by Dante Doom
“Those aren’t the choices we get to make,” Van replied. “No matter what. We don’t get to choose who lives and who dies based on some sick sense of morality.”
“That is such an individualist mindset,” Lemuel said. “It sickens me. Go ahead, strike at me again. Grab your newly enchanted weapon and hope against hope that it can kill me. Or you can walk away, knowing that you have won this engagement.”
“I say we rip the little bastard in half,” Bidane said. Van turned to look at her as she threw his halberd to him. He caught it and spun it around. It felt lighter and more agile. Perhaps the enchantment she’d offered would be enough for him to kill Lemuel.
“Not much of a choice,” Kylian said. “We’re in, if you’re in.”
Van took a deep breath. He couldn’t let Sang die. No matter what, he wouldn’t let his momentary lapse in judgement have such dire consequences. “You can go to hell, Lemuel,” he said as he raised his halberd high.
“And we’ll send you there!” Bidane said as she threw a vial of green liquid at the lizard man. This caught Lemuel by surprise and he wasn’t able to dodge in time, as the vial smashed against his skin. The words Acid Damage 5 points hovered about Lemuel’s head as his skin began to burn.
“Ahh, hahaha,” it laughed as it hunched down and extended its claws. “So, you choose to die, fair enough. I will grant you your wish.”
With that, the lizardman lunged forward at Van, hissing loudly. Van thrust his halberd forward, letting the pike of the weapon spear directly into the creature’s chest. The pike made a horrible squelching noise and the words Armor Pierce 10 damage hovered above Lemuel’s head.
“Errgh,” Lemuel grunted, his charge completely halted. The creature reached down and grabbed a hold of the haft of the halberd. “Not… bad… but not good enough.” It tightened its grip hard enough to break the halberd in half.
Kylian swung his sword, but Lemuel pulled the halberd head out of his skin and blocked the blade with the axe portion of the weapon. The block was fierce enough to throw Kylian off-balance, giving Lemuel a chance to kick him in the back, knocking him to the ground. Van, armed with only a metal rod now, swung it at the monster’s head, but was quickly blocked and knocked to the ground.
“Ah crap, screw this,” Bidane said as she ran off into the woods. Van wanted to be angry with her, but she had probably used all of the spells that she could. It was better that she would survive.
“Such loyalty, you command,” Lemuel said as he planted a taloned foot on Van’s chest. Van tried to get up, but the foot was too strong. “And I’m not being sarcastic. To see you lead two followers to willingly come into a house of death to aid you is quite impressive.”
“Two followers?” Van whispered. “I could have sworn we had three... Now, Sahara!”
Lemuel immediately spun around to see what was behind him, giving Van enough time to pull his dagger free and stab it directly into the calf of the lizard creature’s leg.
“Gaaah! Did… did you really trick me?” Lemuel demanded as he fell to the ground, giving Van enough time to stand up. Kylian was lying on the ground unconscious. His chest was rising and falling, however, so that was a good sign.
“Haha, I cannot believe you fell for that,” Van chuckled as he bent down to grab Kylian’s great sword. It was heavy, and he had no experience using such a weapon in this realm, but it would do the job.
“I must say,” Lemuel said. “That was perhaps one of the most clever tricks I have seen you do. Truly, you are an enigma, Van. You refuse to back down, even in the face of the most dire circumstances. I am continually impressed with you.”
Van noticed that blood was continuing to trickle out of Lemuel’s leg, despite the fact that the dagger had fallen out of the wound. This wound didn’t look like it was regenerating. Van glanced at the glinting silver dagger. Silver! Of course—silver weapons counteracted regeneration. Still, despite this exciting tidbit of information, it wouldn’t do much good when the dagger was sitting right next to Lemuel.
“Your song…” came a whisper in the trees. Van looked up to see a nearly unconscious Sang draped over one of the branches. Blood was smeared across the branch and it looked as if she had been crawling across it for quite some time. “Van, sing your siren song!”
