“How do you mean?” I asked, noting that the Angels had all already disappeared.
“Whatever you had going on over there,” Frostiey replied with a nod towards the bloodstain as she reached out for me to pull her back up onto the pier, “it was like you didn’t even hear ‘em screaming.”
“They were screaming?” I let out, earning me a concerned look from Frostiey until I smiled.
“Oh, ha, very funny,” Frostiey chuckled uncomfortably, “well, you’ve got a boat to catch and a nuke to arm.”
“You’re not coming?” Sam asked after jumping over to the boat.
“Like I’m going to leave my girls here,” Frostiey replied amusedly, “but yeah, no, it’s important for me to stay here and keep messing with the halos. Keep ‘em busy enough to not try a full-on invasion of Alcatraz.”
“Good point.” I said with a half-smile after jumping over to the boat and wiping some blood off my face, “Guess this is it then, at least ‘til we come over here and go all Roadhouse on the city.”
“I look forward to it,” Frostiey chuckled, “but in all seriousness, you guys had better get going. See you around, Buck.”
“Yeah, you too.” I called out over the engine as Jane got us moving while I found a chair at the back of the boat and flopped into it, “We did it.”
“We did indeed,” Sam sighed, sitting on the chair opposite mine, “provided Jane’s driving doesn’t get us killed.”
“Is it driving?” I asked curiously, “On a boat, I mean.”
“Piloting?” Sam suggested as we pulled into the bay and the sea breeze began to pick up, “Skippering? I don’t know, whatever, I’m done thinking for the day.”
“You better not be,” I replied jokingly, “we’ve still got to arm whatever it is that’s back at the island, and who knows how much effort that’s going to take.”
“Eh, I’m sure it’s all downhill from here.” Sam said confidently, “You think we’ll win this thing? Like, really?”
“I hope so,” I sighed, “those ICU boys seemed pretty kitted out, and I can only imagine that Frostiey and her girls are good for a fight.”
“Not to mention everyone back at the island,” Sam added with a laugh, “have to imagine Sergei and the Orcs are rarin’ to go.”
“Couldn’t agree more,” I chuckled, “let’s just hope that whatever we do doesn’t make the city actually nuclear.”
“Yeah…” Sam trailed off as she watched the water curl and foam at the back of the boat.
In that moment I couldn’t help but feel like maybe what had been dawning on me over the past few hours was finally dawning on Sam, and while it felt sort of good to have company in my concern, it also felt crappy to know there wasn’t anything I could do to make her feel better.
That or, you know, she was tired and was easily mesmerized by our wake because of said tiredness.
People are mysterious.
31
The ride over to the island took longer than I thought, as was the case every time I’d ever taken a ferry, but I was actually grateful for the downtime.
Not only did it give me some time to collect my thoughts and get ready for what we were about to do while watching the sunrise, I also managed to get some more flesh strips ready and got some reading of my spell book in.
“You’re not going to retain any of that,” Dave commented as I turned another page, “you like using guns too much.”
“It helps,” I replied, trying to internally sound out a particularly long spell, “I’d have died on the pier if it weren’t for that stun spell.”
“And how many more times do you think you’re going to use that?” Dave scoffed, “Face it, Buck, magic is for the old guard, guns are for the new.”
“I suppose I should just chuck you into the bay then?” I suggested with a smirk, closing the book and putting it back into my jacket.
“Don’t be stupid,” Dave replied coarsely while I quietly wondered if my spell book counted as clothing and that’s why it respawned with my jacket, “I saved you just as much, if not more than your precious magic did.”
“See,” I chuckled as I got to my feet and straightened my jacket, feeling it tear a little more as I did, “magic is just as useful as you.”
“I-” Dave started then stopped, “Fine, I concede that magic may have some utility, but there’s no denying that you will always default back to a good ole fashioned 9mm any day of the week.”
“Fair enough.” I agreed, looking up at the rock wall beside me as we made our way towards the dock, “We there yet!?”
