The bellows of mourning turned to bellows of pain as the crystal arrows slammed into the things again. I also realized there was something flashing as I looked at the tactical view of the map.
It helped to think of this as the map. It gave me the disconnect I needed not to shit my pants because there were a bunch of orcs standing there who could kill me with a single blow from one of their swords given the opportunity.
There was a blinking icon near the bottom that hadn’t been there before. It looked like one of those crystal bolts, but there was also an explosion coming off of the thing.
I smiled. I figured that could only mean one thing. I thought about that little image and a moment later there was a spectacular series of explosions that took entire chunks off of the orc warriors and dropped them.
Some of them were still alive, sure, but even the ones who were still alive had been disabled by the explosions. Meanwhile something really strange happened. All the orcs that’d been killed by my dudes firing at them started to glow, and that glow flowed into me. I looked down and felt a little stronger than before, though something told me I still wasn’t nearly strong enough to take out the big bad.
Which was a damned shame, because the big bad was running at me. I was still looking at it with the detached view of the top down map, but then I saw a unit with a blue circle running from the forest edge. It slammed into me and I was pulled out of the top down view just in time to see the massive boss orc slamming its sword into the spot where I’d been standing moments ago.
Like if I’d still been staring transfixed at the map view instead of concentrating on the reality of that asshole attacking me then there was a very good chance I would’ve been split down the middle. Damn.
I looked up to see Rachel on top of me. Her fiery hair hung down and tickled my nose just a bit. Though I was more concerned with how she felt pressed against me.
I knew that wasn’t the kind of thing I should’ve been focusing on in the middle of a battle, but what can I say? She felt good pressing against me, and it was a distraction from all the death and destruction happening all around us.
“You’re gonna have to learn to focus on the battle happening around you,” she said. “Otherwise you’re going to be in some serious trouble.”
“Sorry about that,” I said with a grin, because this was fun for all that it was also seriously dangerous. “Guess I got a little distracted by the tactical view.”
“You need to be careful about that when you’re in melee range,” she said.
Only we didn’t have time to have a little chat about the tactical view. No, something grabbed Rachel from behind and pulled her up and away, revealing the massive orc standing behind her with his sword raised. He held her wriggling in his hand and brought his sword up like he was about to do some serious damage.
“Son of a bitch!” Rachel said. “I was supposed to go back! I held up my part of the deal!”
I figured she might try to pull something that would save her ass from this asshole, but she started to twitch again. Those black lines appeared on her face and ran down her arms and legs where they were exposed.
Meanwhile the orc asshole simply looked at her and let out a low rumbling laugh that sounded like an Indy car trying to turn its engine over right in front of me.
“You betrayed the Dark Lady, former god,” he said. “And now that means I get the pleasure of killing one of our former enemies even as I capture the others. This is a good day for me.”
He raised his sword. I held my hand out and tried to do something, anything. I willed the elves in the trees to hit him with their ranged attacks. They did, and I even did the exploding thing, but it turns out this one’s hide was a little thicker than the others.
The only thing those explosions did was run the risk of hurting Rachel, and I didn’t dare do it again. The last thing I wanted was to accidentally kill her while I was trying to save her perfect ass.
“Say goodbye, former hero,” the orc said. “The Dark Lady will be pleased to know that your deal ended like this.”
The sword came down and slammed into a solid wall of blue light that appeared out of the air in front of it even as I felt a surge of strength. A scream sounded through the clearing, and I looked over to see Leila standing there with her hands glowing in front of her as she was clearly manipulating whatever the fuck magic she was using to stop him.
She moved her hand to the side and another bright blue light appeared, but this time it was behind the orc asshole. It slammed against his head, and he dropped. Rachel went tumbling to the ground, but she landed with a roll and came up no worse for the wear.
Damn this girl was impressive. Both of these women were impressive. Leila standing there in a revealing mage outfit that showed off plenty and had me regretting that we never got to finish what we’d started in that tavern, and Leila in her tight leather that also left nothing to the imagination.
Not that I needed to leave much to the imagination with Rachel considering I’d already seen everything.
“Get away from her!” Leila screamed. “Get away from me!”
Okay then. Talk about a surprise. She moved her hand again and something else slammed into the orc. It knocked him around, but he was ready for it this time. He held his hand up and a bit of red magic slammed into the blue causing it to shatter. That also caused Leila to stumble back.
“You’re not winning that easily, Conduit,” he growled. “I’ll squash you like the mage insect you are!”
He charged at Leila. I worried that he might actually be able to hurt her. He seemed pretty certain that he’d be able to hurt her, for all that she seemed to mostly be the one dominating the fight so far.
I pulled out to tactical view and willed my ranged units to fire. They let loose another volley, and the orc laughed as he heard them sailing through the air. Maybe he thought I hadn’t learned my lesson.
