by Tao Wong
Hours creep by as I work through the dense scientific paper, jumping from one article to another, following the rabbit hole of information. Sometimes I have to put down a note, as I’ve yet to purchase those papers or referenced books. Other times, I find myself jotting notes about mistakes or areas I disagree with.
I’m so caught up in what I’m doing, I barely notice the heat of the California sun beating down on the un-air-conditioned room we’re in or when Johnson hisses at us. I turn, and he raises a single finger, pointing at the window. It doesn’t take me long to see the Bastion sauntering back with a grin. Once again, I reflect on the three-fingered, mildly-scaled figure with its long tail, wondering where exactly they came across the lazy special effects guy to do his makeup. Seriously, how “non-human” he looks is as bad as some old sci-fi TV shows, other than the too-realistic fingers and tail.
S'hu’mma, Defender of The Sixth Oasis (Level 16 Sand Bastion)
HP: 4880/4880
MP: 4190/4190
Conditions: None
A second later, a chirp comes from Johnson’s earbud. He stiffens, tilting his head as he listens. My lips press together, knowing that there’s only one way he’s getting any information—single-use extra-strong communication options from the Shop. They’re single-use since Miller bought the best they had. We have no clue how strong the disruption fields the Zarrie have are, so we limited each team to two communications devices.
Johnson listens before he nods and looks up. “Gather up.” Within seconds, we’re all gathered around the Sargent. “We’re a go for Operation Barracuda. We take the Bastion first, then the Oracle. Redeemer will hold back.”
I grunt, eyeing the quantum lock in the corner of my eyes. There’s barely a murmur from my friends or the soldiers as they pull back, Lana stopping for a moment to squeeze my shoulder. I notice one of the soldiers exit, obviously to alert the rest of the team.
Within seconds, the group have gathered their belongings and left the building, leaving me alone. I turn back to the windows to watch, unable to do anything as yet. Bastion has stopped moving forward, his head cocked, a readiness through his body that was not there before. Obviously, Johnson’s message was noted. From my vantage point, knowing what to look for, I can see my team moving forward, using cover like the pros they’ve become.
“Come on…” Ali mutters, staring into space.
A flicker in the lock, and a few seconds later, a low rumble from the east. So soft I would never have heard it before the System and the increase in my Perception. For the puppies and Lana though, it’s clear as day, from the way they shift and stare before turning away. Bastion obviously hears it, his lips pulling apart, but he makes no move, continuing to stand in the middle of the streets. A flicker of movement in the mansion that holds the Ez is all the indication I get about her. Thankfully, the vast majority of the houses around here are empty, the humans having congregated around the Shops and the Galactics having either done the same or gone out fighting.
I force myself to breathe as my chest tightens, anxiety creeping up on me as time crawls by. Minutes of stasis is broken by Bastion snarling and walking toward the mansion. As he does so, I spot another group approaching. A quick dial-in of my helmet gives me some details. Ali provides more.
“All four Advanced Classes. Three fighters, one spellcaster,” Ali says.
Meeting Bastion right outside the mansion, the Advanced Classers jabber and yowl away. I snarl slightly, realizing that our team is running into more trouble than they counted on. But there’s nothing I can do.
The battle starts with a barrage of spells, beam discharges, and grenades targeted on Bastion. The first few land on him, unobstructed by any Skill, and he staggers, light cuts running across his body. Within seconds, the barrage stops hitting as a shield forms around the four. The Jarack Advanced Classers spin around—two pulling rifles, another a giant axe, while the healer buffs the group—moments before the close combat fighters attack, exploding from behind the hastily thrown wall.
Ingrid stabs the healer, putting her knife into its throat and ripping sideways. It gurgles, not dead but disabled, clutching at its furred throat. As it falls down, Roland appears from the shadows and pounces on it, jaws clamping on his head and crushing while its feet claw at the body. I know that strike, Massive Pounce, and it adds a stun effect, along with massive bonuses to damage. A part of me pities the healer. A very, very small part.
