“So, you ready for this?” Benny asked as we regrouped near the exit. As Stella had mentioned, there was a direct connection into the Unity building through one of the secret exits that had been set up to let out into one of the temples. The Unity and the WCP had a long history on Callus, and there were plenty of friendships across the divide.
We were currently standing at the headquarters of some kind of snake based Ascendant I hadn’t really heard of, one who was close with one of the local Unity executives. They’d arranged for our entry into the tower, and the layout we had gave us a general idea of where we’d end up.
“It’ll be fine.” I said bluntly. “I’ll make sure to remain in my Bael form. They won’t know I’m with the group, and the plan should draw any of them off if I’m not there.”
He nodded thoughtfully. “So what IS the plan. You keep mentioning it.”
“Don’t worry about it.” I said with a wave. “Suffice to say it involves versions of me drawing off as many of them as possible in the most obvious way. Based on what we saw in Trevally, they’re under orders to prioritize me. As for where they end up…you’ll see.”
“You’re getting much better at this stuff than I expected.” Admitted my best friend. “Making plans and stuff. You’re not exactly a chessmaster.”
I smirked. “Tactics aren’t about chess. They’re about figuring out what people want and using it against them. Sort of like granting wishes. And my fatewalker build doesn’t exactly hurt. Anyway, looks like its about time to head in.”
Gesturing forward, I pointed to a giant snake statue. Before our eyes, its lower jaw descended, leaving behind a stone tunnel that fed down and then straight back up, the tail pointing us through the body toward the sky. Once we got to the upswing it became steep, and we started climbing rather than walking, using the stone handholds easily enough.
It went on for longer than it should have, and it became clear some spatial fuckery was at work, but finally, we reached the end of the tail. I opened a trap door, emerging from the tunnel into a cramped closet filled with towels.
Moving out of the way, I peeked out of the closet, expecting to find the place abandoned. To my shock, a small blonde woman with a ruby crown was seated daintily on a loveseat, watching what appeared to be security footage of people in various hallways. A quick comparison with Callie’s map convinced me these were nearby, and as I watched, the woman hit a few buttons on a remote and an unoccupied hallway shifted, one wall coming down and another rising from the ground and clicking into place as another flooded with red gold flames.
“Dynamic movement.” I said thoughtlessly. Then I remembered I’d just broken into this person’s penthouse. I immediately triggered Mornax as she whirled and attacked me. I cursed myself for considering her an ally out of hand and forgetting to activate Bael as soon as I came out.
A small army of birds made of rosegold fire screeched toward me, slamming into the stone skin of my defensive form and dissolving into a series of very hot, very contained explosives. “Wait!” Shrieked a familiar voice. “Dielli! It’s me! He’s a friend!” The woman froze as Stella came shuffling out of the closet, holding up her hands in surrender.
“Stacy?” She scowled. “Call ahead next time. And did Asp let you in here? That emergency exit was my escape route if they got too close.”
Stella nodded. “He did, but it’s fine. You can still leave. In fact, we’re here to get everyone out. This is a rescue mission. We even have a solid fallback position. Actually, why are you still here?”
“Paul.” She said with a grimace. “He ordered the executives to take active control of the defenses. It’s working for the moment, you know how well configured our defensive systems are. But they’ve got the bodies to just throw at us, and those Wendigos are shockingly hardy. There’s no chance you’re going to be able to get past them all. There’s hundreds of them. Paul just doesn’t want to lose the building.”
Chuckling, I let Mornax fall. “I wouldn’t worry about that. I’ll make a hole. Can I use one of your rooms for a bit? It would be best if I had somewhere quiet to coordinate this next part.” It was about time for the fun to begin. I’d gotten the messages that everything was ready, and the timing was a bit sensitive. I hadn’t been expecting it to work that quickly.
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She glanced at Stella questioningly, but then shrugged. “Sure, there’s a guest bedroom up the stairs. If it’ll help, it's yours.”
Tipping my crown to her in a way I immediately regretted because it probably made me look like a moron, I turned and headed up the steps. This was going to be a risk, but if it paid off we should be able to both get everyone out of here and seriously damage their numbers. Of course, it would also most likely kill hundreds of people, which I was…less sanguine about.
But I would do what was necessary to get my friends out of this trap, even if it meant staining my hands with more blood than I’d ever imagined. They’d started this, not us.
When I found that room, I sat down on the bed, crossing my legs at the ankles and closing my eyes. Using the same mechanic as the bond, I was able to reach out and tap into the senses of some of my clones. I picked a specific one, not taking control but more using the telepathy to backseat drive a little bit.