Only the crystal darts landed in the ground right in front of him. The orc boss only had a moment to look down in confusion before I willed them to explode. Which created a massive crater in the ground he couldn’t avoid at his current speed, and so the massive motherfucker sprinted face first into the hole.
Only there was something waiting for him there. Something shiny and blue that shimmered in the air. Something with a point. Something that slammed right into the orc captain’s heart and went ramming right through him as the momentum of his fall was used against him.
It turned out his skin was thick enough to shrug off those crystal arrows, even when they were exploding, but they weren’t enough to stop his own momentum from impaling him. The orc let out one final sigh, looking down at the hole that’d been carved in him with an indignation that said he couldn’t believe he’d actually been bested.
Then the light went out of his eyes and it was pretty clear that there weren’t any more thoughts going on between his ears. Not that he’d seemed like the kind of asshole to have many thoughts going on between his ears in the first place, but there definitely weren’t any more now.
The tension from the fight drained out of me. I hadn’t realized just how much I’d been carrying until we were clearly out of trouble. I glanced to Rachel and gave her a smile, and she winked back at me.
I decided to leave my elves in the trees for the moment. After all, these orc motherfuckers had been crawling out of the woodwork like roaches lately, and the last thing I wanted was to have my elves down on the ground where they couldn’t fire away at any terrestrial enemies until the cows came home.
Best to keep them up where they could do more damage until it was abundantly clear that there was no more need for them to do that damage. With an entire orc army assaulting the elf city somewhere in the distance I wasn’t taking any chances.
Instead I walked over to Leila, who looked more than a little surprised to see me. Of course that was nothing compared to how surprised she was to see Rachel, if the way her eyes widened was anything to go on.
Fuck all that, thoug
h. We could worry about the drama of a couple of heroes showing up at the same time later. Right now there were more important things to worry about. I held my hand out to her.
“Are you okay?”
11
Standoff
Leila looked at me, and then to the hand I was offering her. Only she wasn’t looking at that offered hand with the gratitude I expected considering we’d just saved her ass.
No, she was looking at me with narrow eyes that said she didn’t like what she was seeing. It was a far cry from the eyes she’d been giving me in the tavern.
“Leila?” I asked. “Is something wrong?”
“Traitor!” she shouted.
Her staff whirled around, the same crystal as those arrows and spears, and I barely managed to jump back in time to prevent the thing from giving me one hell of a concussion.
“What the fuck?” I growled.
Only Leila had turned on Rachel, and the tip of her staff was glowing like she meant to use it for some business. The glow grew in intensity, and I could feel something coming off of that. There was a feeling that Leila was almost part of my crew, but there was something about her that was keeping her from actually being a part of my merry military band, if that makes sense.
She was fun to look at, but no amount of mental commands were going to stop her from firing off that magic. I had no doubt that she was about to fire off that motherfucker and cause some serious damage. I even thought I could feel the magic building inside me.
“No!” I shouted, stepping between her and Rachel at the last moment.
The blast slammed into me, but for a surprise it didn’t do the kind of damage I was expecting. It did seem to piss her off royally that I was stepping between her and her target, though. Her eyes narrowed and she whirled her staff around, bringing the crystal around to slam into me.
This time she did manage to catch me. Right in the head. I let out a groan as I flew through the air and came in for a landing that was less of a landing and more of a skid across the landscape.
“Son of a bitch that hurts!” I growled, pulling myself to my feet.
I did a quick check of all the major parts to make sure there was no damage that was immediately obvious. Nothing felt broken, cut, or bruised, and I breathed a sigh of relief.
Something told me I didn’t want to know what the local witch doctors considered to be healing. Though I wouldn’t mind a bit of sexual healing if Leila was offering, wink and a nudge.
First I had to figure out why she’d gone crazy and was attacking us, though. She didn’t have those dark lines criss-crossing her face, so it didn’t seem like there should be anything that was causing her to go crazy and attack us. Yet there she was standing, her chest heaving in a most delightfully distracting way, looking between the two of us like she’d love nothing more than to kill both of us.
I felt one of my elves around the periphery preparing to fire on Leila. I quickly sent a thought that they needed to stay the fuck out of this fight, and I prayed that no more of them would develop a desire to act independently while I was trying to fix this.
Then I figured it would be an even better idea to simply send them where they couldn’t do any damage. So with a thought I had the elves moving out into the forest to create a ring around us that was close enough they’d be able to move in and take care of business if orcs tried to attack us, but far enough away that none of them would be able to take Leila attacking us the wrong way and use that as an excuse to pierce her with one of those crystal bolts.
The last thing I wanted was to have gone to all the trouble of trying to rescue her ass only to have one of my own guys take her out. Talk about your all time bad endings to an already shit situation.
I held a hand out to Leila once I was sure the other elves weren’t going to cause any trouble. The only thing that got me for my trouble, unfortunately, was her swiping her staff at me again and trying to take my hand off.
