“Whoo!” Shouted Benny as I came out, hands up in the air. “Hell yes! How many of the bastards did we get this time?” Everyone looked at him. “What? I’m from here. These assholes are keeping my entire planet hostage.”

Abel snorted. “No, we get it. You’re just usually less bloodthirsty than the rest of us.” He smirked at Bethy. “Sometimes literally.” She stuck her tongue out at him, and he rolled his eyes.

“I’m just shocked it worked.” Said Benny with a laugh. “I mean, how many buildings can we drop on them? G-district was one thing, but how did they not see it coming when they raided the fortress.”

I sighed. “I think they did. Or at least they hedged their bets. Travis only sent two hundred and fifty people. Realistically, after figuring out our entrenched position, they should have dropped all seven fifty on us and completely stomped us out. Instead he sent a force consisting of mostly Wendigos that barely outnumbered us.”

Gabe nodded. “Shane’s right. He couldn’t pass up the opportunity, but they dipped a toe in instead of stepping in the bear trap.” There was a tiny roar and Randall stuck his tiny head out of the hood on Jessie’s cloak. Gabe cleared his throat in embarrassment. “Sorry Randall, poor choice of words.”

Reaching through the bond, I manifested a shadow double of Callie, who appeared in front of us with a wan smile. “Good to see you all made it.” She said with a chuckle.

“Well, realistically, we knew they would find the fortress eventually.” I said with a shrug. “Be stupid not to add any contingencies. How are the numbers?” I had a sinking suspicion, based on Travis’s behavior so far.

“Seven hundred.” She said with a grimace. “They pulled more Wendigos from…somewhere. Maybe they’re keeping them inside a spatially altered building, or maybe they have some way to produce them, but either way, they’ve been spending their lives cheap, and now we know why. Which means…”

I nodded grimly. “Which means we either move up the raid on Wintervale, or we figure out exactly how and where they’re producing the shock troops and shut it down. I don’t like rushing into their last holdout. We’ve seen firsthand what kind of preparation they might have waiting. Dropping buildings on people is great, but I suspect it’ll be less entertaining to be on the receiving end.”

“So take out their…what? Breeding ground? Research lab? How do you make more Wendigos?” Callie asked in annoyance. “And while we can crack the spatial expansion on a building with enough time to scan through, we need to know WHICH building. Especially through this damned labyrinth. Apparently it’s screwing with all the readings, and even the Necromedes is having trouble compensating.”

I grimaced. “We need someone who knows the local lore. None of us were really research types when we lived here.” I paused. “Callie, does Zeke know anybody planetside who might be able to give us a better idea of how Wendigos fit into the structure of Callus? I mean, we ARE Ascendants. The story is always what matters.”

She nodded, and I felt a flex on the bond as she split off a parallel with Piece of Mind, leaving it to control the shadow puppet as her real body headed off to consult my uncle. Turning to the others, I gestured around us. “So, what’s the update on the fallback bunker? I’m sure you all had Nat lay down the same anti-scrying wards we had on the fortress a while ago. What other measure do we have in place?”

Celine cleared her throat. “We’ve reinforced the shell of the mountain, and we’ve got several defensive lines already under construction. The usual wish based defenses are just phase one. With the successful rescue from Rajak, we’ve got the planet's best enchanters and scientists at our disposal. By this time tomorrow we should be even more secure here than we were in the fortress.”

“It was a smart call, using this place.” Said Benny wryly. “The natural assumption once we bailed would be that we would jump somewhere distant. The volcano is right next door to the necropolis, geographically speaking. Far enough not to be readily obvious from visual signs, but close enough they would never think to check here.”

“That’s the hope.” I said with a sigh. “But who knows how well it’ll actually work. This entire offensive is one big shell game, and I’m getting exhausted keeping it up. I can’t wait for this to be over.”

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I wanted to spend time with my wife, eat dinner with my friends, laugh with my family. The longer this went on the angrier I got, and the more I hated Travis for putting us all through it. Despite the fairly dramatic power growth from running a guerilla war against a superior force, this had been one of the worst times of my life.

It would have been so easy to give into that desire, to let it push me into making stupid decisions and rushing our assault. But as much as my dad pissed me off, he’d taught me better than that. Even as a child, he’d drilled into me that letting frustration push you into hasty action was how you made mistakes.

When something blocked your progress on a puzzle, you needed to stop, evaluate, and then form a plan of attack based on logical thought and strategic insight. No one ever solved a problem by getting angry at it really hard.

Though, I supposed in the Ascendant world that might not be true. Still, when faced with a situation where you were the underdog, frustration led to painful mistakes.

Callie (or her shadow puppet at least), stepped close and pulled me into a hug. I didn’t bother to resist, letting her put her head on my shoulder. The constant stress of the last few months was eroding my sense of calm, and sometimes you just really needed a hug from someone you loved.

“Wait, hold on," she said, stilling. “Sorry, just heard from Zeke. He does have a lead. He says he knows a guy in Ramistaad who can help. Bad news is Ramistaad is still under occupation, good news is that they’ll never expect us to hit it because it’s strategically useless. No E-rankers in the city. Unfortunately…it’s relatively close to Valen.”

