by Rachel Aaron
"No," Fangs said softly, his eyes wide and unfocused as he took in the carnage playing out in front of him. "This is your true power isn't it? The power of the players."
James nodded silently. Technically, the knights and the players were all level eighty. That should have made them equal, but unlike the knights with their mundane swords and regular metal armor, the Roughnecks were raiders. Every one of them was decked from head to toe in literal items of legend pried from the dead hands of the most powerful creatures in this world. They were unstoppable, untouchable demons of destruction. No wonder the people of this world feared them so much.
"That's right!" NekoBaby said beside them, her voice victorious. "Mess with the best, die like the rest! Pow pow!"
She mimed some playful punching motions, but just as James was about to snap at her that this was nothing to be happy about, his brother beat him to it.
"'To save us when we cannot save ourselves,'" Ar'Bati said, his grief-stricken voice cutting through Neko's mockery far better than anything James could have said. "That is the promise of Bastion."
He turned and pointed at the crimson-and-gold banners that still fluttered feebly from the lampposts. "Since I was a child, I was taught that the Holy King was our champion and our hero. He alone commands the power of the magical Bastion, artifact of the Sun and our only true shield against the Once King's undead and dark beings of the Lightless Realm. He also holds the debt of the ancient Bird Xthr, fourth born of the Unbounded Sky. If the need is great enough, he can call down these powers to defeat any foe. That is why he is called the Holy King, and his strength is why the Four Clans of the Savanna swore loyalty to Bastion. The same goes for the Sires of the Emerald Forest and the Schtumples of the Grand Mercantile. It's why all the lands around Bastion united into one kingdom rather than fighting amongst themselves. Despite our differences, we all rally around our king because we know that no matter what happens, no matter how bad things get, Bastion will always be here to defend us."
He turned back to Neko. "That is what Bastion means to us. For centuries, the Holy King and his Royal Knights have been our bulwark against everything that wants to destroy us. They are our shield, our light against the dark." He threw out his hand toward the bloody chaos of the battle below. "Do you even know what you are doing? You are slaying our saviors! The ones who are sworn to hold the line of peace and order in our world! That is a tragedy. How can you cheer for it?"
James's mouth was hanging open by the time he finished. He'd never heard Fangs in the Grass speak for so long or so passionately. The jubatus warrior was so close to Neko, he was practically in her face, his whole body shaking with the intensity of his feelings.
Unfortunately, NekoBaby wasn't nearly as impressed.
"Yeah, yeah," she said, rolling her eyes. "When this was a game, they were good. Now they're evil. Too bad for them."
"It was not them!" Ar'Bati cried desperately. "It was the Nightmare! They've been poisoned by it."
"Still no excuse," Neko said, shaking her head. "Nothing excuses what they've done."
"You have no idea what you're talking about," the cat warrior said, his voice trembling. "You don't know what it's like to watch your world end. To be enslaved without knowing why or how or if you'll ever get free. We had to exist in a dreamlike state, forced to live the same horrible day over and over and over. Nine out of ten of us vanished. We had no idea where our families were or if they were alive. We couldn't even talk to each other. We were trapped as puppets acting out whatever dramas the Nightmare needed us to perform. And if that wasn't hell enough, you players were always there to rub salt in our wounds. Your kind tortured us for decades for your petty vanities and childish glory. Of course this world hates you. You are worse monsters than the Once King's armies could ever be."
"Then why don't you join them then, Angry Cat?" Neko said, jabbing Ar'Bati in the stomach with a claw. "You're an NPC too. If you like them so much, why don't you go string up some lowbies in the gallows with your heroes, huh?"
"Never," Ar'Bati said fiercely. "What they have done here is dreadful, and I will never condone it. But I can understand why they turned to such acts, because I was like that too." He looked down at his shaking hands. "Being enslaved by the Nightmare filled me with hate and anger the likes of which you cannot comprehend. I spent every sleepless hour that I was trapped burning with the desire to make you players suffer as I had. I cursed your entire race every time the lich skinned me alive. Every day. Every month. Every year for eight decades, until I was no longer myself. I became my hate."
