Equalize

by Ryan DeBruyn

  Azoth watched the fight in utter confusion, not understanding the reason for the increasing pitch. His head was tracking the speaker of each statement, and his mouth was slowly dropping open. His eyes continued to widen as he watched the tennis match of verbal sparring, listening to the words and tone and finding the increased speed and intensity incredible. It was at that point that both looked to him, and he was forced to replay the final words Sela had shouted. “What do you want me to do? What do you want Azoth to do? He won’t leave your side either, you know!”

  Azoth’s mouth continued to hang open in a look so funny it was the actual reason for the argument’s pause, and he mentally sent to them both, “Azoth is a friend. You two are the friend. Let us go fight enemies?” While it wasn’t a ringing endorsement for Sela, his confusion at the problem was conveyed in the mental tone as was his desire to remain beside his friends.

  Coughing to not laugh, Rocky turned away and forced his shocked laughter down. somehow embarrassed that he could find humor in a situation this dire, find happiness after what he had just done and what he planned to do. It was so oxymoronic that he felt wrong as he forced down the reaction of his traitorous mind.

  Sela, who openly smiled and laughed at the birdbrain, just patted the creature on its chest and got the beast to lay down. She quickly had placed Jason in a safe spot on the Chimera’s back and mentally told Azoth to return Jason to camp and then return to Rocky, who had just begun walking in the direction of the shop. When Azoth flapped his wings, she amended her previous instructions with, “No, no! On the ground. You probably can barely fly anyway.”

  Azoth was still not fully recovered, even though Rocky had cast Dark Mend on the Chimera. It seemed that he had quite a large health pool and that it would take some time before his feathers repopulated some of his more injured areas. After her comment, Azoth dropped his head and trudged off towards camp, trying not to dump his cargo.

  It didn’t take long before they began seeing the darker shadows of patrols moving about in the night. Rocky, who had been checking his combat log and was noticing how close he was to his next level, made a decision and moved in a direction that would intersect the patrol. Pulling out the book he had procured from Corsair’s safe, he approached the group, knowing that their beam weaponry would be of little to no use against his levels and armor.

  A few moments later, the patrol had stopped seeing two figures approaching and had leveled guns in his direction. “Stop! Identify yourself. This is past curfew!” a disembodied voice seemed to call out. While Rocky had excellent night vision, he still couldn’t see which of the five men had uttered the statements. Regardless of who spoke it, he chose to stop, which left him as a darker shadow against the night.

  Before they could begin questioning him, Rocky said, “Names and ranks!” in a commanding voice of what he hoped would sound like a commanding officer. The men nearly snapped to attention but managed to forestall the deeply trained physical habit. While they had their internal struggle, Rocky used Analyze, not really needing them to answer.

  Jeremy Figu

  Apprentice-Marksman

  Level 10

  Moderate Analyze has failed to provide additional information.

  Geoff Desier

  Apprentice-Technician

  Level 12

  Moderate Analyze has failed to provide additional information.

  Frederick Winters

  Apprentice-Tactician

  Level 15

  Moderate Analyze has failed to provide additional information.

  Theodore Carthier

  Apprentice-Soldier

  Level 9

  Moderate Analyze has failed to provide additional information.

  Derrick Batts

  Apprentice-Hussar

  Level 14

  Moderate Analyze has failed to provide additional information.

  Choosing to forestall them further as he checked the book for the names, Rocky decided to continue speaking a moment later, “Derrick, Theodore, Fred, Geoff, and Jeremy, who is the team leader?” The looks of confusion the men shared made it too easy for Rocky to flip through his book of traitors. This act however, brought up a problem; only two of the men were part of Corsair’s contingent.

  Derrick and Fred were both the highest leveled of the group, and Rocky now knew why. They had personally been sent out on three survivor eradication missions. Dropping into Stealth, Rocky moved with his maximum speed and removed the head from Fred. Sela, who had followed suit and had been reading through the book over his shoulder, accurately punctured Derrick's heart. Both men were dead before the looks of confusion could resolve themselves.

  Shouting and cursing broke out between the remaining three men. Whoever had attacked them had killed their two highest leveled fighters in a matter of seconds and then disappeared again. Rocky appeared a moment later, standing exactly where he had been before his attack. He figured intimidation may be just as effective against these men.

  Multiple laser bolts were shot at him, and they just fizzled against his Ether infused armor. Rocky had placed a hand in front of his face. Each shot only removed a few points of his armor’s Ether pool but, otherwise, was having no effect. Rocky commanded in a cold voice, “Enough! If you fire another shot, I will end you all and find another group to talk with. There is a reason you weren’t killed earlier, and it wasn’t because I couldn’t.”

  It had the desired effect. Even though it wouldn’t inspire trust from the men, it did give him the opportunity to explain what he had discovered about Corsair’s contingent. The three remaining men listened and questioned throughout his entire explanation, often bringing up questions that Rocky had no answer to.

  When he showed them the book and they recognized all of the names inside, the men began to believe. The fact that the three had had altercations with members included in the traitor’s book due to their callous disregard of the survivors was a considerable factor.