Meanwhile, the puppies target the Bastion. Shadow goes low, ripping into ankle and knee, while Howard goes high, clamping its jaws around a hastily thrown up arm. Strong as the Master Class might be, physics still have a say in this world, and he gets taken down to the ground. As the Bastion struggles, Anna lashes out with her flames at the Jarack Advanced Classers, her attacks reflecting off the remaining shield and cooking them from within.
Caught outside the fast-created shield wall, Mikito and Lana are attacking it with fury, doing their best to wear it down while Carlos stays back, his gun held ready to deal with reinforcements. Without the Master Class controlling it, the shield wall seems to be lacking its offensive abilities, which is good. Redford is working his magic, ripping a slowly growing hole with his magic while the others get ready to scurry in. The tiny hole is sufficient, allowing Sam to send in drones to lay down additional cover fire.
Surprise keeps the Galactics on the backfoot for a few precious seconds, but soon enough, the Galactics recover. The puppies get thrown aside, blasted away by the Bastion with a Skill. The Master Classer stands up, looking only mildly damaged after having been chewed upon. While searching his surroundings, he bats Roland out of the air when the tiger pounces at him. Smartly, the First Nations woman has disappeared already, her job with the healer complete. Unfortunately, the remaining pets aren’t as lucky. The Advanced Classers turn their attacks on Anna, who takes a beating, her fires doing little to ward off the blades and beams.
Lana screams, watching as Anna is hurt. Carlos and one of Johnson’s men focuses on the fox, doing their best to prop up the pet’s health. But it’s a losing cause with so many attacks focused against the creature. A final swing sends the fox flying, her body nearly severed in two, limp and bloody. Still, her sacrifice was not for nothing. Johnson and his men spill into the gap, turning the Advanced Classers on them. Mikito darts in soon after, headed straight for the Bastion.
As the Master Classer turns his attention to the assailants outside, a spike erupts from the wall, intent on tearing apart Johnson’s shield breaker. Another of his men steps in, holding forth his hands and stopping the spike cold. There’s strain on the soldier’s face as his Mana shield diverts the attack, but he can do nothing as another plunges into Lana’s side, ripping open her shoulder.
A rumble, this time much closer to us, distracts everyone for a moment. At the same time, the teleportation lock disappears and I bare my teeth. Barely a minute has passed since the attack, but already Km is on her way out. I decide to put a stop to that, as well as trigger my side of this desperate plan. I step backward then rush the wall, springing at full speed.
Blink Step. Once. Then again.
Vertigo rushes through me at the sudden shift of space again and again, but it disappears as quickly as it comes, allowing me to use my built-up momentum to slam into the newly emerged Oracle. A part of me notices that she seems to still be slightly damaged, but I’m mostly focused on my sword, the newly formed blade twisting in her body. Surprisingly, it only gets a few inches deep. A moment later, Thousand Blades is activated, blades forming next to my hand as I twist the sword, forcing the newly formed blades to arc toward her body. Surprised or not, she flips backward, gracefully avoiding my attacks while a rock shelf lifts me into the air.
Twisting while airborne, I focus. Not on her, but on the Portal I need, creating it so that the waiting teams can stream in to help, splitting my focus between Ali’s and my views. Flying through the air as I am, the hastily cast Portal hangs two feet above the air and slightly canted, but th
at doesn’t stop the Hakarta who are waiting.
“Teams Two, Three, Five, and Six are scrambling. We need the Portal for four minutes, Redeemer,” Alvarez barks over the newly restored communication channel.
Rock wraps around me, quickly engulfing my body. I grunt, feeling my connection to the Portal waver a little, and I’m forced to rely solely on Ali’s view and our connection. As the rock constricts me, my concentration wavers before I bite my lip and focus. Armor, meant to stop projectiles and beam weaponry, does nothing to stop the attack as she compresses my body, crushing bone and stealing air from my lungs. My health drops and I realize I have no shield. I curse my carelessness, having paid so much attention to the fight and my friends’ situation that I neglected my own preparations.
