by Ramy Vance
“Sounds good,” Abby said as she blasted off, looking for the next gate.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Terra’s troops were on the ground floor with Cire and roughly forty marines. These guys weren’t the same caliber of soldier Terra had seen at HQ. They also wore slightly different uniforms from the marines Terra was familiar with. Their faces were hardened, and they looked like they had seen some shit.
The plan was to push through the defenses surrounding Rasputina. Terra hoped they had moved fast enough to ensure they reached the lich before the orcs fortified her location.
When the orcish forces had begun to exit the Dark Gate, Terra had hit the ground running. She had a vague idea of where the orc troops might position themselves, but real-time spatial strategy on a large scale was something Terra was a little new at.
That didn’t make Terra any less excited.
The rush of the fight was getting her blood pumping. Which was good because it meant her exo-suit would be able to push her strength further. Creon had made some improvements to it in Abby’s absence. Hopefully, it could boost Terra to her strength-levels from the arena.
A plasma shot came from above, and Terra dove forward as the marines split up, taking cover. “We got contact!” Terra shouted.
At the moment, the orcs up ahead had the high ground. Anabelle had assumed the orcs would attempt to take the fight to the streets, but it appeared the elf had been wrong.
The marines returned fire as Terra tried to pinpoint the location of the shooters. She could see the glint of a Dark Gate in the building to her left. A cluster of orc snipers was positioned there, laying down suppressive fire.
Though Terra preferred melee weapons, she’d been given a plasma rifle. It was a practicality. For now, she grabbed one of the grenades attached to her belt. She felt her heart thumping as her exo-suit beefed her muscles up. Then she pitched the grenade as hard as she could at the fourteenth-floor window hiding the Dark Gate.
The grenade broke through the glass and rolled inside the room. Back on the street, Terra hit the remote detonator.
Balls of fire shot from the window as two orcs were blown out of the building. “Just two,” Terra whined. “I was hoping for more.”
One of the marines turned to Terra. “Most of them probably hit the ground. Left those two up there to pick us off.”
“Makes sense. We keep going forward. Keep your eyes on the windows.”
The squad resumed their approach, the marines on the far edges of the formation watching for movement in the buildings around them. They progressed down the street until Terra raised her hand, signaling for them to stop.
Four mountain trolls stood in the middle of the street, surrounded by dozens of orcs, some on hoverbikes. All were strapped with plasma rifles, upgraded plasma-swords, and shields. Terra also spotted goblins, many armed with dual plasma-daggers.
Terra slung her rifle off her shoulder. “Guess this is the first wave, huh? I call the trolls.”
One of the marines looked at Terra aghast. “All of them?”
“Yeah. Four trolls seems reasonable.”
The marine shook his head. “Damn, lady. We heard you were crazy, but I didn’t think you were this crazy.”
Abby soared above Terra’s location, giving chase to a band of orcs riding hoverbikes ahead of her. As she flew over them, she fired, blowing one away with a massive, arcing plasma-blast.
Terra snapped her fingers. “Fuck. Guess I’ll just have to settle for three. Let’s go.” She slammed her hand to her chest, and Cire, who was by her side, did the same. They rushed at the platoon up ahead.
Terra leapt through the air, soaring toward one of the trolls. She slammed into the troll, tackling it to the ground as the other two stumbled away.
Cire raced for the goblins. He kicked one in the head, snatched its dagger, and threw it into an orc nearby. As a plasma blast came at him, he grabbed a goblin as a shield, which was obliterated by the explosion.
The marines were firing at the orcs, forcing them off the street, toward cover. Hot plasma filled the air as Terra wrestled with the troll.
Another troll picked Terra off its compatriot. Terra wrapped her hands around its elbows and forced them upward, snapping the bones in its arms.
Terra dropped to the ground, turned and slugged another troll before a third grabbed her by the throat and slammed her into the concrete.
The wind went out of Terra. Her heart was leaping for joy, though. This was a real fight. She rolled over and grabbed a plasma ax abandoned by one of the fleeing orcs.