Ar'Bati flexed his claws. "If a player had been right in front of me at the exact moment when the Nightmare broke, there was nothing I wouldn't have done to them. I would have hurt that person in every possible way before killing them as I'd been killed. Then I would have found another and done it again. Over and over, as if all that death could heal me." He shook his head. "That I avoided such sin isn't because I am great. It's because of James. He stopped me before I did anything that could not be undone and helped me find an honorable revenge and proper reconciliation. I was spared the regrets of atrocities I would have committed in my madness if I'd been left on my own, and not a day passes where I don't realize anew how much I was saved by his kindness."
Ar'Bati said this like James wasn't standing right beside him. James felt his cheeks burning with embarrassment at the head warrior's words, suddenly envious of the Assassin's ability to vanish into the Lightless Realm. But while he was beyond grateful Ar'Bati's speech was over, Neko wasn't finished yet.
"So you didn't do anything bad, right?" Neko said. When he nodded, she smiled. "Then we're cool, Angry Cat. But these Royal Fuckers--"
"Deserve our pity," Ar'Bati said sharply. "It rends my heart to watch heroes trample upon their oaths and throw away their sacred honor, because I've stood on the precipice they're now falling from. I understand the regret and shame that awaits them when they come to their senses at the bottom. They will never be able to face their families after this. The title of Sir is one that these men have worked for all their lives. Children barely strong enough to hold a sword swing it dreaming of being called a knight, and they're throwing it all away in their madness." He took a step away from Neko. "But you can't see that, can you? Those soldiers aren't broken men who need saving to you. They're just more NPCs for you to kill, troll, or loot, as your kind have always done to our world!"
James put a hand on his brother's shoulder as NekoBaby backed away. "Whoa there, Angry Cat," she said, gripping her staff. "Time for you to take a chill hairball."
Ar'Bati bared his teeth. "I will not--"
"Don't care," she said, turning her back on them. "I'm here to drop the heals, not argue with you. You can preach all you want, but we're still standing in an extermination camp. Killing these guys is justice."
"That's what they said of you players, too, I'm sure," Ar'Bati growled.
"Like I care what they say." The cat girl crossed her arms belligerently. "As far as I'm concerned, these guys are Nazis, which means we can do whatever we want to them." The cat-girl cupped her hands over her mouth to yell at a nearby Roughneck Knight fighting a patrol of men who'd joined the battle from the nearby city. "Yeah! Rip his balls off, Frank!"
She had other, even more creatively obscene suggestions, but James was no longer listening. He could feel the explosion building in Ar'Bati, and it was vital that he get Fangs away from here before his brother started something he couldn't finish. He put his arms around Ar'Bati's shaking shoulders and dragged him down the barricade, away from from NekoBaby.
"Please tell me you don't see this the same way, James," Fangs said as they picked their way down the rubble. "We're not just NPCs to you, right?"
"You are family to me, Fangs in the Grass," James said solemnly. "And for what it's worth, I think you're right. The Royal Knights are destroying themselves with this, and they're taking Bastion down with them. I want to stop it, but only the king himself can do that. They're his k
nights."
Everything was so wrong. James just didn't know what he could do about it. Rather, he knew what to do, which was to get into the castle and show jovial King Gregory what his men were up to in the hopes that the king would stop them. That was the only actual solution to their problem. It was the how to get there that had him stumped. He and Ar'Bati were effectively his sister's prisoners, and SilentBlayde had the letters that were his only proof. Without them, James had zero chance of getting into the castle as anything other than dead. Technically, they were still within his grasp, but the backpack of FFO's number-one Assassin might as well have been the moon for how little chance he had of getting there. He was getting good and depressed about that when he felt something enter his shadow.
