by Rachel Aaron
"I don't care!" Tina roared. "You know what I care about? I care that my own brother cares more about the damn NPCs than he does about me! You spend more time worrying about your made-up cat brother than you do about how we're going to get home or stay alive. It's just like back home! You get so caught up in what's important to you, you don't even notice when it stomps all over what's important to me. But I'm not that helpless little girl, waiting in the rain for someone to remember her, anymore! I'm Roxxy, leader of the Roughnecks, and I am getting us out of this mess."
She was shaking by the time she finished. James was shaking, too, but not out of fear. He was shaking with fury at himself for not seeing the truth sooner. Tina wasn't bullying him because she thought he was an idiot who couldn't be trusted. She was rolling over him because that was the only way she knew to make herself heard. Back home, no one listened to her. While he'd been a constant source of drama with his endless competitions, Tina had always been the quiet, responsible one. He couldn't remember the last time she'd made a suggestion anyone in their family had actually heeded. It was always "oh, Tina can take care of herself" or "Tina's tough. She'll get over it."
Even he'd thought that way because Tina was always so self-sufficient. It was easy to see her as a machine, but she was just human, and she was only twenty-one. She was barely out of high school, and she was having to lead an army and fight to the death to save the lives of people who depended on her. No wonder she'd reacted badly when he'd walked up and told her she was wrong. She'd built this entire camp to protect herself from Bastion. For all he knew, she'd lost friends in this battle, people who were never coming back. Of course she'd blown up when he'd walked out here and demanded she drop everything and do what he wanted. He hadn't even asked what she'd been through.
Just thinking about that made James want to bang his head against a wall. No wonder he'd flunked his international politics class. Relations between nations were always about understanding the situation from the other person's side, but he couldn't even manage that with his own sister. He was supposed to be bringing her a peace treaty, but he was the one who'd come out ready for a fight. All Tina had wanted was for him to come inside with her where it was safe because she didn't trust the king and had no reason to. He was just another boss to her, another enemy. James hadn't even taken the time to explain why that was false. He'd just demanded she take his solution, completely ignoring the fact that, from her perspective, she was winning a battle against a genocidal tyrant. Who the hell would just smile and accept a truce out of that?
Stupid, stupid, stupid. But while James could now see he'd made a mess of everything, he still had no idea how to fix it. He'd achieved his goal, he'd gotten his sister to listen, but he no longer knew what to say. But then, maybe that was where he'd always gone wrong. He'd always tried to talk his way out of his troubles with Tina, but what she really needed--what she'd always needed--was for him to do.
Ignoring the pleas of his battered body, James reached out and wrapped his one good arm around Tina's massive shoulders and pulled her into a hug. Or more accurately, he pulled himself in since moving Roxxy was impossible, but it still seemed to work. The moment he rested his head against her cheek, Tina grabbed him back, her huge stone body shaking with silent sobs as she hugged him back.
"I'm sorry too," she said, her voice gravelly. "I said some really unforgivable stuff, but I was just so mad. I'm sorry I hurt you and called you names and sicced NekoBaby on you. It was petty and mean and immature, and I'm sorry. You're my brother, and I love you. I'm sorry for how I've treated you since we found each other again, and I promise I'll be better, just please don't run away again."
"I won't," James promised, hugging her as hard as he could. "I swear, I won't ever abandon you again, Tina. Not here, not back home, not anywhere. I know I don't always explain myself well, but even when it doesn't look like it, I'm always on your side. All I want is for everyone to get out of this safe and whole, especially you. You're my baby sister, and I love you."
Tina really started crying after that. She kept apologizing for it and wiping her face, but James had never been happier to see her bawl her eyes out. For the first time since they were kids, maybe the first time ever, he felt like they actually understood each other. There was a lot more to go, starting with the two armies they were having this breakdown in between, but James felt more hopeful about the future than he had in a long, long time.
"Okay, I swear, I really am stopping this time," Tina said, finally letting him go with a long sniff. "I guess I should read your treaty now, huh?"
