by Ramy Vance
Alex was glad she had never cared much for fantasy books or games. It was much more interesting to be experiencing it all for the first time. The most she had ever learned of fantasy had been from Middang3ard VR, but now she was living the real thing. “How much longer until we get to this place?” she asked.
Jim looked at his dashboard while he pushed his upper lip out with his tongue. “Probably another half-hour. I know it’s a little far, but it’s supposed to be beautiful.”
Alex half-wondered why Gill knew about it. He wasn’t from this realm, so he must have recently gone there. “I love riding,” Alex said. “It could be six hours away, and I’d be glad for the ride.”
Jim started to slowly bring his mech into a descent, getting out of the clouds. “You know, I can’t remember the last time I had a full day off. Between training and these recent crazy missions, I thought I was going to lose my mind.”
Alex agreed. It had been too long without a break. The last few months had been nothing but a blur. Between the invasion of the Dark Nest, fighting a reality-warping meteor and being recruited for a rescue mission in an orcish arena, Alex had hardly had a chance to catch her breath. And that wasn’t counting all the regular classes and training sessions Alex and the rest of Team Boundless had to attend.
Myrddin had informed the Nest that today was going to be a national holiday but hadn’t elaborated on whose people or which nations were host to it. Alex thought it was just a way for Myrddin to give the Nest a chance to relax without looking like he’d gone soft. It was a good idea.
Jim kicked his feet up in the cockpit as he pulled out a soda. He whistled for Alex’s attention and mimed opening the can, and when Alex nodded, he tossed one over to her. “Wish we would have gotten more than a day off,” Alex grumbled. “I feel like my nerves have been fraying for the last week.”
Jim nodded his agreement before saying, “Yeah, I’m not sure if they think running us ragged is going to make us tougher or if they don’t realize we’re tired. I mean, my dad used to talk about how bad boot camp was sometimes. Doubt this is much different. At least we’re clear of getting any more missions. I can deal with school and training.”
School and training were easier than missions, but Alex didn’t want to do either of them. Spending a week flying with Chine and goofing off seemed like a more appropriate reward for saving a realm and thwarting the attack on the Nest. That was probably reserved for heroes, though, and Alex was just a soldier, one of many.
Jim leaned over the edge of his mech’s cockpit and peered down. Then he sat back down and closed his cockpit, tilting his mech slightly to the left. “Pixies in trouble,” he said through the comm.
Alex chuckled and shook her head. “You’ve been hanging out too much with Jollies. I don’t think I know enough pixie slang to make sense out of that,” she replied.
“No, I mean, there are pixies down there. And they look like they might be in trouble.”
Alex looked down. She didn’t have the benefit of Jim’s mech’s surveillance tech, but she had something that a lot of other people would have envied: magical dragon eyes. She was still learning how to master them, but every day was easier than the previous one. Focusing on things beyond human capacity was a parlor trick now.
Alex closed her eyes, took a quick breath, and opened them, looking down thousands of feet in perfect clarity. It was a feat that would have given her a migraine for days a few weeks earlier.
Jim was right. There was a group of pixies near the surface who were fleeing from something. Alex looked back a little way and could see that the pixies were trying to avoid a group of giants. “Great,” Alex moaned. “Not even a full day off.”
“We could just postpone until later. You know where I live.”
“You live across the hall from me.”
“And yet you never try to sneak in.”
Alex blushed, remembering a few nights ago when she had snuck out of her room and stood in front of Jim’s room for nearly five minutes, debating whether or not she should knock. She stood there until Gill passed by, smirking a little but remaining silent. “Oh, come on! Pack up the jokes and let’s go help those pixies before they get crushed.”
Chapter Two
The pixies Alex and Jim were worried about were currently flying through a forest, trying to take advantage of the trees as cover. They were nearly a hundred of them—a small tribe, since woodland pixies tended to keep their tribes smaller. The trees were not doing much to hide the pixies, though, since their anxiety and fear could easily be seen in their glowing, changing pigment.
