olympian punched downwards. The blow shattered the circular shield and sent her flying back. A blast of light struck its helmet, turning its head to the side and Oliver was already casting a gravity spellform that emerged as a ball of purple light from beneath the suit of armor.
It erupted in a dome of translucent purple that swallowed the Olympian. It held their opponent down for a moment and it was all the time Chris needed. She jumped, propelled by the strength of a mage’s muscles, and slammed her scraggle-bone club down on the Olympian. The Olympian’s reaction to their barrage of attacks was simple. It raised an armored arm and took Chris’ blow against its forearm.
For all the extra strength the club gave, all it did was force the arm an inch lower. Then the Olympian swung his arm free, sending Chris staggering back, and took an easy step forward. It moved as if Oliver’s gravity spell wasn’t having any effect on it and the spell shattered.
Lying powerless, Zed could feel his ribs already healing along with whatever internal injuries he’d gotten from the simple shove he’d taken, but it wasn’t quick enough. He watched the Olympian as he struggled to leave the ground, failing miserably. Powerlessness turned into helplessness as he watched Oliver, Jason and Chris stand their ground against the seven feet tall Olympian. The armor carried no light to see with, and the Olympian’s head remained encased in a helmet with no face. In the dark it was an eerie harbinger of nothing good.
In his helplessness, Zed thought he knew fear. Then the Olympian spoke and proved him wrong. It spoke with an accent but its voice was as was to be expected from someone speaking from within a helmet.
Its words, however, slipped Zed into the true meaning of fear even though it didn’t speak to him.
“The redhead,” the Olympian said, “is coming with us.”