James blinked at her. "You will? I mean, I'd love that, but I didn't win."
Tina snorted. "You delivered the final blow. That makes you the winner in my eyes. But this whole fight was stupid, anyway. Let's just forget it happened and get you to a healer, because oh-em-gee, dude, you look like you're about to die."
James did feel as if he were about to die, but he was too happy Tina was going to read his treaty to care. He was very quickly explaining to her again that Malakai had been the one who brought the army down and that the king hadn't known anything and was the one who wanted to stop the fighting the most as she carried him back toward her raid when James heard the rasp of a sword being drawn.
They both froze, then James looked over Tina's shoulder to see the king was off his horse with his sword drawn. Ar'Bati's weapon was out as well, which was when James realized just how bad this must look. He'd challenged her to a fight and gone down. Now Tina was carrying his battered body away. They probably thought he was being taken prisoner again.
"Just a sec, T," James said, lifting up his one good arm to cup his hand around his mouth. "I'm okay!" he shouted at the king. "Send Fangs over, please!"
King Gregory did not look convinced, but he nodded to Ar'Bati, who raced out onto the battlefield on all fours. He stopped just short of Tina's reach, and she rolled her eyes.
"Do you want to go back to your Taco Cat now?"
"Just for a moment," James said. "I have to make sure they know everything's okay. You should do the same. SB looks like he's going to have a heart attack."
The Assassin was, in fact, already on his way over with NekoBaby in tow. Given how things had gone last time, James wasn't particularly eager to see either of them again, so he scooted back to Fangs. "I'll take care of things on the Bastion side," he assured Tina. "You need to read over the treaty, anyway."
"It's not just me," Tina said, finally looking down at the scroll. "My officers and I need to discuss this before we make any kind of decision. We'll go over the details and get back to you with our answer."
Just hearing her say that made James grin. He hated how she'd ended up here, but his sister really was a damn fine leader. She was already showing his scroll to SB while Neko strolled over to James, dropped a massive heal that refilled his entire health pool, then flipped him off.
Weaving drunkenly in the healing euphoria, James waved at the Naturalist's back as she flounced over to join Tina, then he turned to Fangs. "Did you see?" he asked his brother excitedly. "I did it!"
"I'm happy to hear that," Ar'Bati said, glaring at the circle of Roughnecks that was quickly expanding to include all of Tina's officers. "Because from where we stood, it looked like she was crushing you to death."
"No, no, we're good now," James said. "Or, at least, we're better than we were. But she's reading the treaty, which is a huge step!" His face broke into a massive grin. "We may get out of this in one piece yet."
Ar'Bati glowered at Tina's back one last time then offered James his arm. James took it gladly, letting his brother haul him back to his feet. Even fully healed, the damage he'd done to his body still left him weak and woozy feeling, and his mana was still at zero, which meant he was so tired he could barely stand up. Fortunately, Fangs was strong enough for both of them, practically carrying James back to the king to deliver the good news.
Chapter 20
Tina
Tina watched James limp back
to the king, taking deep breath after deep breath as she waited for the jumble of emotions to settle in her chest. Feeling upended was pretty normal after a blowup with James, but the fact that most of the swirling emotions were good ones was a new development--a great one.
James had really changed. She didn't know if it was from getting trapped in FFO or if he'd been different for a while and she'd just been too pigheaded to see it, but she was glad they'd finally made something like peace. For the first time since she could remember, Tina felt as if she had a real brother, one she wouldn't have to corral or mitigate anymore. Maybe when they finally found their way home, she and James could go out for a drink or something--a cheap one since they were both still as broke as shit, but anything would be great. She just wanted to know what it was like to be able to talk with her brother and not have it be a crisis, which definitely excluded their current situation.
"All right," she said, leaning on her tower shield as she turned back to her officers. "What are we dealing with?"
"Whoa, there, cowgirl," Neko said, swirling her staff to build up her green magic. "First, we gotta top you off. Your brother took a chunk out of you! Not as big as the one he took out of himself, but still."