The version of me in question was standing in a familiar tent inside the circus. He was opening a hidden compartment, removing a familiar rolled up piece of paper. The deed to the Circus, left in a very specific place due to an agreement between Abel and his brother. Cicero had the deed but had agreed not to use it unless there was an emergency. This qualified.
Clutching the paper, my clone contacted me. “Are the others in place? I managed to pick up a decent amount of stragglers. Blasting around with Mephisto’s Waltz was definitely as attention grabbing as you said.”
“Just about.” I confirmed. “The rest of them had to hit street level and move around for a while. But between our Might and the Waltz, not to mention Danger Sense, they mostly made it fine. We lost two, but I planned for an attrition rate. Just get ready. You remember how it works?”
A mental affirmative allowed me to relax as the rest of them got in position. This wasn’t a delicate operation, but it was going to need to be well timed.
Back in the day, Cicero had wanted to take control of the defenses in the circus to drive out the invaders. Abel had been wary, worrying he’d use them to try to leverage his position with the other members of the district, and so he had hidden the deed inside a labyrinth made by the same guy who had sealed the planet.
I’d retrieved it as part of a contract, but Abel had come back and we’d defended the place without tapping into the defenses (or if we had it wasn’t near me).
This was important, because much like the defenses on the tower, the defenses in the WCP were dynamic, and sectioned off. Burning Fist, Cark’s old boss, had the rest of the district under his control, and had the deeds on him. He’d handed them over, and I’d been able to send them down to G-district with my clones, most of them taking detours on the way.
As they’d entered, they’d dragged in as many of the enemy as possible, luring them with the promise of capturing their boss’s one true target. Sure, there was some confusion when they noticed there was more than one of me, but that just added to the chaos.
Now ten versions of me (two had died) were down in G-district with control of the dynamic defenses, trapped down there with several hundred Ascendants.
The defenses, interestingly, were designed to be infused with the power of the user. In this case G-rankers. They were essentially giant amplifiers that let you wield your abilities at a massive scale to overpower enemies, but only within your area of influence.
My plan was based on the rank limitation, as well as the properties of some of my attacks. Once everything was ready, I had all of my clones dismiss Mephistopheles. I’d have liked to use a combo for this, but the clones could only use one form at a time. That didn’t matter too much though.
Every single clone, at my signal, shifted into Belial, and with a word, they activated the defenses. Ten different E-rankers flooded the defensive constructs of G-district with the most overpowering corrosion possible, stacking Mercy Kill, Afterburner, and any other boost they could on the attacks as they funneled them through the defenses.
In the distance, I heard a colossal roar as I lost contact with all ten of my clones at the same time, the form collapsing as the other me’s died. I waited a minute to confirm, then stood up and walked out, strolling through the penthouse to look out the window overlooking Rajak.
In the distance, I could see a massive pit in the city, and I grimaced. One of the two destroyed clones had been placed to evacuate before he descended into G-district, and I hoped he’d managed it.
By using the strongest possible corrosion and overloading the defenses with way too much Impact, I’d essentially detonated them like supercharged acid bombs. G-district, built from mostly G-ranked materials, hadn’t stood a chance. The entire district and all the ground above it had collapsed on top of about three hundred enemy Ascendants, crushing and then presumably melting them. The districts were compartmented, so it shouldn’t do anything to any of the others now that the clones had died and the corrosion had lost its effect.
Hundreds dead, just to distract the invaders and whittle down their numbers. I’d grown numb to doing what I had to in order to take down the enemy, but this was a rough one, even for me. I felt a surge of fierce pride and love through the bond, and smiled, the burden easing. Callie was always the moral compass of our relationship. If she didn’t hate me over this, I should be fine.
Turning from the window, I addressed the staring crowd. “I didn’t get them all.” I said apologetically. “But that should be a big enough chunk to seriously throw off their operation here. Let’s go get the others before they regroup. We need to be out of here before reinforcements arrive. That won’t work twice.”
There were still a little under seven hundred Ascendant occupiers on the planet, and barring bullshit cheating plans (which I was out of) I had zero chance of taking them on directly with my current forces.
No one argued, they just kind of stared, some of them looking out the window at the gaping hole in the city. It was certainly something to look at.
I could understand the shock. A combination of Zeke knowing the defenses incredibly well, this planet being very low tier, and the districts having a design that lent itself to this kind of attack in case of emergencies had made it possible. Still, I was pretty sure once this was over, I’d be getting a MASSIVE spike in renown.
Which was fine with me. I wanted to be as strong as possible going into this last battle. We’d need everything we had to crack the cold storage and free the others. Even once that was done, arranging the final push to get to Madigan and Travis would be a hell of a job. I was going to take my time with the planning though. I was determined to get it right.