Bully, the eight-foot-tall muscle sponge of a humanoid bull, burns ice cold as spears freeze into her hand. Coldness radiates in the air. The chill fights back the sweat forcing its way through my hair. Battling the coldness for supremacy is foggy shadow mana. The dark fog blocks any light, further plummeting the temperature into coldness. So maybe not so much a battle for power as it is showmanship.
Regardless of the copious amount of various mana elements threateningly flashing before us, Bully the Cold Bull is launching another spear. This time Fen takes a direct defensive position and stands in front of me with both kite shields planted firmly into the ground. While I appreciate her efforts, the defense-enthusiastic spider is sort of in my way.
I accept the gift horse's mouth and fight off the onslaught of every other element not fired directly at us. My swords precisely cut through the air in a rotation of fox chasing chickens, tiger devours llama, and fish flies into dragon's mouth motions. It's a blur of awesome nonsense enhanced by the weight of my will to cut through anything that gets nearby.
Boulders shatter on my blades that flow through the rocks like they are slicing through water. Ice dissipates, mixing with the diminishing flames. Explosions are forced back into the approaching demons. Overly aggressive monsters are burned by the steam now radiating around us. Golems and skeletons are torn asunder in their advance.
I feel the clutch of shadow grasping onto Fen and me trying to lock us down. I push my shadow mana out, forcing the invading mana to relent. It takes the entirety of my secondary and passive focus to keep the shadow at bay, while my primary focus keeps my swords slicing everything.
Bully begins charging at Fen. I know I should trust the spider to handle the raging bull. My worry overcomes my confidence. Bully's charge turns into an ice-propelled skating calamity.
"Switch!"
Fen has no disagreements with my command, and we rotate just in time. A massive bone pike is summoned, which I hold firmly on the ground and angle toward the gliding bull. Bully's eyes grow wide in concern and even wider when she is impaled. Her eyes are still wide as her head drops to the ground.
Shite me standing. I curse my aggressive decapitation and mourn the loss of a potential reanimated corpse. We could have used her… Maybe it will still work… pale energy is sent up the pale spike, claiming the headless Bully to the ranks. She's an awkward corpse, sure, but she adds an element of chaos to this battle, so we'll take it.
With a fine boot, I deliver Bully into the advancing demons and command her to rage. The message is clear, and the bull swings wildly, threatening all the space around her. Bully's reanimation alleviates a little pressure. Fen and I keep retreating.
We switch positions often; I take on the bigger problems, and she handles the pesky peppering spray. Shadow is nipping at our heels, and I find myself looking for the source with every chance I get. We're about a quarter of the way back up the hill and still surrounded by endless demons. Worse, the sky is now crowded with shrillers, wyverns, and other winged beasts. We're overwhelmed.
Fen struggles to keep up with the pace of the fight and the retreat. She is down to one kite shield and a buckler she can barely hold up. We need to change tactics. Quickly I dispatch three demons and recruit them. Once they are delivered into the mob, I create a thick wall of bone plating encasing Fen and me.
"You wouldn't believe this, but I learned this strategy when we were captured by you and your spiders," I try to comfort the wheezing spiders by using entirely wrong words. That's the price you pay for living in the present… or past.
"Didn't we capture and kill you?" Fen's gasping words sync nicely with the crashing booms on mana colliding with my defensive shell. The arachnoid looks nearly dead, her limbs are limp, and she has several large gashes across her body and face. The sweat covering her brow is barely covered by her tattered-long purple hair. That and her chiseled dark face give her a cold aura.
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I take a moment and pump some healing into her. The head injuries are the first to heal. Next, I focus on her broken limbs and direct the healing energy toward them. While I'm healing her, I double down on my comforting attempts.
"I like to believe we were only captured because I didn't use the turtle strategy. And this is only a small correction. I'm embarrassed to even mention it… Bones is the one that did the actual killing. You and your sisters were too busy trying to eat me to actually finish the job."
Thankfully, Fen ignores my correction. "You mean you have never tried this before?"
"If it makes you feel better, in all the mental scenarios I ran Turtle Shell through, it had a one-hundred-percent win rating. Though I did have to kill Bones several times." My words are wrong again, evident by the growing concern on Fen's face. That could also be due to the cracks in the shell starting to show, which I expertly seal. "To be fair, it was mostly his choice. Boss sort of has a martyr complex that he's developing."
"So, we sit in this shell until I ask you to kill me? Is that your win scenario?" The confusion and concern are evidently apparent. Not that I blame her. The circumstances and her company are entirely to blame. That and the crowded space.
"Right, I can see how you'd think that. The fault is my own." A rather large explosion, followed by another explosion and divisive cracks, interrupts my speaking. I patch the problem and get to the point. "How much longer can you keep up the fight?"
"I will defend you until I draw my last breath," she says dramatically and similarly to what Bones says in all my scenarios.
"Right. Right. Thanks. Your sacrifice is appreciated and very much not needed. If I die, we might lose. I don't really think so, though; neither does Gene. If you die, I lose. You are the goal. You and your sisters. We need you to stay alive and get through this."
"In the scheme of things, my life does not matter."
"Fen. Fen. Fen... We all matter in the scheme of things. No one wins by letting their light go out."
"Someone has to lose Li." Fen no longer looks worried. Her concern and fear are replaced with the determination and resolve of one who has accepted their own end. I blame Bones' freaking martyr complex. It's contagious if not contained.
"Someone has to win, Fen, and it might as well be us." I didn't want to get caught up in a bunch of death again, but I also knew that I would end up here eventually. It just happened a lot sooner than I expected, even with all of Gene's scheming and training of the spiders.
"Look, there are a lot of demons that don't belong here and are just looking for some easy gains with little risk that they can carry back home to their demon realm. I'm gonna send them all back to their hell hole, but I can't do that with you…." I flipping run out of words at the worse time.
"In the way…." Fen picks up where I dropped.
"Not in the way, but I can't have you here when you've already given it your all. So, I guess… in the way. But not like that…" I trail off.
"It's fine, Li; you can leave me in the shell while you fight. Just make sure to slay them all and save my sisters." The smashing against our shell is nonstop, and it is getting harder to hear our conversation.
What? Leave you here? Fen, Fen, Fen. I shake my head to accentuate my disapproval. No spider gets left behind. You will not be left in the shell… Well, not this shell, and I'll be taking you and your new shell with me. How tight can you comfortably ball up?
Hold up. All of Fen's courage shows a small crack. Tell me the rest of the plan before I become more entombed.
That's fair. This is a three-shell part plan. The outer shell we are in, the middle shell we will also be in, and the inner shell which you will be in. I explain the shells like they make perfect sense. I can tell I have little buy-in, so I have to put more words down.
The first shell is going to go boom. It is a trick I learned when I loaded Bones up with too much mana. Not that you need to know that. The boom creates space. The second shell uses space to retreat back down the hill, creating more space. The inner shell keeps you safe as I rampage back up the mountain, killing everything in my path.
I sense the appropriate amount of hesitation from Fen when she learns the entirety of my plan. Nowhere in her reluctance is a firm no. I even ask to make sure I have full consent with the new plan Shell of a Shell… scratch that. The new plan is Hell in a Shell. I send the plan title over to Fen because it is crucial to be on the same page and begin creating shells.