“I don’t remember the lyrics!” Van replied, looking up at her. “I don’t remember!”
“There you are! Your blood is all over the place—no wonder pinpointing you was nearly impossible!” Lemuel said as he looked up at her. “You’re just in time to watch this fool die over you. I believe your species finds these acts of sacrifice to be touching and noble.”
“Hear our call…” Sang wheezed.
“What?” Lemuel asked.
“One and all,” Sang continued. The words clicked and the memory rushed right to Van’s mind.
“Of course!” Van shouted as he opened his mouth to sing. “Ahem,
“Hear our call! One and all!
Come to the water and you will find
Joy, love, and peace for all mankind
Hear our call! Hear our call!
The beauty of the siren songs
Will right all of humanity’s wrongs...”
As he sang the words, he felt a power emanating from his speech. Lemuel hissed and moved to charge, but was unable to continue running once he came within earshot of Van’s song. Instead, Lemuel merely stood completely still, rocking back and forth and staring forward. A timer appeared above his head, starting at 10 and counting downward.
“Run!” Sang hissed. “Run and forget about me!”
“No!” Van shouted as he rushed over to the dagger and picked it up. He spun around to see 6 hovering above Lemuel’s head. He ran right up to the creature and plunged the dagger straight into Lemuel’s head, pushing the blade deep into the monster’s brain.
“Arrrrghh!” Lemuel screamed as he snapped out of his hypnotic trance. The words critical blow 30 damage hovered above his head. Lemuel wildly swung his arm and smacked Van backwards with full force. Van felt himself fly through the air and crash against a tree stump. The blow was immensely painful, and he felt himself lose consciousness for a few seconds.
He opened his eyes to see Lemuel clutching at his wound and swearing obscenities in English and another language. Van tried to get up, but everything in his spine was aching too much. He wondered if the blow had broken his back.
Lemuel knelt on the ground and screamed in agony, clawing at his head. Blood was pouring from his wound. He gasped and began to writhe frantically for a minute. After another moment passed, though, he slowly stopped struggling.
“I… suppose,” he wheezed, “that this is what you humans had in mind when you created the word hubris. Welcome to the big leagues, Van. You won’t last much longer.” And with that, Lemuel stopped moving entirely.
“Van…” Sang hissed. “Are you alive?”
“Yeah, but I can’t move,” Van replied. “How much longer do you have?”
“No idea,” she said. There was a silence in the air that lasted for a long moment. “Van, I’m sorry. I went off the rails. I’m sorry.”
“For the record, I’m sorry, too. I shouldn’t have left you behind.”
“You did what you had to do,” she whispered.
“I think I’m going to die,” Van said. “I can’t move. I think I’m paralyzed.”
“Did you succeed, at least? Did you get the information out?” Sang asked.
“Oh, right, I forgot I was supposed to do that,” Van joked. He heard Sang laugh a little and wheeze hard.
“For what it’s worth, it was a real honor to have served with you,” Sang said.
“Eh, it was mediocre at best,” Van replied.
They both laughed at the meagre joke.
“Attention,” came a booming voice above them. It was deep, and echoed throughout the entire forest. “Caretaker 423 has been removed from this area. This area will now shut down. All pros please report to Caretaker 811.”
>
“Did you hear—” Van’s words were interrupted by a flash of light, and the next thing he knew, he was lying in his pod, alive.
16
Van groaned as Neil helped him out of the pod. “Ah!” he yelped. “Easy, easy! My back is killing me.”
“Well, your face is killing me, but you don’t hear my complaining,” Neil replied.
“Oh man, you look like you just got out of a UFC match,” O’Hara said as she helped Sang out of her pod.
“I feel like I just went toe to toe with Muhammad Ali,” Sang sleepily mumbled.
“Did we really survive?” Van asked. “Did we really make it?”
“We sure did,” Kenwar said as he sat up in his pod.
It was morning—Van could see the light coming into the building of the apartment. He felt woozy and the room was spinning all around him. He could barely stand. “Did you guys get our email?”