“Gimme ten more seconds,” Sam called down from where Jane had been teaching her to drive, “we don’t want to sink now!”
“At this point we could swim,” I laughed back, “or, you know, fly!?”
“Then do it!” Sam jokingly groaned, “I want to park the boat, so I’m gonna park the boat!”
“Alright, but let’s speed it up a bit!” I chuckled before sitting back down and letting out a long sigh, “You got any idea what’s going to happen after we do this?”
“Best guess? Nothing good for the halos.” Dave replied evilly, “Other than that, no idea. I’m just trusting whatever it does leaves us with enough Elves and Angels to have a decent fight with at the end of all this.”
“I’m sure there’ll be a fair share of murder victims left.” I murmured amusedly, “You’re not concerned though? Any part of you worried we’ll nuke ourselves in the process?”
“Nah,” Dave said with a little scoff, “I mean, it’s not like Carl leveled the cathedral, right?”
“True,” I agreed, “but he did make a good deal of the city practically toxic for his halos-”
I really would’ve liked to have finished that conversation, but I was cut short by a horrendous crunching sound and a jolt so violent that my instincts took over and had me take flight right before I hit the water.
“What the Hell!?” I shouted as I circled the boat and saw Jane hovering with Sam on her back.
“We’re fine, thanks for asking.” Sam bit back sarcastically.
“I can see that you’re fine, as am I,” I replied before gesturing to the destruction Sam had wrought on the dock, “but I reiterate, what the Hell?”
“We were a little closer to the dock than I thought we were,” Jane grunted, struggling with keeping herself airborne with Sam’s weight dragging her down, “really, it’s my fault.”
“It’s nobody’s fault,” Sam snapped as we all moved for an undamaged section of the dock, “accidents happen.”
“Yeah, like stepping on someone’s foot or getting too drunk at a wedding, not crashing a yacht into a dock with a damn nuke in the back.” I replied after setting down and retracting my wings.
“Can you not just accept that we’re okay and that we made it?” Sam growled, letting herself drop right before Jane landed.
I went to bark back at her, to say something about how she’d nearly gotten us killed because she wanted to ‘park the boat’, but I stopped myself and forced myself to take a deep breath.
“Sorry,” I said after clearing my throat, “I’m just stressed out, and it has nothing to do with you. Shit happens.”
“Well maybe think about that before you-” Sam managed to snap before Jane gave her a little nudge with her elbow and a stern look, which must’ve been their secret signal for ‘you need to stop being an asshole’ because within seconds Sam had nodded and turned her significantly cooler attention back to me, “I forgive you. I’m sorry for crashing the boat.”
“It’s okay,” I replied, thankful for the dodged argument, “like I said, shit happens. You girls want to lead the way?”
“Sure thing.” Jane said with a nod, walking past me and to the path towards the parade ground with Sam beside her.
Not going to lie, I really didn’t like turning the other cheek and playing the role of the bigger person, but for whatever reason I found it easy to do that with Sam.
Don’t get me wrong, apologi
zing when I felt like I hadn’t done anything wrong felt tantamount to treason as far as I was concerned, it was just that there was some part of me that knew that taking the path of least resistance would leave me feeling better in the long run.
That, and I was tired as shit.
“Something’s happening on the parade ground,” Sam said over her shoulder once I’d caught up to them, her voice indicating that the mini-fight may as well have never happened, “there’s a bunch of people.”
“I don’t hear them.” Jane replied after tilting her head.
“Cat ears,” Sam chuckled, twitching them slightly as she did, “good for something other than looking cute.”
“Well, what do your cat ears hear?” Jane asked with a smile as the voices reached our human-ish ears.
“Orcs mostly,” Sam replied, “and no, I don’t think they’re taking any Hobbits to Isengard.”
“Probably here to welcome us back.” I said.
“How would they know though?” Sam asked, “I mean, before I crashed the boat.”