  After far too long a time in Rocky’s impatient opinion, the group left the dead bodies behind and began leading them towards the militia’s headquarters. The group passed a few more patrols, these ones with tanks. Luckily, the members of each patrol chose to follow Rocky’s escorts instead of questioning and fighting. It was probably because the three wisely decided to not tell the new members about the circumstances around how Rocky had arrived.

  As the group grew and moved towards the headquarters, Rocky analyzed each man and checked it against the names he had. Between Sela and himself, they probably had to kill six more men of the twenty-two now escorting them. However, Rocky whispered to Sela, “We should probably explain to the larger group at the headquarters first. What do you think?”

  In response, Sela pulled out a vial of something she had purchased in the shop. Rocky wasn’t sure what exactly it was, but he had assumed it was a potion. Other than restocking his elixirs, he hadn’t bought anything else. Now he wished he had more as he was out of both Health Potions and Ether Draughts.

  She unsheathed both of Alex’s mithril daggers and liberally coated each with the concoction the vial contained. The sight of the blades made Rocky’s face harden, but then Sela was already moving to the group of six individuals who were walking close together, whispering to each other. As she grew near, she pretended to trip, and faster than the men could see, she had nicked each with a dagger.

  Rocky looked around, expecting to see someone realizing what happened, but even the men themselves who had small cuts didn’t know it had been made with a dagger. Instead, they looked at Sela’s long nails, and a few even made sexist comments about women’s priorities during an apocalypse. Any feelings of pity for the men were drowned out when the catcalls and propositions started.

  Sela came back face red, looking for all the world like a meek, embarrassed girl who couldn’t take care of herself. Rocky just continued walking as she came in beside him, and she gave him a sly wink. She then reached for the book which he relinquished to her, and as more and more ind
ividuals joined the parade, Sela did her work.

  About fifteen minutes later, the odd parade arrived at the hospital, and the first six men were already sweating and looking green in the face. The original three called over a familiar face, and Rocky retold his story to Joe, the man who had the trust of the individuals occupying Merivale Highschool, which Rocky had visited before St. Monica. Using the book, which Sela brought over, and the other two ledgers he had collected from the safe, it wasn’t long before Joe was issuing orders to the militiamen.

  Each group that had been issued an order left immediately, heading into a sector of the city, intending to collect all survivors and bring them to the outside of town. Then they were ordered to defend them until Joe arrived. Joe had made the decision to accompany Rocky and Sela to confront Corsair and his elites, despite Rocky trying to dissuade him.

  Somewhere along the way, men began dropping to the ground vomiting blood, shivering, and screeching in pain. At first, it caused a bit of panic before the loyal militiamen realized which people were in so much pain. After that, if a man collapsed in such a manner, he often received balls of spit before he received any pity.

  This did, however, allow the remaining men who had turned traitor to leave the area, probably either fleeing the city or returning to Corsair and his team. Either way, they would find no succor.

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  The one good part about Joe accompanying them was that he knew where Corsair had been going. The group made their way from the hospital towards the Carlton University campus which had been built up slowly as an eventual stronghold for the newly formed faction. Corsair was going to either wait for his patron’s arrival or grind the strength needed to assault the city center.

  Joe had been aware of this fortress’s construction but hadn’t been aware of the nefarious crimes it heralded. As the group walked, Joe’s head continually shook, and mutterings could be heard as he saw the clues in hindsight. Evident to the man seen in retrospect, now he was distraught with himself for his blind trust.

  It was for this reason he had bombarded the two with questions on the way to the shop, trying to understand their presence in town and how they had come to suspect Corsair. Rocky answered what he could as he was the only one of the two who had been present in Ottawa the entire time.

  The two made the briefest of stops in the shop, purchasing some higher-power weaponry and armor for Joe. Sela and Rocky stocked up on tactical equipment, potions, and other single-use items, not sure what edge they might need so going a bit overboard on variety. Upon exit from the shop, the reason for Rocky’s thrifty nature on this trip into the Aretrean Bazaar was made manifest when he purchased a Move feature that surprised everyone else in his group.

  Days ago, Sela had mentioned that shops could move and relocate to other safe areas if they weren’t being frequented. This had led Rocky to question if it was possible to move a shop with conscious effort. His theory had been even further confirmed when he had seen how much Corsair had been saving.

  Upon arrival at the shop, he had immediately left to access the seed shop located on Earth. The creator of this particular shop and perhaps many others around the world had made the cost of moving the shop equal to how much had been spent in the shop to date, which meant that he had to pay a Crystalized Ether to the seed for each Crystalized Ether spent in the main shop from patrons of his location.

  The total came up to two thousand nine hundred eight-one crystals before they entered the shop and was three thousand forty-three crystals after they exited. Once he purchased the option and exited the shop, it folded up into a large metal ball. The purchase left the group greatly diminished in new world currency but with a great deal of added security against Corsair and his patrons that had been using the shop as a meeting site. The group also exited the shop with the following items.