“Damn straight we did, and it’s a goldmine,” O’Hara said. “It’s got stuff you wouldn’t dream of! Names, job positions, nuclear power plant locations, and access codes to places only high-ranking officials would have. It’s a secret agent’s dream.”
“We went through hell to get it,” Sang replied. “It better damn well be worth it.”
“So, a happy ending for everyone. We’ve gotten everything we need to keep this case open, you’re all still alive, and we’ll probably get out jobs back,” Neil said. “In the spirit of such a wonderful occasion, Ken, I’m giving you the cure.” Neil held out a small, round white pill.
Kenwar smiled at them. “There’s no cure for an allergy pill.”
“What? You mean you knew?” Neil asked.
“Yeah, I knew. But the only way you guys would trust me was if you thought you had some leverage on me. It became pretty clear early on that siding with you guys was the best way to get out of this thing alive. And I was right,” Kenwar explained. “So, I played all of you guys for suckers. In the end, I got exactly what I wanted. I’m free from Draco and I’m free from the CIA. As soon as that information hits the CIA data sphere, Draco’s gonna be laying low, giving me plenty of time to get out of the country. I’m thinking somewhere nice, like Spain.”
“Asturias is nice,” Sang said with a cough. “I really need to go lay down.”
“Yeah,” O’Hara said, “you both should get some rest before—” her words were interrupted as the living room window shattered. A grenade rolled into the middle of the room.
“Holy crap!” Van screamed as he dove out of the way. O’Hara reached down, scooped the grenade up, and chucked it right back out the window.
“Holy crap!” Van screamed again.
Bullets began to fly into the house, the loud brap brap brap of a machine gun echoing throughout the empty streets.
“Get down!” Neil shouted as he grabbed Sang and pushed her to the floor.
O’Hara and Neil both had their guns drawn and were returning fire through the window, although it was clear they had no idea who was shooting at them.
“Is it the CIA?” Van asked.
“No!” Sang shouted. “They wouldn’t have tried to kill us.”
“Oh damn it!” Kenwar cried as he crawled toward the kitchen. “It’s gotta be a Draco hit squad! They probably want to intercept the data being transferred.”
“Did you email the information?” Van asked Neil.
“For some reason, we can’t pull anything off the actual drive itself. There’s some kind of DRM that prevents stuff being taken off of it. I mean, I scribbled down a few notes, but we’re going to need to keep that actual USB drive,” Neil replied as he reloaded.
“We need to go!” O’Hara said as she knelt down and grabbed the USB drive sticking out of Van’s pod. “They’re probably going to level this place to the ground.”
“Oh man, why didn’t I wait a little longer before committing to a side?” Kenwar moaned.
“Man up, Kenwar!” Neil said. “It’s about time someone started shooting at me!” He stood up and glanced out the window for a split second before ducking back down. “Okay, four bogies down there. A large windowless van, too, probably bulletproof. My guess is they’re trying to flush us out so they can snag us.”
“What’s the plan?” Van shouted. He was in no shape to run from a high-powered team of hitmen. He glanced at Sang, who was practically unconscious on the ground. She would probably die if she was moved around too much.
“Who needs a plan?” Neil said as he gleefully reloaded again. Van could see the excitement and joy on his face. “I mean, for once, for once in my life, I can be as excessive as I like and not get yelled at for it.”
“Why are you so nuts?” Van asked.
“You should see me when I’ve had a full night’s sleep!” Neil replied as he pulled a long slender tube out from his belt. He shook it up a little and threw it out the window. A loud explosion rocked the entire building.
“What the hell was that?” Kenwar cried.
“Modified explosive stick—I put it together when you jerks were busy playing Fantasy Wizard Game 3000,” O’Hara said. “We had a suspicion they’d come after us.”
“Call the police!” Kenwar said. “They can help!”
“I’m sure that the police are probably in their pocket,” O’Hara said. “Neil, keep shooting at these jackasses; I’m gonna take the gamer club here somewhere safe.”