There was no other way to describe it. One second, he and Fangs were picking their way down the rubble pile, away from the battle, and the next, there was something invisible and terrifying stepping into space that should have been only his. He felt Fangs jump as his body went stiff, then before either of them could do anything, SilentBlayde stepped out of the tiny scrap of shadow at James's feet.
"Holy crap, SB," James gasped, clutching his chest. "Don't do--"
The Assassin shoved James aside, knocking him to the ground as he hopped ten feet straight to the top of the barricade, where NekoBaby was throwing heals.
"Neko, get to Roxxy," he ordered in a sharp, very un-SB-like tone.
"What?" Neko asked, giving him a funny look. "Dude, I'm supposed to be back here guarding James and Angry Tacos. Roxxy has Anders. She'll be--"
"Anders is down," SB said in a voice that stopped her cold. "And KatanaFatale is dead. Tina's in trouble, and we need you now. Don't talk. Just go. I'll meet you there."
He vanished back into the shadows the moment he finished, leaving Neko in a panic.
"Shit, shit, shit, shit!" she said, scanning the battlefield. "SB never gives orders like that unless things are serious." She looked over her shoulder to give James and Ar'Bati the hairy eyeball. "You two stay put. I mean it! You're miles too short for this ride, so don't go out there and get killed like morons because--spoiler alert--Angry Cat ain't getting a raise. Now don't move!"
She put her staff in her mouth and scampered down the barricade on all fours in true jubatus fashion, vanishing into the chaos below.
The moment she was gone, Ar'Bati grabbed James's shoulders. "This is our chance."
"Our chance to do what?" James said frantically, climbing back up the barricade. "SB still has our bag of letters, and Tina might be dying!"
"Your sister is a monster. She can handle herself," Fangs argued, grabbing his belt to yank him back down. "We, however, might never get another chance! This is about more than just our honor. If we don't find a way to stop the knights, all of Bastion will bear their crimes for generations!"
"But I don't know what to do!" James cried.
"Gnoll shit!" Ar'Bati yelled back at him. "You always know what to do! You were four steps ahead of every corner in the Red Canyon. Do that again!"
James clenched his jaw with a curse and scrambled up the barricade to look at the battle again. The Roughnecks were scattered throughout the whole camp now. He couldn't see Tina in the chaos, but he could feel the ground shaking under his feet, which meant she was probably in the middle of combat. They were at the front of the camp. The fight here had been over for some time, so everyone had moved farther into the camp. Now that Neko had run off as well, the only players left back here were the low-level characters the Roughnecks had rescued, meaning he and Ar'Bati were effectively alone.
He tapped his claws on the rubble anxiously. Fangs was right. They'd probably never get a better chance to run, but what could they do without the letters? It was possible they could get into the castle just on the strength of being Claw Born, but they'd have nothing to use once they got inside. Having real, physical proof of the Once King's invasion had been the crux of his entire plan. Without that, all they had to convince the king was their word, and given the crazy state of the city, James didn't think that was worth much. He was still going over it in his head when someone tapped on his foot.
James jumped a foot in the air, tail fluffing in surprise. Ar'Bati--who'd been even farther up the wall--cursed as well, and the two of them looked down in unison to see a red-robed Sorcerer staring sheepishly back at them.
"Sorry," Flameboyant said. "Is this a bad time?"
"What are you doing here?" Ar'Bati demanded, sliding down the barricade. "You're supposed to be with the other low-level players."
"Yeah, but I saw you guys over here and thought you could use some assistance."
"Assistance with what?" Fangs asked suspiciously. "What do you think we're doing?"
"I don't know," the Sorcerer said with a shrug. "But I figured whatever it was, you'd go for it now that your watch-cat is gone, and I want to help."
That was a lovely thing to hear, but James had to ask, "Why?"
