„Run, I can escape them to the front“, I try ordering Ulrike, Dejan and Thomas. They likely cannot hear me as at the same time a 30mm chain gun opens fire and its explosive ammo is scattered. A splinter grazes my left thigh on the inner side very close to areas really dear to my heart. I drop to the ground. The entities have surrounded the Stryker. I am not in a state to do something about them. Dejan is on me having opened his first aid kit. Before I can obey his order to apply pressure to the wound with the dressing he is trying to hand to me. A Stryker spinning around all three axes of space passes so closely over us that we would be killed were we standing upright. Its engine and weapons have fallen silent. A whirlwind dispersing the output of the smoke grenades develops in under two seconds.

We are getting help. Beams of white light come from the river hitting the entities now so high in the sky surrounding the APC that the line of fire from the river is easy. Blue beams from two people standing next to a BMW on the other side of the river join the barrage. The Stryker explosively disassembles. A flying man whose torso forms an equilateral triangle catches one of the crew.

This is not a time for hesitation. I retrieve a health potion looted from Rademacher’s corpse. His potions have a screwed on lid. That takes time and my aura ability to unscrew it, while my other hand is doing double duty pressing on a bandage and validating the unscathed nature of an anatomical feature.

We cost the superheros. The mermaids decide to reinvent themselves. One turns into a gigantic frog promptly launching itself into the air. The second turns into something that is practically all tentacles, its true anatomy hidden by the water of the canal it is completely immersed in. The third turns into a reptile, but not a lizard, but something with it legs going straight down from its hip and shoulders, with whole bundles of spikes on hips, back, shoulders and head.

The lid is finally off.

The customary pain hits. Here now I must make a remark. A health potion heals. It is not an analgesic. Being healed hurts if it acts upon a substantial wound. So as I am again ready to face the world and roll over to peek at the scene of distruction, things have changed. I am looking at a ship that is absolutely done for with a gigantic frog sitting on its broken off tail end. The front end is rapidly drawing water while coal is spilling into the river. Dejan, Ulrike and I are in the fore of our unit.

Behind and beside us a superhero is putting down an injured man into the care of a returned combat medic and, as far as I can see past him, which is surprisingly hard, Thomas is being addressed obscured by an enourmous set of shoulders. Without the distraction the leg wound provided I can no longer ignore my aura sense being overwhelmed. He does not feel hostile. That would have made me yell and scamper away in panic on all four. This is rather like being in a ship’s hold together with a poorly secured heavy barrel.

I have to get away. The best way to do that is down, meaning forward towards the battle. There is no valiant charge at the enemy. Thanks to Thomas and the afflicted crocodiles putting themselves into the enthusiastic, damaging, but ultimately not lethal gun fire of police forces on the other bank, I have been recharged. Crocodiles are climbing ramps of spilled coal. The frog on the tail end is exchanging balls of corrosive spit against bolts of blue magic energy with somebody on the other bank. A superhero is hanging from the throat of … an early archosaur with dermal armour and spikes, stabbing it into the throat with a sword held in reverse grip. Two more silver rank auras come from a frothing spot in the middle of the river.

I conjure my sniper rifle, unstore a mana potion and activate [Eternal Moment]. I send off dozens of shots, at all the crocodiles climbing up the ruins of the hold, one returned to land on our side, the frog to distract it with a few stings from nowhere and one of the blobs. I also set my servant plane to carry another grenade to drop on the frog and down the potion.

I will not be able to repeat this, meaning that if worst comes to worst, I may have to teleport, so I am scanning the other side for secluded destinations. This time I am double lucky. I afflict the frog. And one of the mage on the other bank’s bolts of energy hit. While I am advancing straining my eyes for a nice hidden spot in the distance, the frog shrieks. The entities stop to circle the ship occasionly swooping down at an unlucky crew member to advance against the police forces on the other side of the river.

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Do gods exist? If so, they have decided to love me today. I take cover and conjure up my biggest rifle. The people on the other side? Well, sometimes shit happens.

They had had to help themselves and they are helping themselves. A cloud of yellow fog is arising from a seemingly abandoned truck, forming a wall along the shore line. The first two entities running into it dissolve with a whistling howl. The rest is stopped by another froggy command, now fainting attacks and dancing around dodging the bolts of energy intended for them for the most part.

I have dispatched about a quarter of the crocodiles. At first hitting them was easy. But those monsters learn. They now crouch and move in dashes. Even perfect aim does not help you if the target is gone from the place you shot at it at, when the bullet arrives. For the crew of the ship this should be a relief. Unfortunately it won’t help them in the end, because for once a delayed enemy is not a defeated enemy, secondly I am killing the stupid and the ironranked and thirdly the frog has just decided that blindly launching globs of whatever the globs are doing behind the fog I cannot see through is doing no good. It jumps onto the other part of the ship and a dozens tentacles erupt from its mouth.

That puts me into a dilemma. It is silver rank. If I shoot at it, it will notice where the attacker is located long before I do serious damage. No, thank you. One brush with death is too much for a day already. I send out my servant with yet another useless grenade. Telling it to come back via a detour. I can provide a distraction. I am not unsympathetic, just practical.

So far the frog has eathen five crew members. The saurian finally goes down, but the silver ranked spandex-fans dive after their long submerged fifth member. The frog does not care. Monsters are not people. They do not necessarily care about each other, even if tactics would seem to dictate that they should guard their numbers for tactical reasons.

They are also not bold or impatient. It is silver rank. It would survive a wild dash into the improvised armoured bastion installed on the bow and then could devour most of the crew, save those jumping off the ship either breaking their legs and then deal with the blobs or falling into the water to deal with crocodiles.

It may simply be patient or sadistic. Or, the most ugly option, it just wants to prolong meal time.

I am taking slow aimed shots, conserving mana, because I want to be able to use [Eternal Moment] without delay or restriction. Suddenly I feel new auras, three bronze rank auras to be precise. Reforcements teleporting in presumably. Anti-tank missiles come out of the cloud and our remaining vehicles fire our remaining missiles.

My mana is overflowing. The frog is not dead, but definitely not ready for combat anymore.

I advance again. Firing from the hip on the move eliminating blob monsters. It feels so good to be able to easily kill an enemy with one burst.

The fog lifts and I mean that literally. The whole wall of fog goes up by ten meters or so. And three people with bronze rank auras and five more jump onto the surface of the water. Two bronze rankers head for the place where waves tell of an underwater battle, the rest goes for the ship.

I admit a dose of guilt makes me advance faster. I cannot jump many meters from the surface of the water onto a ship, nor walk on water for that matter. But I can conjure a ladder.

I am met by most beautiful woman. She is carrying herself errect and fully certain of herself. Black hair falling to her shoulders, a large yet thin nose over delicate lips, prominents cheeckbones on a triangular face in tight fitting black Network combat armour.

A battle of life and death can lead to certain reactions. I get slapped across the face „Control your aura you savage!“ And she turns away angrily. The visual consequence of that makes allaying her concerns impossible. I get a real death glare.

Lisa’s laugh rings out from the bow. „Thank you for coming anyway.“

That is a surprise. I react with little decorum or intelligence, let alone normal social behavior. „Hi. This is unexpected. I have made a ladder, in case you want to disembark.“ She laughs again.

Defeated it go back down on my own ladder.

Things are really odd here. In confusion I decide to a least earn some stuff from this encounter, as I have paid with all my dignity already. I trigger my looting ability. Wealth starts raining from the sky.