A plasma blast whipped past Terra. Another sped toward her, and she sliced through it with the ax. “Oooooh, this is a toy I can get behind.”
Terra ran at the troll who had attacked her last. She sprang into the air and slammed the ax down on the orc’s arm, slicing clear through the limb.
“How have I not had one of these ever before?” She glanced over her shoulder at Cire, who was fighting six goblins simultaneously. “Have you tried the plasma ax? This thing cuts through bone like butter.”
“No. Trade you!”
Terra tossed her ax to Cire, who threw two daggers at her. She glared at the daggers, disappointed. A troll distracted her by punching her in the face, and she soared into the air and landed a few feet away.
The two remaining trolls lumbered over to Terra. Once they were close enough, Terra leapt to her feet and jumped onto one troll’s shoulders, driving the daggers into its chest. She kept hacking and hacking at the troll’s chest until it fell to its knees. “Hm…not too bad.”
Terra pushed to her feet, covered in blood as she stared down the remaining troll. “I could get used to these.”
Anabelle proceeded along the streets of New York, her squad flanking her. She hadn’t brought any weapons with her, though she had changed into her HQ suit, thick black tactical armor with DGA emblazoned on the chest.
While she walked, she focused her mana, drawing in as much as possible from the world around her, a technique she had only recently rediscovered through her rigorous, often fruitless, meditation. Mana was everywhere. All she had to do was tap into it and pull it within her body.
Anabelle hoped it would be enough. It would be stupid to assume Grok wasn’t going to show up. She was probably leading one of the many platoons.
Where the hell is everyone? It wasn’t as though the Dark One’s forces bothered to create elaborate plans. All the Dark One’s efforts so far had simply been shows of brute strength. Grok was capable of more, though. And the Dark One was leaning into using Rasputina.
Anabelle wasn’t too worried about what the lich would summon. The DGAs had already fought off a Jotun, and that was a demi-god. They’d survived the lich as well, and what could have been worse than either of those?
Up ahead, a group of orcs raced across the street. One of the orcs cast a glance toward Anabelle and her squad.
Anabelle commed Roy. “Hey. How you doing on getting that mech ready?”
Roy’s voice came through loud and clear. “Should be dropping down in a bit. Any good spots for me to get some action? Not that kind of action, just so you know.”
Now was not the time to be flirting.
“There’s hardly anyone in the streets. I was expecting a full-on army keeping us from Rasputina, but it looks like they left us a wide-open path.”
“Obviously, a trap.”
“That’s what I was thinking. We’re going to take it slow. Check the tact-map before you get out here, but that’s all you.”
Next, Anabelle patched into Abby. “Hey. You got any reads on the orcs down here?”
Abby answered quickly enough. “Terra’s engaged on the other side of the city. Didn’t see anything ‘round you, though. Why?”
“Think you could do a quick sweep?”
“Kinda busy right now, but I’ll see if I can make my way over.”
A sonic boom pulsed somewhere in the sky. Anabelle looked up to see Abby speeding toward her, an
orcish hovertank in close pursuit of her.
The elf clicked her tongue. “Huh. Probably should have looked up to see how busy you were.”
Abby descended, spinning to fire at the tank.
As the girl zoomed closer, Anabelle drew her mana to her lower body and leapt upward, soaring over Abby and the tank. She pulled the mana to her arms and slammed her fist into the tank.
The sheer force of Anabelle’s mana stopped the tank in mid-flight, its steel casing reverberating from the kinetic force.
Abby zoomed to the side of the tank and opened fire, peppering it with small plasma shots that tore through the metal. As Anabelle dropped to the ground, Abby said, “Looks like there’s a battalion to your front. There’s a blockade. Grok is there.”
“Where else would she be than right where I want to go?”
“Hey, at least you have a super rival or something.”
Anabelle raised her eyebrow at Abby. “A rival who wants to kill me. How does that sound like something anyone would want?”
Abby shrugged. “I don’t know. Sounds like it would make things interesting, at least. All I got to fight is grunts.”