"Because I owe you guys my life," Flameboyant said, as if that should be obvious. "Also, this raid isn't exactly a happy place for me, if you get my drift."
James could see how traveling with the raid you'd attempted to commit suicide with wouldn't be ideal. Still. "I don't think you want to come where we're going."
"Sure I do," Flameboyant said. "You guys are the only people here who've been nice to me, and wherever you're going, it can't be worse than that." He tilted his head at the barricades, where the screams of the dying were still floating on the hot, smoky wind.
James and Ar'Bati looked at each other.
"It would be nice to have a Sorcerer," Fangs said.
It would, indeed. At level forty-five, Flameboyant was nowhere near the power of Tina's raiders, but then neither was he or Fangs, and it wasn't as if they had people lining up to come along. They were facing a desperate-enough situation as it was. If Flameboyant was offering to help, they couldn't really afford to turn him down, but James was still determined to make sure the Sorcerer knew what he was getting into before he made any promises he'd regret. He was explaining the situation with the Once King's invasion and the letters they'd taken from the Lich of Red Canyon when something crashed into the barricade beside them at high speed.
The makeshift wall of rubble exploded in a hail of stones. All three of them hit the dirt, covering their heads against the flying shrapnel. When James peeked up to see what had caused the explosion, though, it wasn't a giant spell or a ballista bolt. It was a person. Someone had been thrown through the ten-foot-high stone barricade and was now lying in a bloody heap twenty feet down the street behind them.
Given how the combat had gone up to this point, James's first thought was that it had to be a knight. The lower-level players--both the survivors from the massacre at Founder's Square and the new people the raid had freed from the camp here--must have come to the same conclusion, because they screamed in alarm and ran deeper into the shops on the Royal Mile, where Tina's officers had ordered them to hide. When the dust settled, though, James saw that was wrong. It wasn't a knight or even an NPC.
It was SilentBlayde.
"Blayde!"
James bolted forward, sprinting on all fours toward his fallen friend. He launched into a heal the moment he reached him, but as the green swirls of magic began to circle his fingers, James let them drop again.
SB was very injured. His arm was broken in two places, and his whole body was covered in wounds, but he wasn't actually in danger of dying. Any normal person would have been killed after being thrown through a foot-thick wall of piled rocks, but while the Assassin had a lot less stamina than a tank like Tina, he was still covered in legendary equipment, which meant it would take a lot more than this to kill him. He was already trying to push himself up, his good hand shoving feebly against the sooty flagstones. He'd almost managed a sitting position when his eyes opened.
"James," he whispered, the words barely making it past his bloody lips. "Thank goodness. Heal me, quick! I have to get back to Tina."
And we are never going to get a better chance.
"James!" SB said, looking at him worriedly with his one remaining good eye. "What are you waiting for?"
James smiled at his friend. "Sorry about this," he whispered.
And then he clubbed the Assassin over the head with his staff.
Even with its cloth binding, the Eclipsed Steel landed on SilentBlayde's skull with a painful-sounding thwack. Under normal circumstances, that blow wouldn't have been enough to make a geared Assassin anything but pissed, but SB was already on the very end of his last legs, and it was just enough. The elf lurched sideways, falling unconscious to the pavement. The moment he was out, James grabbed the bag of letters off his belt and shoved it into his own backpack.
"About time," Ar'Bati said as James stood up. "Let's go."
"Whoa," Flameboyant said, staring wide-eyed at the unconscious SB. "Isn't that your sister's boyfriend? Won't she be super mad?"
"She's going to be furious," James said. "Which is why we're leaving now." He smiled sadly at the Sorcerer. "Last chance to bail."
"No way," Flameboyant said fiercely. "I owe you big time, and I sure as hell don't want to stay around here. But is it okay to leave him like this?"
"SB is tougher than he looks," James said, sticking behind Ar'Bati as they made for the closest alley. "He'll be fine." Physically, at least. "But we do not want to be here when he wakes up, so let's run."
