It proved to be easier than expected to explain away what had happened. Uriel and Waylan already suspected that there was more to Syl’s power than he had explained, but they were also aware that Bianca was a possibly generational talent. Combined with the fact that the Reserve group had been able to weaken the ambush force, it was within reason that Bianca and Syl had been able to pull something out of their back pockets to win it.
More importantly, most of them were just glad to be alive. Four students were dead—Lawrence and Nora from the Reserve, Wyatt and a student Syl didn’t know named Veronica from the undergradautes. Two more were in critical condition—Allen, who was suffering from burns across his entire body thanks to a flux overload and Ashley, who had been shot and partially drowned. Everyone who had been in the advance party was injured, Uriel and Waylan included.
Syl did at least confirm that there likely weren’t any others here. After eliminating and capturing the remaining magicians, the seal spell on the Gate had gone down, indicating that one of the magicians who’d ambushed them had cast it. Since that had been a master-class spell, whoever cast it would have been at a notable disadvantage while fighting thanks to having to dual cast while using up flux at incredible rates. The fact that they’d fought anyway indicated to Syl that there were no further magicians, and a cursory sensory sweep seemed to agree with him.
Fortunately, most of the paperwork wasn’t going to be on him. Their first priority after lugging the prisoners and wounded back was to evacuate the Gate as quickly as possible, which was made easier by the sudden influx of the rest of the Circuit team. Once the seal went down, the highest-power magicians from the Reserve stormed in. They’d seen the Gate close off in real time and had prepared to strike the moment it had gone down.
As it turned out, they missed the actual action. Still, the organization of the Reserve was such that after a few barked commands by the leadership, they pivoted entirely to evacuation. Syl could give Aurian military organization some credit. At least they were capable of triaging and medevacing the students who’d been hurt the worst. By the time he was finally out of the Gate, he saw hovercraft with clearly indicated hospital iconography on them.
Not that it would help in an actual battle, he thought. These were regulation medevac craft—very useful for the purposes of getting wounded soldiers out of a fight and also a high-priority target for any magicians who happened to have a spare tactical-class spell on their hands. By international regulation, targeting medical craft was a war crime—but so was the application of spell jammers, and Syl knew damn well how well that went over. People only started caring about what counted within the rules after the dust was settled.
Dealing with his two captures was a bit more annoying. He’d stripped them of their weapons and FCDs, pocketing a particularly high-tech pistol for himself, but there was still the matter of getting rid of them. Syl opened the text interface on his FCD.
[RANK HIDDEN] Syl: Found the attack you were warning about. Sanguine + what I’m reasonably certain are shallow cover Cascadians. Seven total, five now dead, two unconscious. Do you have jurisdiction?
[RANK HIDDEN] [NAME HIDDEN]: Central command is already in my ear. They want the “water mage.”
[RANK HIDDEN] Syl: They’re still trying to protect the veil? Seems to be getting increasingly pointless.
[RANK HIDDEN] [NAME HIDDEN]: Seems so. Not my place to question it. Special forces get control over special ops. This doesn’t count.
[RANK HIDDEN] Syl: Delaying the inevitable only hurts them.
[RANK HIDDEN] [NAME HIDDEN]: It does. Our preparations are in place already. Incarnate stands?
[RANK HIDDEN] Syl: You know that better than I do. I’ll attend to this situation myself. Stay updated.
[RANK HIDDEN] [NAME HIDDEN]: Received. Sending a transport over.
Sure enough, after twelve students with varying degrees of injuries had been whisked off by paramedics and a separate group in an all-black vehicle entered the Gate for body retrieval, a separate official emerged from the same place, casually displaying her power as she hovered towards where the students who had yet to be dismissed were.
“General,” the remaining Reserve members said in unison, saluting her and standing.
“General,” Syl echoed, inclining his head. He did not stand, instead refreshing the spells rendering both of his captives unconscious. In addition, he placed the finishing touches on a couple of extra spells, all of them to facilitate a simple protective one. It wouldn’t hold up under heavy fire, but he didn’t need it to. All he needed was for it to go unnoticed, which his spells
The last time he’d seen strategic-class magician and two-star general Allison Violet had been when when she had come to question him after he had resoundingly beat her son Drew in a duel. If Syl had thought she had looked ready for a fight then, she was moreso now.