I focus through the pain, biting my bottom lip as my attention splits. Spells form, boosting my regeneration first. Then healing to fix bones that are slowly being crushed, skin that sizzles as the Oracle adds heat to the liquid rock around me. But still, I stay within her attack, forcing her to concentrate on me as the Portal spits out our friends. Trading pain for people.
Of course, like me, the caster can split her attention. Many of the first Hakarta to jump in are now engulfed in thigh-high mud, trapped. But rather than let it stop them, the Hakarta are grabbing and tossing incomers out of range of the spell, accepting the pain to allow their friends to engage the Oracle. Seeing her attacks failing to stop them, she falls back, a pair of rock elementals flowing up from the ground to slow her attackers.
“Move, move, move,” chants one of the Hakarta. Galactics or not, it seem certain words are universal.
In the shield, Mikito and Ingrid are sparring with the Bastion, forcing him to pay attention to them while Roland sneaks in to land his occasional attacks. The puppies and drones have joined forces to harass the Advanced Classers, the drones throwing out beam attacks, napalm, and flash bursts to confuse and hurt, as well as the occasional vertical shield to block attacks and jar bodies. Meanwhile, Johnson and the remnants of his team in the shield are picking off each Advanced Classer, pouring fire and flame while Carlos does his best to heal everyone. Already, the soldier who had guarded the hole opener is on the ground, unmoving.
“Boy-o, she’s not channeling anymore,” Ali informs me, bringing attention back to my own condition.
I realize he’s right—the rock’s no longer crushing, just sizzling. I Blink Step and pop up behind the Oracle.
“Boo,” I whisper hoarsely. Not that she can hear me, not through my helmet.
Once more, I thrust my sword forward, lunging into full extension. I use Cleave and Elemental Strike at the same time, adding to my attack. The blade, empowered by Skill and physics, plunges through her empowered, buffed body.
Blade Strike. Twisting with my hips, I rip the sword out sideways, the initial edge of my attack burrowing through her body to aid my movement. My blade catches, barely shifting a few inches in her body, but the scream of grating rock and the fresh, oily liquid that flows from her speaks of grievous injury. Even as I recover, a Hakarta in what I can only describe as spiky football armor tackles her away from me. He’s closely followed by his entire team, each of them piling onto her, the rubble of her stone elementals a testament to their effectiveness. As I move to join them, a razor cloud of dust and shattered earthen flooring rises, cutting into exposed skin and blinding those within it. Reflexively, I stagger backward.
“Redeemer!” Johnson shouts, dragging my attention back to the shield.
I grunt, surprised to see that the Bastion is not only still standing but managing to float away with little damage, his shield now constricted around his body. Globs of energy form around the shield, shooting forward once in a while to attack the gathered Advanced Class team members, forcing them to block the attacks. He might be mostly unharmed, but not so the Jarack Advanced Classers. Mikito, unable to reach the Master Classer, has thrown herself against the unfortunate Galactics. The last member falls, unable to get his footing under the combined assault of the Samurai and the puppies.
I glance at my Mana, snarling as I assess the fight. Not enough. I will Sabre to activate a Greater Mana Potion and feel the hypodermic needle punch into my skin. The liquid rushes through my body, increasing my Mana. Another thought has me drawing upon the Mana Battery to fill my empty tank. It’s a rush, but it makes me shudder slightly too, as it always does. But it’s enough, more than enough.
“Foolish. You bugs will not survive,” the Bastion hisses, his voice slithery and cold, beady gold eyes glittering with malice. He’s confident, safe in the protection of his shield.
“Not today,” I say, raising my sword above my head.
I call forth the Skill, stepping forward and cutting as I do so. Around me, twelve ghostly swords appear and repeat my attack, Blade Strikes arcing out from the newly formed swords to smash against the Bastion’s shield, each strike thrice the size and intensity of any I’ve conjured before. It smashes into the Bastion’s already weakened shield, shattering it and cutting into his flesh.