“Roger that!” Neil said as he continued to shoot out the window. The gunfire coming into the apartment had stopped now, and Van could smell smoke and burning gasoline.
“Grab Sang and let’s move!” O’Hara said as she rushed over to the apartment’s exit and cleared it.
Kenwar and Van hurried over to help Sang up. Van noticed that blood was pouring down the side of her back. He pulled the back of her shirt down a bit to see that there was a round hole, shaped exactly like an arrow wound. He shivered a little.
“She’s gonna need medical attention if we’re gonna move her.”
“Shotgun, in my bedroom,” Sang moaned. “Under the bed.”
“Did she just say she has a shotgun?” Kenwar asked.
“Kenwar, grab the gauze and dress her wound—I’ll get the gun,” Van said as he rushed to her bedroom. He opened the door to see that the bedroom was almost entirely empty except for a bed and a nightstand holding a book titled The Iliad.
Van reached under the bed to find a large gun case. Sliding the case out, he cracked it open to see a combat shotgun resting there. With a heave, he picked it up. The weight felt good in his hands, but he had never operated a firearm before.
“Attention!” called a megaphone. “This house is surrounded. Surrender immediately and you will not be harmed! All we want is the USB device.”
“Yeah?” Van heard Neil scream. “And all I want is to shoot as many of you goons as I can before the Feds show up. Doesn’t seem like there’s any kind of compromise we can make.”
“It’s not worth your lives!” came the reply.
Van rushed back into the living room to see Sang standing. She had a bandage running across her shoulder and she appeared to be conscious.
“There it is!” Sang said as she grabbed the gun from him and chambered a round. “It’s time to get out of here.”
“Sang, are you okay?” Van asked.
“Nothing a combination of Cwake and morphine can’t fix,” Sang said.
“It’s how I start out every day,” Neil said. “Alright, they’ve stopped shooting. That means they’re going to be breaching at some point. Or firing a rocket launcher into this place.”
“Front door’s clear, but once we get down those stairs, we’re in trouble,” O’Hara said. “I count at least four points where they can see us but we won’t be able to see them.”
“Sang, do you have any other points of exit?” Neil asked.
Sang shook her head. “No—no, I don’t.”
“Well, I guess we’re going to have to make one,” Neil said as he grabbed a few more tubes and walked ove
r to the window. He glanced out again and shook his head. “Dead silent outside. I don’t like it.”
O’Hara walked over to Sang’s couch and dragged it over to the middle of the room. She flipped the couch over and threw a large chair on top of it. She climbed up the makeshift mountain of furniture and rapped against the ceiling.
“Yo, it’s hollow,” she reported.
“Perfect; you kids might want to stand back,” Neil said as he shoved a few tubes and a roll of duct tape at O’Hara.
“What are you doing?” Sang asked.
“You’re on the top floor, right?” O’Hara asked.
“I hear footsteps!” Kenwar shouted. Sang aimed her shotgun at the door and laid on the ground.
“Van, get on the other side,” Sang said. “If it flings open, wait until the first guy comes in and slam it shut.”
Van nodded and rushed behind the entrance. His heart was pounding a million miles an hour at this point, but the CIA team didn’t seem particularly worried. Neil and O’Hara seemed to be enjoying themselves and Sang was too drugged up to show any kind of concern. He felt a real solidarity with Kenwar, who had lain on the ground and curled up into a ball, and was now sobbing hysterically.
“Fire in the hole!” Neil screamed as they blew a huge hole in the ceiling of Sang’s apartment. “Yeaaahaaaaw!”
“Come on, let’s go!” O’Hara shouted as she waved at the team. The door to the apartment began to thump.
“Open up!” cried a muffled voice. “Open up or die!”
“Come on in!” Sang shouted back. “I’ve got a present for you!”
Kenwar scrambled up the furniture and through the hole.
“You next,” Neil said, pointing to Van. The door was still thumping hard, but Van could definitely hear more than one guy on the other side. He hurried and grabbed the data stick from Neil before scrambling up onto the roof.