“Maybe someone spotted us on the way over?” Jane suggested, “Or that Frostiey chick put something on the forums?”
“I don’t know if she’d be on the forums yet,” I replied, “probably still sneaking through the city.”
“Well, we’ll find out why they’re there soon enough.” Sam said matter-of-factly as we rounded the bend in the path that led up to the parade ground.
“There’s no chance they’re planning to ambush and kill us, right?” I joked, “You know, after we’ve given them all they need to take back the city.”
“Honestly, I feel like that wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world.” Jane replied with a wink right before we finally got a view of the crowd, “Looks like they’ve surrounded somebody.”
“Ooooh,” Dave let out eagerly, “maybe it’s a stoning.”
“Quiet, you.” I said before clapping loudly, “Alright, let’s break it up!”
“Is that our prodigal son returning?” a familiar Australian accent called over the crowd as it begrudgingly dispersed.
“Bruce?” I laughed as the Elf came into view, “What are you doing here?”
“Well, I figured that the mad lad who helped me go from nothin’ to a whole lot o’ somethin’ deserved my support in his campaign against the halos.” Bruce chuckled haughtily, “I was also bored as shit and didn’t want to get pulled into their ‘Holier than thou’ schtick. How you been?”
“Not bad, not bad at all,” I replied as we reached each other and shook hands, “you?”
“Pree fuckin’ tops, mate. Nice horns by the way, bigger.” Bruce said with a smile before turning his attention to Sam and Jane while I felt and discovered that I did have larger horns, “I’m gonna take a stab in the dark and say you’re Sam, right?”
“Jane, actually,” Jane chuckled before tilting her head towards Sam, “that’s Sam.”
“Course you’d be the cat girl,” Bruce laughed, extending his hand to Sam, “good to finally meet you.”
“You too,” Sam replied with a professionalism that I hadn’t seen before, “I’m really looking forward to being able to work with you.”
“Ah, we can talk about all that later,” Bruce said, smiling as broadly as when I’d seen him disappear, “for now you three have some kind of big fuck off weapon to arm, don’t you?”
“I’m sure it can wait a couple more minutes,” I replied with a dismissive wave, successfully masking just how desperate I was to get down and finish the job, “who knows when I’ll get to see you again.”
“Oh, don’t worry, mate, I’ll be around.” Bruce chuckled, “Hell, I’m only here so I can see just how much fuckery you and yours are gonna make for those winged dickheads across the bay.”
Fighting the urge to look relieved, I furrowed my brow and pulled a forced smile, “Are you sur-”
“Do you want me to log off?” Bruce interjected, “‘Cause if you don’t hurry up and do this, I’m gonna go back to rubbing everyone’s nose in how well I’m doing.”
“I… Alright,” I huffed amusedly before starting off towards the elevator, “be back in five.”
“Make it three, I’ve been waiting for an hour.” Bruce laughed as he started getting swarmed again.
“I still can’t believe you managed to find that guy,” Sam murmured, “seriously, of all the people he could’ve run into…”
“He ran into a chef while milling around San Francisco looking for a tech giant,” I chuckled, “it wasn’t exactly serendipitous.”
“Fair point.” Sam agreed with a little smile before puffing up her chest and grinning, “So, who’s ready to fuck the halos right into the Earth?”
“Jesus Christ…” I muttered, hiding a little laugh, “You just have a magical way with words, don’t you?”
“It’s a blessing and a curse.” Sam replied, turning her beaming grin to me.
“Mostly a curse,” Jane mocked, “you should see how she gets when the shops run out of her shampoo.”
“Can we please focus on the task at hand,” Sam jokingly pleaded, “we’re about to bomb a city, we need our heads in the game.”
And just like that, my solemn mood returned.
Truthfully, I was starting to miss that magic water.
32
“We’re positive we want to do this, right?” Jane asked with the crystal telekinetically suspended in front of her.