As befitted a strategic-class general, she had several layers of both perception and absorption-type spells surrounding her, searching the area for further ambushes and preparing herself for the possibility of a sudden attack. Syl tamped down on the sudden spike of jealousy that she could casually passively cast more spells than he had processes to work with. That wouldn’t be productive for anyone.
She addressed a group of six; Bianca, Syl, and a portion of the survivors of the group that had walked into the ambush. They were, Syl noted, the only people who had seen exactly who was on the enemy side. The others who’d been there were either dead or hospitalized.
“What happened today was an unforeseen tragedy,” she said heavily.
Lie, Syl thought. He was unsurprised that General Violet would be the vector for this, though he was surprised to see that they had bothered to use a strategic-class magician to get the point across. The perks of being at First Academy, apparently—Auria chose stronger magicians to make up stories to you.
“This senseless act of violence was unexpected and could not be prepared for.”
Lie. Syl could see how the three Reserve members grimaced ever so slightly at that. As members of one of the organizations that had gotten the warning, they had to know that this was damage control. How much they individually knew, he could only speculate. Given James Rokho’s general distaste for the situation and Syl’s own knowledge of the prismatic families, he assumed that Uriel and Waylan both knew a good deal more than they let on. Ashley, who was from a branch family, likely knew some, but she’d been wounded enough to require immediate hospitalization.
You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.
“We have reason to believe that members of a terrorist organization known as Sanguine tampered with measurement equipment to make a tactical-class gate appear to be much weaker than it was,” the general continued.
Lie. Syl had to admire how much she sold the idea that she believed it. Then again, that was basically a prerequisite to rank high in Auria’s magical forces.
“Rest assured that your bravery did not go unnoticed. Thanks to your efforts, terrorist efforts to eliminate Auria’s best and brightest failed. These attackers will face justice, and their extremist organization will meet the full force of our magic.”
That was possibly the first truth she’d told, though like all truths Auria begrudgingly used, it was incomplete. Judging from the way Waylan couldn’t quite hold back his frown, Syl wasn’t the only one irritated by that.
“General, if I have permission to speak?” the third Reserve member—Steven, Syl recalled—asked.
“Speak.”
“We’ve, um… heard about Sanguine before,” he said, trying to dance around the fact that the Reserve had, in fact, been warned. “Those last guys… they weren’t Sanguine, were they?”
“The record will show that they were,” the general said.
The first full truth.
“Recover your flux and tend to your injuries. A funeral will be held for the deceased within the week. You are dismissed.”
The poor undergraduate looked shell-shocked. Syl guessed that this was the first time she’d seen any real violence. Somebody lucked out during the war.
Uriel gently guided her away alongside the other Reserve, returning to the buses that they’d come in from.
“Bianca Ashwood and Syl Auria,” General Violet said.
The two of them, expecting this, had not moved yet. Syl met Bianca’s gaze briefly. She rolled her eyes and sighed.
“You are not who you seem to be,” she said simply.
“You seem very open about what you say,” Bianca said. “Do you only stop caring when you are not lying for Auria?”
The general’s flux shifted, one of her spells fluctuating out of existence.
“I would advise that you tread carefully,” the strategic-class magician said, the raw manifestation of her magic weighing down on them, invisible pressure magnifying her presence. “I am well aware of what spells are cast here, Ashwood.”
The way she said the name made it very clear that the general was at least somewhat aware of who Bianca actually was.
“Threats are beneath you, General,” Syl said lightly, pushing out with his own magic.
Using Ruin had burnt out a chunk of his magical circuits, but a lack of spell processes did not necessarily mean a lack of power. He was just as well versed in non-structured magic as he was in spellcraft, and he still had a good amount of flux to spare.
There were multiple problems with simply using raw flux as a suppressant. First, it was inefficient; why use raw flux when there were a dozen low-class spells that could achieve a similar effect? Furthermore, it also increased the risk of miscasting if the person doing it then attempted a new spell while their raw flux was just circling them. Also, it was an easy way to reveal how powerful you were, which was not something you wanted to broadcast if you weren’t sure of your superiority over the other.
Essentially, the only purpose to do it was to establish dominance.
Seeing a student, General Violet must have figured that even a prodigy like Bianca wouldn’t have the flux capacity to counter raw magical pressure. Syl doubted he’d even entered the equation.