I nodded thoughtfully. “That…might not be a dealbreaker.”

“You thinking another distraction?” Said Benny eagerly? “Take Valen back from those bastards once and for all while you slip into Ramistaad?”

“No. That won’t work.” My tone was calm. “From what I can tell, Rajak was a secondary trap from Travis’s minder. Travis himself is subtler than that, and he’s done his homework. Rajak was a minefield, but Valen is going to be a shooting gallery. The only way to win there is not to play. Based on the rope a dope we saw here, chances are good he’s filled every spatially expanded building in Valen with Wendigos or something. We can’t risk it.”

Gabe nodded. “Not to mention we’re starting to show a pattern of behavior. Distractions are becoming commonplace for us. It’ll be the first thing he thinks of.”

“Which is why we won’t use one.” I said finally. “No signs at all. We’re doing this quietly. With no E-rankers in the city, we’ve got no one to draw attention. As long as I keep myself out of sight, getting in and retrieving the target is our best bet. Bethy, you up for an undercover gig?”

Her face lit up. “Oooh! Disguises! I have so many ideas. Do you think I could pull off a mustache?”

“I…no.” I said in confusion. “Not at all. You DO get that the point of a disguise is to look LESS suspicious, right?”

My sister made a noise of disagreement. “Well…sometimes.” She hedged. “Ascendants are naturally flamboyant and attention grabbing. In some ways, being too understated is MORE suspicious. Not that I think the mustache is a good idea.” She said, cutting off Bethy’s victory cheer. “He’s not wrong about that. I’m just saying less isn’t always more.”

Bethy pouted. “Fine. Buzzkills. I have this neon orange wig that I can wear. Your wedding gave me so many fashion ideas. Orange and black are a total fireworks show! I’m thinking of doing something with leg warmers.”

Since that was objectively less ridiculous than a ballgown and what I assumed (based on actually KNOWING Bethy) would be a giant handlebar mustache.

“Is it safe for just the two of you to go though?” Chelsea asked worriedly. “Bethy can take of her self, but Shane… I know you’re tough, but I’d feel better if you had more backup. Maybe take Serah and Holly with you?”

“Because nothing says ‘stealth mission’ like beautiful women with metallic hair and giant fucking wings.” Said Abel sarcastically. “Look, I get it, really I do. He’s your brother.” My mentor’s face went uncharacteristically solemn. “I’m worried as hell for my own brother. But the fact is that bad disguises notwithstanding, Bethy and Shane have the best chance of pulling this off.”

He was right. Bethy’s Domain was necessary to extract the target, and contrary to what her bombastic personality might imply, she COULD be stealthy when necessary. Of course, she preferred to bust in loudly, and I was slightly worried she might actually try to play theme music while we were sneaking in, but like my sister said, weird was standard for Ascendants.

“What about our approach?” I asked, considering the angles. “I’m assuming using Walker and Gabe’s mount is off the table. They’ve clearly got some means of tracking those, to put together our last position.”

Bethy perked up. “Oh! Why don’t we ride the kitties? They’re shadow cats, so they’re super sneaky, and they’re great with people. I’ve been socializing them to accept hugs and cuddles.”

I took that to mean ‘bullying them with affection’ but it was a solid point. Animals tended to be more effective at using Might for running, four legs being a more functional base for movement. With their inborn stealth abilities, the cats could carry us through the dark silently, as long as we waited for nightfall.

“I like it.” I said, nodding. “We’ve got our in. We’ll need a heading and preferably a map, not to mention details on the target. But all in all, it sounds like we have our next move. Once we have that confirmed we can hit the Wendigo spawning grounds, wherever they happen to be. Then we’ll start whittling their forces down before the assault on the cold storage.”

Benny perked up. “Wait, by whittling their forces do you mean…”

“That’s right.” I said with a vicious grin. “Once we take out the spawner, we need to wipe out as many Wendigos as possible before Travis can recover and redistribute his forces. Once we’ve taken out their buildup capability, we hit them where it hurts. They won’t be running into our traps anymore? Fine. We’ll run right into theirs. If they want to try to eat our forces they can fucking choke on them.”

Benny cheered, pumping his fist, and I saw the general morale of the others in the room spike. The thought of a real offensive after months of taking quick in and out potshots was exciting, and we certainly had the forces for it.

“I want you working with the E-rankers on battle formations.” I told Gabe. “They’re basically the ideal counter to brute force mobs like the Wendigos. We need to be ready for our decapitation strike.” I paused. “Amputation strike? We aren’t taking the head so I don’t know about the terminology. Regardless, you know what I mean.”

Turning to Bethy I let out a long, slow breath. “Anyway, get your disguise ready Bethy, we head out at sundown. With any luck we’ll be back with our target by morning, no muss, no fuss.” Happily, this time my instincts weren’t warning me of any danger, but I wouldn’t let my guard down. Time for my first real stealth op.