"I'm amazed he was able to come up with new spells on the fly like that," Anders said from the other side of the group. "We've all experimented a bit with casting, but I've never seen anyone take it that far."
"It was very impressive," Richard agreed, eying James greedily. "Can you make him tell us exactly how he did it?"
Tina chuckled. "James doesn't exactly follow my orders, but I'm sure he'd be happy to tell you whatever you want if you ask him. I'm not surprised he had something like that up his sleeve, though. James has always been a hell of a fighter."
SB's shoulders drooped at that. Tina was trying to catch his eye to give him a reassuring smile when Killbox slapped her on the back.
"Well, it was a great fight to watch!" the Berserker said cheerfully. "So does the talent for violence run in the family? You two must have some crazy parents is all I'm saying. Like total Viking-warrior shit, right?"
"No way," Tina said, laughing. "Our parents are former corporate wage–slaves. They held out until I went to college, then they moved to California to become organic hemp growers. They're part of that whole New Hippie movement thing now. I don't think they even get sober anymore."
"I did not see that coming," Killbox confessed.
Tina shrugged and clapped her hands. "Business, people. Business! We all know about plan B, but James might have just brought us a Plan C. Blayde's the only one who's actually read the whole thing so far, so I'm going to hand this over to him to tell us what we're looking at."
"It's pretty clever, actually," the Assassin said, holding up the scroll James had given her. "The treaty is based on an idea from Earth, actually. It's called the Forlorn Hope."
Tina scowled. "That's not an encouraging name."
"It wasn't encouraging back then, either," SilentBlayde said. "My military history isn't as good as James's, but I'm pretty sure the idea originated in Europe. Whenever an army needed soldiers for a particularly deadly operation like charging a wall, they would build up a unit of conscripts, usually criminals, to take the losses in place of their usual soldiers. In return for doing the dirty work, all the Forlorn Hope soldiers would be promised wild rewards if they survived, including pardons for all their crimes."
"Gotcha," NekoBaby said as she finished healing Tina to full. "So it's bribery, then."
SB nodded. "Basically." He pointed at a paragraph in James's neat handwriting halfway down the scroll. "The deal the king is offering follows those same lines. First, both sides agree to cease all hostilities immediately. Second, all combat-capable players are to be drafted into a new battle group called the Forlorn Hope, which will then be dispatched by the king to kill off the Once King's armies before they can attack Bastion."
"That sucks," Killbox said. "Not that we can't take them, but why are we the ones who have to die?"
"I'm not finished," SB said with a sharp look. "As part of this treaty, the Royal Knights will also be stripped of their titles and forced to join the Forlorn Hope as well."
Tina chuckled. "That'll suck a lot more for them. They don't have gear like we do, the poor bastards."
Several players grinned at that while SilentBlayde kept reading. "In return for our service," he went on, "all players will be pardoned for their crimes and granted citizenship within the kingdom of Bastion. The same goes for any surviving knights." He squinted at the page. "It doesn't say if the knights will get their titles back, though. I think those might just be lost forever."
"Good," Tina said vengefully. "Is that all?"
"More or less," SB said, rolling the scroll back up. "There's a lot of corollaries for specific cases such as what to do with knights who weren't stationed in Bastion when all of this went down, but the main idea is we fight for the king, and all of this goes away."
"Hmmm," Tina said, crossing her arms in front of her. "That's actually a lot better than I was expecting. Too bad it doesn't solve any of our problems. We want to get home, not fight an endless line of suicide missions for the king. I don't mind fighting, but picking our contracts as mercenaries is a far cry from being King Gregory's throwaway troops. If he decided to use us as suicide bombers against the Dead Mountain Fortress, we'd just be right back in this situation, except we wouldn't have a fortress, an army, or plan B to back us up anymore."