There was a good amount of distance between the pixies and the giants, but it was being closed fast. Although the pixies were fast, the giants had the benefit of being huge. These giants were larger than any Alex had seen so far. As she’d learned through her studies, there were dozens of different species.
These seemed to be yhomir or forest giants. They usually kept to themselves and avoided conflict whenever possible. But as Alex had learned, a creature under the Dark One’s sway rarely acted as it should. Creatures and sentient beings would behave in ways contrary to their ideals or traditions. Alex was terrified of what would happen if the Dark One were to ever take control of humanity.
The yhomir were closing on the pixies as the seconds ticked by. The giants were now running nearly on all fours, their lanky, muscular arms almost touching the ground as they ran forward, their mouths foaming and eyes red. They looked as if they’d been reduced to some feral pre-giant form, devoid of intelligence or understanding.
The pixies were no longer trying to hide. They were screaming and flying as fast as they could.
Alex and Jim descended into the forest. The trees were a problem Alex hadn’t had to deal with yet. Generally, the battles she had fought had taken place in the sky or open spaces, since her enemies usually were riding something as well. Today, that was not the case. The farther the pixies ran into the forest, the thicker the trees became.
The forest was almost dense enough to block out the sun. As Alex got closer to the tree line, she commed Jim and asked, “You got any ideas on how to deal with this one?”
Jim shrugged as he steered away from Alex. “There’s no way we can take on all those giants head-on. We need to cull their numbers. Did you count how many of them there were?”
“At least thirty. I don’t know why they’d need that many to go after those pixies. You think it’s the Dark One? What would he want with a bunch of woodland pixies?”
“What does he ever want? Seems like the guy wants to dominate just for the sake of it. There doesn’t seem to be any reason behind this whole war, or none that I can figure out. None that anyone is telling us.”
Alex directed her thoughts toward Chine. Do you think you can maneuver through the trees?
Chine replied, I will be able to move more easily on the ground. The trees are too close together for flying, but I won’t lose any speed on my feet. It would be a more effective strategy.
Alex commed Jim again. “Hey, how’s your ground game look in that thing?”
Jim flipped a couple of switches and brought up his holoscreen. “Should be good. Faster than a giant. We’re supposed to be getting these things upgraded later this week. That nerd-farmer we went on that mission with is supposedly a genius. Convinced Roy to let her take a look at the mechs.”
Alex was interested in what the nerd-farmer (Alex knew the kid’s name was Abby, but nerd-farmer sounded kind of endearing in her head) had in store for the mechs, but now wasn’t the time to talk shop. Those pixies were going to be dust if Alex and Jim didn’t move in fast enough. “All right, I say we take a stealth approach. See if we can sneak up behind them and thin the ranks a little,” she suggested.
Jim hit a button on his dashboard and his mech faded from sight. “When the hell did you figure out you could do that?” Alex exclaimed.
Jim’s head popped back into visibility for a second, just long enough for Alex to see his smug smile.
“Got a new batch of augments earlier today. Didn’t think I’d get a chance to try this one out, but now seems like the perfect chance.”
The two descended until they were nearly brushing the trees. Alex relaxed and let her eyes do their work. Because her eyes were modeled after Chine’s, Alex had all of the benefits of a dragon’s vision. She could see the heat signatures of the giants beneath her.
After determining their location, she swooped behind them from above and then lowered herself and Chine into the forest.
Chine touched down as lightly as possible, hardly making any noise, and they began to sneak closer to the giants. Chine took the lead on this one because Alex wasn’t used to riding her dragon on the ground.
The psychic link between Chine and Alex was strong, and Alex rarely had to communicate about things like that. It made working together a lot easier.
Alex rarely realized how lizard-like Chine could be, but she was reminded as the dragon slipped in and out of the shadows. His footsteps didn’t make a sound.
