“So what do you call your fans?” Dan asked Jennifer after catching up with her. He could tell by the stiffness in her shoulders that she was still fairly pissed off at Reggie.
“Fans,” she responded curtly. “I keep them interested through gameplay and occasional question and answer segments. Darkstryke has always been a bit of a whore, playing things up for his viewers and trying to curry favor with them. If someone wants to unsubscribe from me, they’re always free to do so. I’ve been putting my e-sports winnings in high-yield bonds. I have enough money that I don’t really care.”
“Are you sure you didn’t want to livestream our little camping excursion in the tree?” Dan let out a chuckle. “Reggie seems to think that it would be a big hit. He invited me to join something called the PranknCrank crew?”
A hint of a smile flitted across Jennifer’s face. “You should totally do it. There’s no way you’ll regret getting trapped in a juvenile prank war with a bunch of famous, spoiled twenty-somethings. Trust me. It’ll be great.”
“There we go.” Dan laughed. “I knew Reggie was getting under your skin, but you just can’t let guys like that bother you. No matter what happens, they’re just going to make a spectacle of themselves. You’re better off just staying out of it.”
“So you mean keep doing what I’m doing? Why do you think I got out of there as quickly as I did? Especially with all the mana I have pumping through me, it took everything I could to not just take off that idiot’s head on his own livestream. I knew that if I spent any more time with that asshole, he’d goad me into murdering him, and I’m pretty sure that is still frowned upon.”
“Only one way to find out.” Dan smiled back at her. “Given how few people there are that can actually use magic, I wouldn’t be surprised if the government found an excuse to not try you for murder in exchange for your cooperation.”
“The worst part is how good it would feel,” Jennifer sighed wistfully. “Even if it wasn’t for the mana, that guy has been an asshole for years. Poaching the last kill before an achievement, accusing me of cheating publicly and not taking it back when he was proven wrong, and just generally being toxic. At a very minimum, someone needs to punch him in the face. Possibly repeatedly.”
Dan eyed the retreating wall of Imperial soldiers. “Your violent tendencies aside, Reggie did let me know that the current goal is shutting down a teleportation beacon in the landed void ship. There are a whole lot of Imperials between us and it, but right now, they’re able to constantly reinforce themselves. Even if we’re pushing them back for now, who knows if it will be enough to beat back a couple planets worth of troops.”
“Want to see if we can sneak in and shut it down?” Jennifer quirked an eyebrow, a mischievous smile on her face. “No one is going to be able to get in there with an entire squad, and plus, this is our best chance at getting a crack at any more fancy enchanted gear like your sword. Both of us could really use some high-quality armor, and right now our only options other than ‘you make it’ is to beg Thoth or the Government after the dust settles. I’m not exactly keen on working with either of them at the moment.”
“Going freelance did cross my mind,” Dan responded once he assured himself that no one was nearby to overhear him. “After everything Henry pulled, I’m not exactly the keenest on working with him anymore. That said, I’m pretty sure he would bury me in court if I tried anything funny. Grabbing Tellask magitech does seem like a good way to set up a nest egg for working as a magical consultant.”
“That’s the spirit.” Jennifer’s smile half-blinded him. “As awkward as the last couple of days have been, it’s been good to see you come out of your shell a bit.”
“There’s no one I’d rather poop next to,” Dan cracked a half grin. “But if we’re going to do this, we’re going to need a plan. All of the streets are lousy with soldiers from both sides, and we’re just going to get bogged down in firefights while everyone brings in more reinforcements.”
Jennifer glanced around the street as they walked, chewing her lip slightly. Likewise, Dan cast about, looking for inspiration in the battered buildings and the dead Imperials. At least the coalition army made a point of bringing their injured and dead back to field hospitals. It was no wonder the Imperials were having problems maintaining loyalty in their human armies without the use of control runes.
“Ok, I’ve got nothing,” Jennifer sighed as she gave an exaggerated shrug of defeat. “No one has a map of the city, so we have about a zero percent chance of being able to avoid both sides. Usually, in a movie, this would be when we would find an unprotected ventilation shaft that’s just the size for us to crawl through, but I don’t think the Tellask even understand the concept of airflow or air conditioning. Even if they did, it would probably be magical as opposed to large metal piping.”
“What about climbing the buildings?” Dan asked, eyeing up one of the nearby structures. “I don’t think there’s really anything on top of them. We could probably just jump from rooftop to rooftop. We might get spotted by a helicopter or a wyvern, but they all seem to be mostly interested in each other. I don’t think we’ll be worth shooting at.”