Tina thought a moment longer, then she shook her head. Sorry, James. "I can't support this," she said firmly. "It's clear this treaty's trying to please everyone, but I have to look after us, and from that angle, this is not a good deal. We've been damn lucky not to lose any Roughnecks in the fighting today, but that'll change fast if we sign up to be shock troops. I don't want to spend months rubbing elbows with possibly backstabbing Royal Knights who hate our guts while stomping down every skeleton and zombie on the continent before we even earn the right to find a way home. I say we keep our upper hand and demand better."
NekoBaby bit her lip. "But what about the giant dragon, yo? I don't think wind-fire powder will bother him."
"The Bird isn't a problem," Tina said firmly. "Remember the Bastion Castle quests? Xthr's only here because he owes the king of Bastion a favor. If we blow the wind-fire powder, there'll be no more Bastion and no more king, which means no more favor. I don't think an ancient Bird's going to risk himself to keep promises posthumously."
She thought that made perfect sense, but the rest of her officers were strangely silent, staring at the ground.
"What about James?" SB asked in a small voice.
"Don't worry. I'm not leaving anyone behind," Tina said quickly. "We'll just tell James the other raid leaders have questions about the treaty. We'll also tell him that we need the king to release all of Malakai's player hostages as a sign of goodwill. The king seems to be in deep with my brother, so I bet we can make it happen. Once we get everyone over here, we'll all go inside the buildings to 'talk.' The moment we're inside, Richard will activate the fire wards, and bam. War's over, we win. Sound good?"
Once again, everyone was quiet, and Tina began to shift nervously. "What's wrong, guys? Why the long faces?"
Neko looked up at her, ears flat. "We were talking earlier," she said in a small voice. "And we kind of don't want to do the wind-fire-powder plan anymore."
Tina stared at her, uncomprehending. "Why not?"
"Because it's horrifying," Anders said angrily. "This isn't an attack that only kills our enemies. All of Bastion will be consumed, including innocents. Including other players. There were still refugees coming in as late as this morning. You know there have to be more out there. If we do this, we might live, but they'll all die."
"Why are you bringing this up now?" Tina demanded, looking around at the group. "You were all in the room when we came up with plan B. You were fine with it then!"
"Yeah, because it was only ever supposed to be
a threat," Neko reminded her. "The plan was to kill the king's army, threaten him with wind-fire, and collect winnings. Actually burning everything to the ground was never part of the deal!"
"The deal changed when the king brought in a Bird," Tina growled. "We can't fight that thing! I don't like this any more than you do, but we're backed into a corner. Our only path to freedom is to fort up, blow the place, and see if we can make something out of the ashes."
"Or we could take the king's offer," Anders said. "It's a gamble, but if we can pull it off, the rewards are exceedingly generous."
The others all nodded, and Tina stared at them, slack-jawed. "Are you serious?" she said at last. "The rewards are only generous because we're not expected to survive! Do you want to be part of Operation Meat Shield?"
"We're pretty good at fighting the undead," Killbox pointed out. "And I know this will sound weird coming from me, but I'm as sick as fuck of killing actual people."
"Me too," drawled Frank, his face pale. "I chopped the legs off this one guy on the bridge, and damned if his friend didn't risk his life to drag him out. Poor bastard still died, of course, but not before he pressed some badge into his friend's hand, tellin' him to 'take this to my son' while his friend cried over him and swore never to forget him. It was just like in the movies, only it was real." He shook his head. "It doesn't matter that I had good reason to do it. I killed some little boy's papa today. I don't want to do that ever again."
"I never want to do any of this again," Killbox said, his voice showing his disgust. "Pwning noobs in the arenas was one thing, but these last few days have been the grossest and most depressing of my life. If signing up with the king means I never have to kill a real-live person ever again, then Hail Bastion."
"The same goes for me," Zen said sternly, her dark face drawn and tired. "I'm a nurse. I'm supposed to be making people better, not shooting them full of holes." She looked at Tina. "I was the one who encouraged you to attack Malakai's camp, and I don't regret that, but if the king's offering us a way out without more killing, I want to take it."