Moments later, Carlos fires his little grenade / potion launcher directly at the Master Classer. The Bastion snorts dismissively, seemingly undamaged from that attack, his body already visibly healing. Other attacks from the team bounce off him, but then a look of surprise flashes across his face.
“Ikaaaaaaaaaaaa?” the Bastion screams as he plunges to the ground, gravity reasserting itself on his floating form.
“He can’t use Skills for the next few seconds!” Carlos shouts, alerting us of the opportunity he’s given us.
Without coaching, the rest of the long-range attackers open up, throwing Spells and Skills at the prone form. Everyone opens up. Behind me, I hear the continued battle as Teams Two and Three keep the Stone Oracle busy, shattering walls and setting the dried ground on fire as that tempest of rock howls.
I’d help, but reeling from Mana loss, I find myself sitting down. I’m not completely out of Mana, but with barely a hundred left, it’s close enough that I feel sick. Mana sickness from overuse and overdrawing of Mana is a major issue for those of us with high Mana levels. It’s a weird phenomena since even a year ago, this level of Mana would have been my maximum. The loss of Mana is almost like drug withdrawal, or what I think a drug withdrawal would feel like.
By the time I recover, drawing on my Mana Battery to fill the hungering void in my body, the battle is nearly done. Tough as the Bastion might be, without his protective Skills, his health falls like a waterfall under the combined assault of our teams. Even the close-range fighters like Mikito have long-range attacks which they add to the pile, wiping away the Bastion’s health. As I raise my hand to attack, a notification pops up.
Level Up!
You’ve reached Level 49 as an Erethran Honor Guard. Stat Points automatically distributed. You have 3 Free Attribute Points and 1 Class Skill Point to distribute.
One nice thing about this world is that if you pay attention, the System clues you in when someone is well and truly dead. Small things like experience gains—though just by being part of this war, I’m getting a small trickle of experience constantly—and sometimes, bigger notifications like this one. I push the notification away, looking for the Oracle. Instead, I see the two teams tasked with her attack coming back. Half of them split off to deal with the carnivorous cactus inside the compound.
“Report,” Johnson says to one of the other soldiers.
“Sir, the last target is currently engaged southwest with the Marines,” the soldier replies. “General Miller informs you that you and the Redeemer are on independent command for now. Forces from Fort Irwin are recovering from the attack conducted by the Oracle and the Bastion.”
Johnson’s lips tighten, obviously understanding what the soldier’s implying. If they’re recovering, it means the two Master Classers must have laid on the hurt. Still, there’s nothing much to be done about it now, and if there is revenge to be taken, we’ve certainly done so. The smoking corpse that Ingrid is busy
looting is more than testament to that fact.
“We dealt with the Oracle?” I say, frowning as I turn back. A flicker of shame crosses the faces of the teams designated to handle her—at least those not covered by full-face masks. “What happened?”
“She created a series of stone simulacrum. Simulacra? Your English is very imprecise. By the time we destroyed them all, she’d slipped away,” one of the Hakarta answers. “Probably an Earth Movement Skill or Spell.”
I grimace, hating that we didn’t manage to finish off both the Master Classes. That was the point of our attacks after all. Now, we’ll have to track her down again. If we can.
“Redeemer. By your leave, I’ll take my men and attempt to penetrate the next settlement to remove their shield. This settlement shield still needs to be destroyed and its City Core taken,” Johnson says, offering his “recommendation.”
“Sure. Team Two, hit the shield generator. Team Three, we need communication back. Johnson, get us a way into the next settlement. The rest of us are going to hit the City Core. We’ll keep hitting them until they turn around and hammer us. And remember, we’re the distraction now, not the main event,” I say, glancing at the teams. I get nods all around, and I find myself smiling grimly. “Good. Move people. We’ve got work to do.”
Chapter 16
Hours later, we’ve managed to take down the shield generator and take the City Core for the section of town that comprises Alhambra and parts of south Pasadena. A part of me is amused by the first, thinking more of a classic board game than desert-baked avenues.
“Anything?” I ask as we walk out of the Core room, Kim already patched in and feeding me settlement data.