Jim was out of sight, and Alex hoped he had touched down already as well. She was going to comm him but thought better of it. Giants rarely used tech (something that didn’t seem to be affected by the Dark One’s influence), but there was always a chance they had some way of detecting electronic communications. Alex had recently been reading about the psychic capabilities of some types of giants. It would be best to play this safe.
For now, Alex would just assume Jim was as competent a rider on the ground as she knew he was in the air. Part of her wished Gill was here instead of Jim for this mission, and it made her feel like crap. Gill was great at stealth, and it would have put some of her worries to rest. Plus, she kind of missed the drow. Not thinking about that right now, Alex reminded herself. Teenage Hormone Hour is scheduled for later.
Up ahead, Alex could see a giant who was lagging behind the rest of the group. Perfect. Waves of Chine’s emotions rolled over Alex. It was something that had just recently started happening. Alex hadn’t spoken with the dragon about it yet, but whenever Chine felt something strongly, it would wash over Alex like a fine mist.
So far, it had not been anything complex—mostly boredom and excitement, but this time, it was different. There was something going on within Chine that was almost overpowering. Giddiness was the only way Alex could describe it. It wasn’t hard to figure out why, either. Sometimes Alex had an inkling of what was sparking his emotions, but this time, it hit Alex like a slap in the face.
The hunt. Something about hunting the giants was making Chine as happy as a child with a new toy. Alex thought it was kind of cute, and she let herself get caught up in it as the two of them raced after the lagging giant. Giants weren’t known for being forgiving when traveling. If you couldn’t keep up, you couldn’t keep up. It was a mindset Alex was willing to exploit.
Chine’s head snapped forward and he snatched the giant, crushing the huge creature between his jaws. Both Chine and Alex felt extremely satisfied with the sounds of the cracking bones.
Alex hadn’t been aware Chine was so good at stealth. All of the battles the two of them had been in so far had been heart-pounding, explosive situations. Alex had never heard of dragons being sneaky, but at the moment, Chine reminded Alex more of a dangerous viper than anything else.
Even with that, it was only a matter of time before the giants realized they were being picked off. Giants weren’t dumb, and the darkness of the forest was only going to obscure Alex and Chine for so long. If there had been more riders, Alex could have easily overtaken the giants she was stalking. But she and Jim weren’t going to be enough. This was going to turn into a full-on battle eventually.
There was still a fair amount of distance between the main group of giants and the few who had fallen behind. Alex didn’t know how many giants Jim had managed to take out, but she knew that once the fight started, they’d still be dealing with the bulk of the giants.
There was a bright flash of heat, something Alex was certain only she and Chine noticed. That must have been Jim. Alex realized that if she focused, she could pick up on Jim’s heat signature. She concentrated on finding different levels of heat at the same time.
Jim’s mech was hot and blew out her vision. It was snaking its way, slower but still persistently, through the forest, occasionally stopping to snipe one of the giants.
At the sound of Jim’s approach, two of the giants turned, spotting Alex and Chine. They shouted, calling to the other giants, who immediately forgot the pixies they’d been chasing.
One of the giants reached over and ripped a tree up by its roots. The yhomir threw the tree at Chine, who leaped to the side. The tree hit another, exploding into a thousand chunks. That giant really had an arm on him. Alex figured keeping her distance was the best idea. If one of them got hold of Chine, it would be bad news.
The dragon growled as he backed away from the giants. He must have been thinking the same thing, Alex thought as she scanned the environment. There wasn’t much space to move around with the trees being so densely packed. It was going to be impossible to accurately use Chine’s flames without torching the trees.
That would be disastrous. There were a host of creatures and races that lived in the woods. Alex was pretty sure the pixies were residents of the very forest cradling them now. It would mean a lot of deaths and a lot of displacement. There had to be another option.
One of the giants went flying to the left, crumbling under an invisible attack from Jim. The rest of the giants whirled, trying to find the source of the attack. Maybe that was the best approach for the time being: let Jim take out giants from stealth mode, and Alex could clean up the rest of them.