A ferocious roar silenced both DGAs. Above them, the marines on hoverbikes were being pursued by an elegant yet terrifying silver dragon. Abby whistled as she stared at the beast. “Well, looks like I at least get a dragon. Can’t be worse than wrangling a bull, right?”
“You’ve wrangled a bull?”
Abby shrugged. “Wrangling a bull can’t be much harder than a pig, I figure.”
“Get out of here and kill that dragon.”
Abby hovered a few feet above the ground and saluted Anabelle. “You got it, Big Boss Belle.”
“Don’t call me that.”
Abby blasted away, heading for the dragon. Anabelle motioned for the marines to follow her as she went ahead to meet the battalion. And Grok.
Anabelle realized she’d seen the orcs running in the opposite direction from where Abby had said Grok was waiting. She was glad she’d asked Abby. That little piece of information had helped her squad to avoid being flanked by Grok and her orcs. Granted, they would be moving in the opposite direction to Rasputina, but that was better than being jumped from behind.
As Anabelle turned the corner, a rocket came flying at her. She threw up a shield and deflected the attack.
Grok was sitting on the roof of a tank, smiling widely. Orcs, trolls, and goblins surrounded her. There were at least five tanks, the tech more advanced than anything Anabelle had seen at HQ.
The orc leader reloaded and fired again. Anabelle deflected the rocket with ease, and Grok laughed. “Didn’t think you were ever going to show up, knife ears,” Grok shouted.
Anabelle instinctively touched her pointed ears. “What the fuck are you talking about? You have sharp ears, too.”
Grok jumped off the tank and sauntered toward Anabelle, who was walking briskly to meet her. “The difference is, I don’t care. I wasn’t the one pretending to be a human for a hundred years.”
Anabelle felt her mana spiking, and she continued to pull it from everywhere around her. For the first time since she’d met Grok, she wasn’t afraid. She was excited. “Goddess. You talk so much shit. I’m going to enjoy breaking that jaw.”
Grok tossed her rocket launcher away as she pulled out a plasma sword. “Where’s the scared rabbit I saw last time? The timid little elf afraid to do anything other than rely on her little Pathway tenets?”
Anabelle let herself go. The final Path, that of the Lost.
Her skin broke apart, her whole body becoming nothing more than mist. The haze rushed ahead, catching Grok off guard, and reforming behind the orc. Anabelle slammed her hand at the orc, energy crackling in her palm.
Grok turned, raised her sword, and caught the energy ball. Anabelle tried to force it down Grok’s throat, the elf’s eyes bright and flaming.
The spheres of energy exploded, sending Grok skidding across the ground.
As the smoke swirled, it combined with the thick, blue mist, reforming Anabelle’s body. She solidified and exhaled smoke.
Grok smiled widely. “Ah, little rabbit. You are a worthy kill now.”
The elf and the orc ran toward each other as the marines and orc troops opened fire around them.
Between the two battling factions, Rasputina sang and swayed in rhythm to her own song. But the music was not merely coming from her lips. The sound of a million voices rose from a place within and outside of time and space. A blackness that was nothing more than a cage for that which could not be spoken of, but always was.
A pair of orcs sprinted to Rasputina to report the situation, but they could only stare as the lich floated into the air, her skin healing, her body aging in reverse, her patchy, hairless scalp blooming with deep auburn hair.
She hovered above the pentagram, her dress flowing around her as if it were nothing more than the breeze, and the orcs had been invited to see the wind for the first time.
As the orcs watched, their eyes bled, but neither noticed. All they could pay attention to was Rasputina floating through the sky as her dress fell to the ground, her body contorting in bizarre formations, twisting in ways a body should not be capable of.
The sky darkened as clouds gathered.
Rasputina’s maddening cackles could be heard everywhere, as the lich lay suspended in the air. Her eyes beamed green lights into the darkened sky as though they were a pair of maddening beacons.