I doubt she would’ve actually been able to take it off considering there wasn’t exactly a blade on the end of it. This certainly wasn’t the kind of weapon Shatner and Nimoy would use to fight it out in the arena with blunt and sharp ends. Still, I got the feeling she could cause some serious blunt force trauma with that thing if she wanted to.
“We’re on your side Leila,” I said. “I don’t know what they did to you, but you can rest assured that I’m with you. Didn’t you see the elves I brought with me?”
“I don’t know how you finally managed to take control, but I’m not going to be one of them!” she said.
She came at me again, waving her staff in the air. She was good with the thing, but some of my training from Master Kenny was coming back to me. So this time when she tried to hit me I leaned into the attack.
I had the satisfaction of watching her eyes go wide as I wasn’t where I was supposed to be. I went for the ground instead, kicking a leg out and sending her tumbling to that ground. Her staff sailed through the air behind her and landed on the forest floor with a muted thump.
“Would you take care of that please?” I growled at Rachel before moving in to pin Leila so she wouldn’t be able to do more damage.
At least I hoped she wouldn’t be able to do more damage. She might be down, but she was hardly out of the fight. Something hard came up between my legs, and it was a far cry from the loving embrace she’d been giving me between the legs the night before.
I let out a noise that was somewhere between a groan and a scream as her knee made contact. Holy shit that didn’t feel good at all! I mean sure I knew in an academic corner of my mind that there were dudes who got off on that sort of thing, but I’d never understood it or been one of themmyself.
“Son of a bitch,” I gasped as I rolled to the side to try and get away from the knee between my legs.
Unfortunately my troubles were far from over. No, she was on top of me in an instant, far faster than I would’ve imagined, and she was pressing down into me and raising her hand up like she was about to rearrange my face.
It brought to mind the one unfortunate physical encounter I’d ever had with a bully, far back on the playground in fifth grade. I’d gotten cocky, thinking that my time with Master Kenny would be enough to stop some asshole trying to beat the crap out of me.
I’d learned that day that a white belt going up against a kid who’d been shaving since the third grade wasn’t exactly a good combination. Sure I’d ended up beating the shit out of the asshole a year later when I’d had more training and learned how to use all that weight against him, but that hadn’t helped when he was over me with one hand on my shirt and the other fist raised and ready to smash into my own face.
Talk about one hell of a formative memory.
A memory that was giving me one hell of a confused boner now. I mean on the one hand it sucked that this impossibly strong girl was about to kick my shit in, but on the other hand there was something about the outfit she wore and the feel of the heat between her legs as she straddled me and the intense look on her face that was doing something for me.
Hey, what can I say? Before the little tryst in the void with Rachel the night before it’d been awhile, and I guess my body was still in lovin’ starvation mode where it was willing to take what it could get.
That didn’t mean I wanted to get punched in the face though. Again, I was sure there was someone out there somewhere who was into that sort of thing, but I wasn’t one of them guys. So I did the only thing I could think to do. I held the crystal up.
I’m not sure what I did, but that finally seemed to get through to her. She stared at the gem hypnotized, and I figured that was my chance.
Hey, it’s like I already said. If somebody was going to give me an opportunity to hit them while they were down then I was going to take it. Sure I wasn’t exactly hitting her, and it’s not like she was down considering she was kicking my ass, but what the fuck ever.
I rolled around and she let out a cry of shock. I used my hands to pin her arms, and r
emembering what’d happened the last time around I also pinned her to the ground down below before she could move one of her knees up between my legs and give the old wedding tackle a love tap I wasn’t going to be forgetting any time soon.
“We’re on your side,” I said.
“Are you?” she growled.
She glanced to the side, but honestly I was more concerned with how good it felt to have my hard cock pressing against that warmth between her legs. And from the way she was pressing right back at me she was enjoying the hell out of it as well, for all that she looked like she was as pissed off as she was turned on.
Hey, sometimes there was a thin line between anger and lust. I was fine with walking that line as long as it didn’t result in another knee to the nuts.
She looked back at me and cleared her throat, her eyes darted to the side again.
“Oh hell no am I falling for that one,” I said. “The instant I look to the side you’re going to put your knee in between my legs again, and that’s not my idea of a good time.”
“You really want to have a look at what’s going on over there,” she said.
I sighed and looked to the side, tensing down below because I was anticipating her delivering one hell of a hit that would have me regretting ever falling for the oldest trick in the book.
Only when I got a good look at Rachel I was suddenly glad I’d fallen for the oldest trick in the book, because she was holding Leila’s staff in her hand, and those black lines were back.
I figured that couldn’t mean anything good for me or for Leila. I scrambled up to my ass and managed to not try to scramble away from her, but only just.
“Um, Rachel?” I asked, trying to sound reasonable considering she was pointing a scary magical weapon at us, though I was more worried about what it could do to Leila than me considering it hadn’t so much as scratched me when I stepped between the magic and Rachel earlier. “Did you ever maybe think it would be a good idea to put the weapon down?”
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