Thanks to a variety of factors, his emotions had been dulled for some time now, but even he had to admit to a vicious satisfaction when he simply threw off the flux like a heavy blanket.
It wasn’t even hard, not even with his reserves as depleted as they were.
“What?” the general asked, confused. Seemingly by instinct, she drew her FCD, a short baton-style device with a spiral of crystals at its tip. “What are you?”
For the first time, Syl saw an emotion in the general that hadn’t been carefully crafted and practiced. This was someone who was used to operating within parameters, even in the midst of chaos. She knew how to follow orders, and had done so to great effect during the third world war—what she didn’t know was how to react to someone like Syl. A true wild card.
“That’s not for you to know,” Syl said. “Let me guess. You were here to pick up the Cascadian?”
“There is no Cascadian present,” General Violet said, settling back into the role she was meant to play. “Cascadia and Auria are at peace with each other and have a strong non-aggression—“
“Stop,” Bianca interjected. “Save your words for those who believe them, General.”
“A Cascadian magician that shouldn’t be here,” Syl said. “I suppose you would deport them? Save their government a few uncomfortable questions in exchange for a favor or two? An extension of our ceasefire, maybe?”
The uncomfortable shift in the general’s posture told Syl that he was probably right on some of those points. It was more likely that she simply didn’t know. A lower strategic-class magician wasn’t important enough to involve in the secret negotiations that this would entail, and a magician didn’t become a two-star general without learning to look the other way.
“That’s not going to happen, General,” Syl said. “If you need to relay a message to your superiors, tell them I did their job for them. If there are no Cascadians here, there’s no reason their government should question the sudden absence of three of their magicians.”
While the general was still off-kilter from his magic, he drew the pistol he’d stolen and shot the unconscious Lance twice in the head.
Blood exploded from the impact point, and the body jerked before abruptly going still.
As a veteran of the deadliest war in history, the general did not flinch, but she did curse in the way that one did when they knew they were going to have to file a lot of forms.
“There,” Syl said. “No more issue with prisoner transfer.”
As if on cue, the sound of a supersonic transport slowing down to a sudden stop reached them, a thunder-crack ruffling Bianca’s hair as a familiar special forces jet decloaked not a hundred meters above the beach. A bay opened, preceding two fully suited-up strategic-class magicians. Neither of them were identifiable as such—their power armor made it so that it was difficult to even tell them apart, let alone that they were powerful magicians.
“SDU-9 reporting,” a distorted voice said, identity hidden by the sound-warping magic built into the suit. “You should’ve been informed of our arrival.”
The general looked like she’d bitten into a particularly sour lemon. “I was.”
“The Sanguine prisoner is ours,” the operative said. “And… I do believe the agreement was that central command gets one live prisoner. This one seems dead, so I’m going to void that agreement and take it with me. You can have the other one, if you’d prefer, but I don’t think Command particularly wants to interrogate a second-rate terrorist.”
The chagrined look on the general’s face hadn’t changed. She seemed unaware of the fact that the Cascadian was still alive and that the blood had been part of a conjuration spell set to activate upon Syl’s protection breaking. If she’d been focusing on the “dead” prisoner, she might have noticed, but her focus was shot right now.
“That won’t be necessary,” General Violet said. “I have completed my duty here.”
“General,” the same operative acknowledged, saluting before gathering up the unconscious prisoners with a wall of force. “Thank you for your time.”
Both operatives rose into the air, firing movement-type propulsion spells from their packs to force themselves into the air. They returned to the ship without any further incident, and then they were gone.
General Violet left without another word.
Bianca sighed. “I had hoped that would be less bloody.”
“Is what it is,” Syl said. “It’ll be bloodier by the end.”
His FCD buzzed.
[RANK HIDDEN] [NAME HIDDEN]: Well handled. It won’t hold up for that long, but it’ll be enough for us to get the necessary information.
[RANK HIDDEN] Syl: Excellent. Let me know if there are any more imminent threats on our lives.
“You’re just heading back?” Bianca asked, watching Syl as he started walking back. “That’s not your style.”
“Scorching the earth wouldn’t do much more than spill more blood,” Syl said. “I’ll deal with them if and when they come. That fight gave me some ideas. I have some engineering to do.”