Beneath her, the orcs fought each other, their hands wrapped around each other’s necks. And in the next moment, they fell to jabbering and speaking in tongues, prostrating before Rasputina and her wild dance.
A few blocks away, Terra stopped dead in her tracks, as did everyone else. A collective shiver ran down their spines, and they turned to stare at each other, confused as to why they were fighting in the first place. Not because they didn’t see the point in the violence, but because, for a brief moment, something else filled their minds, a bigger thought, if one could call it that.
The feeling passed quickly, as though it had never happened.
Across from Terra, Cire impaled an orc with a plasma ax. He cut his way over to Terra, who was staring up at the sky, watching Abby weaving in and out of orc forces as she was chased by the silver dragon. “You see, it’s like everyone else gets all the fun shit sometimes. Those trolls were nothing.”
Cire fired his plasma pistol, killing a goblin who had been sneaking up on Terra. “Did you feel that?”
Terra glanced over her shoulder at Cire. “Feel what?”
“The lich is nearly done with her ritual. We need to get to her and stop this.”
Terra nodded and commed Anabelle. “Hey. Cire says that this shit is about to go off. Any idea how far away you are from the lich?”
When Anabelle answered, she was out of breath. “Don’t know if I can make it. I’m kinda tied up right now. You and Abby will have to make the push.”
Terra could hear Grok screaming in the background. She was glad Anabelle sounded like she was handling the orc better than she had the last time.
Now Terra turned her attention to the lich, shouting to the marines, “Let’s clean this shit up and get going.”
As the marines began to make their final push against the orc platoon, Terra patched into Abby. “Hey, kid. We gotta get to the lich. You think you can hurry it up and meet me there?”
“How about I meet you where you’re at, and you give me a hand?”
“Like a dragon hand?”
“Exactly the hand I’m looking for.”
Terra scanned the street until she spotted two plasma axes. “Bring it to me!” Terra shouted.
Abby was coming around one of the buildings, trailed by the silver dragon. She flew between an explosion as two fighters slammed into each other. Abby cleared the smoke and flames, speeding toward Terra while the silver dragon shot blasts of lightning at her.
Abby whirled, flying backward as she fired at the dragon.
/>
Terra bounced from foot to foot, excited at what was about to happen. She didn’t notice the four orcs in the windows of the buildings around her, nor did she see them line up their rocket launchers on Abby as the girl glided between the buildings.
The orcs fired in unison.
Abby was struck by four rockets simultaneously while a second group of orcs fired a net that stretched between the two buildings.
Abby slammed into the net, still on fire from the rockets. The silver dragon collided with Abby, and they tore through the net and crash-landed together.
Terra watched as Abby skidded across the ground, her nanoarmor retracting from the shock, blood pouring from a deep cut in her stomach.
Terra rushed to Abby as the dragon struggled to pull itself free from the net. “Holy shit, Abby. Are you okay?”
Abby sat up with Terra’s help and pressed her hand to her stomach. “Just a minute,” she mumbled. “A minute to heal. Can’t armor…”
Abby passed out.
Terra lifted the girl’s shirt to inspect the wound. She could see the nanobots working to stitch Abby up.
Cire came up on Terra’s side. “Is the child okay?”
“She’s hurt, but she’ll be back up soon enough. Guess I get the dragon I wanted. Let’s go show that thing why it doesn’t fuck with my friends.”
Chapter Twenty-Four
Anabelle and Grok were fighting up and down the street while the marines and orcs attempted to stay out of their way. The elf was doing a better job of keeping up with Grok this time around. She could feel her mana flowing freely, and she was able to pull as much as she needed from the orcs around her, sapping some of the orcs’ strength to keep from tiring out.
And beyond that, the fear was gone. Each attack Grok threw at Anabelle failed to fill her with dread. She took her time with the fight, thinking through every move, rather than remaining on the defensive of Grok’s onslaught of attacks.
The orc was still sticking to her original fighting tactics. Hard, fast, and relentless. Anabelle could see why. It was difficult for Anabelle to land any strikes. Or at least it had been.