A giant ripped another tree up and swung it like a bat. There was the sound of metal cracking, and sparks flew as Jim became visible.
Jim’s mech tumbled back, nearly toppling over. He obviously hadn’t been expecting to be found out so soon. “Damn it,” he muttered into the comm. “Any ideas on how we’re going to take care of this?”
There was no time to form a plan. Instead, Alex trusted her gut, and right now, her gut was telling her to engage. Fight. “We get in close,” Alex cried out. “Hit hard and aggressively.”
“I’m starting to think that’s your solution for everything.”
“You’re welcome to solve this problem however you want. I know what I’m doing.”
Alex pulled back on her dragon anchor, sending Chine leaping at the closest giant.
The giant saw Chine coming and braced itself for the attack. As Chine snapped his jaws closed, the giant grabbed the side of Chine’s mouth, keeping the dragon from closing his jaws.
Alex could see that this was going to be a fight. The other giants were starting to surround her. She stretched out her hand to call her scythe blade from her dragon anchor, and it materialized in her right hand. She twirled it elegantly, relishing in the sound of the gears whirring in her robotic arm.
Even though it had taken some time to get used to it, Alex preferred using her robotic arm for fighting. She had a much broader range of motion and more strength than she’d had before.
She wasn’t going to leave her dragon to deal with the giant by himself. She unhooked herself from the anchor and ran up the length of Chine’s back his head, then slashed the giant’s throat, severing its head.
Its body fell, and the rest of the giants’ eyes flashed as if they realized that they were no longer the only predators. Alex and Chine were their equals, if not more. Guess I’ll just have to prove it to you, asshats, Alex thought to herself.
Chine whipped around, slashing the giant behind him with his tail as his rider ran down his right wing, slashing at the giants who were attempting to crowd him.
At Alex’s side, Jim was firing his machine gun, cutting down the ones who were too stupid to turn away from the bullets.
Suddenly, as if they had all received a command, the giants dropped to the ground, hunching so their arms scraped the forest floor. Then they spran
g into the air, grabbing the branches of the trees and swinging up into the dark canopy like huge monkeys.
Jim and Alex looked around the clearing. All of the giants were gone. “Uh, what just happened?” Alex asked.
“I don’t know, but giants aren’t supposed to move like that. Last time I saw one, they were not that agile. I thought that was kinda their thing, you know? Big and slow.”
“Explains how they were able to keep up with the pixies.”
A heavy kick hit Alex in the side, throwing her off of Chine. She hit a tree hard and gasped for breath. “Shit,” she muttered as she stood up. She looked above her. Giants were hanging from tree branches, their red eyes glaring.
Alex groaned as she stood up. All right, I didn’t want to go the whole-hog, but we might as well. She ran back to the dragon. Let’s tear through these guys, Chine!
Chine didn’t need to be told twice. The dragon roared, letting everything in the forest know of his presence. Then he leaped into the trees while Jim watched, amazed at Alex’s brazenness.
Alex cut through a giant while Chine snorted a small, controlled stream of fire, burning the branches out from under a couple of giants. Jim saw his opening and bolted toward the creatures, his machine guns blazing, cutting them down as soon as they hit the ground.
Above, Alex and the dragon were making short work of the giants. They moved in unison, Alex traversing Chine’s body as if he were a canvas for her to paint on. They annihilated the giants that remained almost before the monsters knew it.
Chine landed on the ground as Jim wandered over. “You know, if you want, next time I could just stand on the sidelines. I have no problem with you taking care of everything,” Jim joked.
Alex looked around at the bodies that littered the forest floor. “Psh, what are you talking about?”
“You and Chine wrecked those giants. I thought they were going to give us a much harder time.”
“Eh, they made the mistake of assuming Chine and I were attached at the hip. That, and this big guy seems to be as comfortable in a forest as in the air. Plus, they were interrupting our date. So, how about we go see how those pixies are and get back to it?”