“Well that-” Jennifer started, then caught herself. “That might actually work. We’ll have to avoid elves; they can probably get up to the rooftops pretty quickly as well. Doubly so with the war lizards. Their backs are just below roof-level, and I don’t want to get stuck dodging a thousand spells from the wizards riding those things.”
Without further preamble, Dan ran at the wall of the nearest building, pushing his strength rune to the maximum. At the last second, he activated Gravitation Easing and launched himself into the air. As he reached the apex of his arc, he created a Force Bubble under his feet with practiced ease and kicked off once again. Landing on the roof of the building, he turned around and gave a bow to Jennifer.
“Show-off!” she shouted back at him, grinning. Her own ascent wasn’t quite as graceful as Dan’s, but climbing a wall was a bit of a joke when any surface of your body could extend a piton that would punch through the wall you were ascending. As far as Dan could tell, she didn’t even have to use the new magnetism rune, instead just making handholds as a matter of course and climbing the wall like it was a ladder.
The two of them moved fairly quickly through the city. For some of the longer jumps between buildings, Dan would have to create force bubbles for both Jennifer and himself. Luckily, his level of control over the spell had developed to the point where he could handle two of them at once with some mental strain. The rest of the gaps were easily handled by their rune-enhanced legs. They needed to hide a couple of times when a helicopter or war beast came too close, but the entire city was focused on the battle. Neither side was truly looking for a pair of infiltrators on foot jumping from roof to roof.
Finally, just as the sun began dipping in the sky, the two of them climbed to the top of the four story buildings surrounding the landed void ship. As they got closer to the landing site, the size and sophistication of the buildings increased. No longer were they on top of simple unadorned buildings. Here, the buildings had windows, balconies with gardens, and what looked like penthouse swimming pools. Luckily, the fancier buildings weren’t occupied, but it said something about the Tellask’s goals and confidence that they were already setting up luxury accommodations while the war was still ongoing. They were sure of their victory, and they were sure that they were going to be on Earth for quite some time.
Crouching next to Jennifer on the rooftop, Dan took in the scene around the enemy void ship. Although the Tellask had launched sporadic counter-offensives, it was clear that they were holding most of their forces in reserve. In the roughly two-hundred-foot clearing between the top of the building and the void ship, Dan saw at least twenty war lizards swarming with humans strapping rune-inscribed mythril plates on them. Nearby, five suits of rune inscribed plate mail that stood almost twelve feet tall paced back and forth.
Elves paced around ten large metal ballistas covered in spell crystals and runes, making last-minute preparations. Next to the ballistas, stacks of heavily-enchanted metal poles were waiting to be loaded into what Dan could only assume were the magical rail guns from the initial attack. Animal paddocks with hundreds of the six-legged bears used by the cavalry were visible in the distance next to a roost with at least seven wyverns that hadn’t taken off yet. Jennifer glanced at him worriedly.
“Maybe they are here for keeps,” she whispered to him, eyeing up the forces laid out before them. “That’s not enough to hold off the entire army, but it’s pretty close to enough to stop what we have out here. Plus, I don’t think we’re going to get another chance like this with the city defenses down.”
“I know,” Dan replied, his expression dark. “I’m not excited to try and get through all of that, but I don’t think we are going to get a second chance at this. That beacon needs to be shut down as soon as possible, or we’re going to get overwhelmed.”
“Do you have any ideas?” Jennifer asked, her voice hopeful.
“Does winging it count as an idea?” Dan responded, still eyeing the enemy forces. “I don’t think it’s impossible that we get in through the air; no one really seems to be looking up. That said, once we’re inside, it’s only a matter of time before we start killing people. There is absolutely no way we get to the teleportation pad without tripping an alarm.”
“Couldn’t you at least try to say something cheerful?” She made a sour face at him before looking back at another squad of enemy troops leaving the void ship. “You’re supposed to be my team leader here. Blow some smoke up my ass, give me a pep talk. At least talk about how our noble sacrifice will reverberate through the ages.”
“I’m not going to lie.” There’s been enough of that already. We might be able to warp out from the teleport pad once I break their beacon. That would mean that we would end up in the Thoth foundation. Of course, if I break the beacon, it might shut down the entire teleportation pad and trap us there. Then, I guess we either try to hide or take over the ship and fly it away. Both sound like shitty plans to me. The final alternative is wing it. Disable the beacon and keep running and fighting until something goes our way.”
“I don’t think I like your plans, Dan.” Jennifer smiled. “At a very minimum, you should have promised me a shower at some point in all of this. If I’m going to die, I would prefer not to do it covered in my own shit.”
“Think of the plus side.” Dan smiled back. “You probably smell bad enough that no one is going to want to touch you. That might give you the advantage you need to escape the Tellask at the last second.”
Dan dodged her hastily-thrown, halfhearted punch.