“It’s not like we really have a choice, is it?” I replied, just barely half-smiling, “I mean, everyone would be pretty pissed if we didn’t.”
“Would they though?” Jane sighed, “I’m sure we could explain our concerns.”
“We’re sure,” Sam added with just a twinge of irritation, “I didn’t shoot my way into and out of that city for us to come all this way and not finish the job. Besides, they’re getting what they have coming to them.”
“And what about everyone else in the city?” I scoffed, “What about the club and whoever else has managed to hunker down and make a safe life for themselves.”
“You just said it, Buck,” Sam replied, “all they can do is ‘hunker down’. They deserve to be free.”
“What happens if this craters the city though?” Jane asked, “Freedom isn’t worth shit if there isn’t anywhere to use that freedom.”
“It’ll be fine.” Sam groaned, “C’mon, please? I honestly doubt the devs would’ve put something in the game that literally destroyed a full city.”
“We don’t know that for certain,” I said, gesturing to the egg thing, “and even if it doesn’t leave a literal smoldering crater, what if this hatches some kind of Godzilla-type deal that just demolishes everything in its path?”
“Then the Hallowed Kings will be fucked and we’ll rebuild.” Sam replied assuredly, “Just trust me, would you? Whatever this thing does will undoubtedly help us and probably won’t cause irreparable damage.”
“See, I don’t like that ‘probably’.” I chuckled meekly before turning somewhat serious and letting out a long sigh, “But, I think you have a point. I say do it.”
“You sure?” Jane asked unsurely, “We can always put it to a vote later.”
“And risk having some kind of ninja halos show up and find a way to steal it?” Sam laughed, “Yeah, how about fuck that? Let’s just do this, okay? We’ll take the leap together now, deal with the consequences later.”
Jane still didn’t seem convinced, and I honestly couldn’t blame her, but once she looked around and saw me smiling at her it was like something clicked, like she saw how hard it was for me to go ahead on the whole thing but could see why as well.
“Alright,” Jane finally said with an unconvincing nod as she looked back to her floating crystal, “here we go.”
My jaw was clenched, my heart was racing, I was prepared for just about anything as Jane slipped the crystal into place.
Anything except nothing.
“Do we have to do something else?” Sam asked after a tense
few seconds, “Like, do we have to recite some kind of ancient-”
Piercing shrieks interrupted her as the whole pit began to rumble and the egg began to split violently, peppering us with small chunks while an ungodly cloud brewed overhead, spewing green and purple lightning.
I was convinced we were going to be sacrificed as some kind of final stage of the ritual, or worse, that we would get trapped in a tomb with whatever came from the egg.
Then, as if the situation needed to get any worse, water began tearing its way through the walls opposite us, spurring the shrieks on harder while we locked our eyes and tried and failed to block out the sounds of our impending doom with our hands.
“You guys alright?” Bruce chuckled concernedly, “You look like you just got in the ring with a ‘roo.”
Naturally, I was confused, which only got worse when I opened my eyes and saw that we’d all been teleported to the parade ground where Bruce and a handful of Orcs were waiting for us.
“You guys get spooked by the earthquake and come back or something?” Bruce asked.
“No, no, we did it,” I replied weakly, “we just… I don’t know. Was that supposed to happen?”
“You ask like we’re supposed to know.” Sam said, struggling to breathe normally as she looked around, “There’s no way we messed it up, right?”
“I don’t think so,” Jane replied, shaking her head slightly more than she usually would, “we put the crystal in where it was supposed to go, and then… I think that’s all we were supposed to do.”
“Maybe all it did was make an earthquake?” Bruce suggested hopefully.
“No way, not with what happened down… there…” I trailed off as the ground began to shake once more, “There’s no way we’ve just destroyed the island, is there?”
Before anyone could answer, a large wave crashed against the edge of the parade ground, dragging trees and greenery into the sea as we all turned to see what looked like a massive dark green whale breaching through the waves, dragging water up to mildly concerning levels as it rose.
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