  20 x Ether Draught (Potion) – 100 Ether per 25 Seconds

  20 x Health Potion (Diluted) – 200 Health over 13 Seconds

  10 x Plasma Grenades

  10 x Plasma Charges

  10 x MKZ Goblin Turret – Deploys on drop and targets anyone not specified friendly.

  1 x Journeyman-Blizzard Spell Scroll – Area damage, slow effect.

  10 x Gravity Grenades – Creates a hyperdense Ether point that will alter gravity in the space it occupies, pulling anyone affected towards the point with a strength four times normal gravity. (Developed on Planet Zaar, which has an effective gravity of 8.2 m/s2)

  10 x EMP Grenades – Creates a powerful EMP blast that will shut down all purely mechanical creatures within its radius. If the target is only partly mechanical, it may disrupt random systems.

  2 x Graven Silk Worm Rope – This rope is nearly unbreakable and was made from the material of the deadly Silken Death Worms of planet Graven.

  Cloak of Technical Invisibility – Uses micro cameras to project images of opposite sides on to cloaks material, creating near-perfect invisibility. When moving, this statement is not true.

  1 x Set of Kolinar Leather Armor

  1 x Ether Infused Assault Rifle

  3 x Communication Earpieces

  The earpiece comms was a purchase Rocky had realized they needed if everyone in the group was going to be in Stealth. Relaying orders through Azoth was eventually going to be a game of broken telephone, and he wished he had thought of them before the fateful encounter of the day before, regretting that he hadn’t been able to alter the orders that led to the boy's demise. He blatantly ignored the fact that changing his orders probably wouldn’t have changed much.

  The prior three items were purchased for Joe who was a bit behind in the level department, and they had decided to try to make up for it with equipment. Rocky figured it was a good investment of the money he had stolen from Corsair as it was money that came from the people Joe so diligently protected.

  Joe Flacca

  Level 13

  Apprentice-Special Trooper

  Once the shop folded up into a ball of metal the size of a ten-pin bowling ball, it notified Rocky that he had seven days to reactivate it, or it would return to its previous location. Not wanting to lose access to a shop for his Territory, he made a mental note to make sure he had placed it in the new grotto by that time.

  On the walk towards Carlton University, Azoth literally crashed into the ground in front of the group, throwing up dirt and debris, followed a moment later by his exuberant hopping and excited form. Rocky placed a hand on Joe’s arms as he began leveling his rifle at the silly creature and said, “He’s with us. Joe, this is Azoth. Azoth, this is Joe.”

  Not able to respond, Azoth just ran towards the startled trooper, nearly giving the man a heart attack before stopping suddenly and dropping into a strange, doglike posture, looking for all the world like he wanted to play a game of fetch or play fight with Joe. Rocky shook his head and told Joe he should probably pet him at least.

  The man had reached out with a ton of trepidation and finally pet the overly large ball of feathers and fur. Afterward, Azoth had stood preening near the man as he continued to praise and pet him. Knowing Azoth had just made a new friend, Rocky continued on the path to the school as the light began to crest the horizon to the east.

  By the time the group caught sight of the half-completed fortress, the sun was above the horizon, and the long grass was glowing golden with refracted light. The fort, even half complete, was intimidating and daunting in stature. Somehow, Rocky had never come to this area of the city and was shocked by the size and scope of the project.

  A wall like something out of Starship Troopers had been erected around the center of the area and another partially completed wall half as high as the inner one was going up around a much more substantial portion of land. The inner wall was lined with men, all of whom were on high alert. They had no doubt been alerted to Rocky’s presence at the hospital grounds by at least one fleeing traitor.

  Azoth ran in the opposite direction after Sela explained they needed an aerial view, and th
en further amended, as he began limbering up his wings, that he needed to take off from farther away or he would be far too obvious. Before he left, Rocky specified that the flying dump truck should be exceptionally distant before launching into the air, not trusting that his puppy-like brain wouldn’t decide a few hundred meters was far enough.

  The group then spread out, circling the campus and hoping to find weaknesses and advantages that they could exploit. Interestingly, the second wall, while having parts erect, had no men patrolling its length, and Rocky assumed that was due to the casualties. Also, he had removed a fertile ground of recruits by revealing the plots of its leader far before they were ready.

  Creeping on to the half-completed outer wall, Rocky began to formulate a plan as he traversed it and got a bit of a closer look at how it was constructed. Each wall had many support beams on the interior side of the fence which had a slight lean internally to allow most of the gravitational and weight-induced forces to be dissipated in that direction, giving the supports no need to be on the exterior side. Otherwise, it was just a question of getting inside the higher wall and placing some charges.

  The material was some sort of thin sheet metal with numerous hatch patterned channel supports bolted on the interior side. The catwalk at the top of the wall was just a checker plate set down half the height of a human with a retaining rail on the back end to limit the number of falling defenders.

  This led him to do a lap around the completed inner structure, and he found its only two entrances closed and barred. Moving away so he could use his comms, Rocky whispered, “Anyone have any ideas of how we are going to get inside?” He also mentally checked in with Azoth to see if he saw anything that would help.