Squad Dynamics

If the car ride with Arista had been too quiet and boring, the ride back toward Springfield with John’s newest creation and Adantia in tow was anything but. Between Adantia’s constant questions about the current state of the Abyss and his newest creation’s constant inquiries about even the most mundane subjects they discussed, there was barely a moment of silence. Most of the time was spent with John trying to explain things to one or the other, though he was amused and fascinated when he had an easier time answering Adantia’s questions than the brunette’s.

Adantia had been gone so long that most of her questions were fairly basic: had any of the Deities changed, had any major territory shifts occurred in North America, had there been any other details about the Northern Ashes so far, had John heard anything about Rachel or other survivors. The answers were equally simple – Suula was the only new so-called Deity, and Adantia already knew of her. Although borders had changed, no major players had risen or fallen save for the Northern Ashes, and while they understood a general sense of what to expect from their enemies most of the survivors belonged to the Great Plains Alliance and were refusing to share much information. The last one was a difficult one only because John hesitated for a long moment before sharing the fact that Rachel had still been present and, in fact, had given him a note before her final departure.

To his surprise, Adantia was actually quite happy and relieved when he disclosed that.

“If she was willing to stay around that long, she might not completely hate me… and she at least heard me out explaining things. Maybe there’s still a chance…”

Adantia trailed off after that, lost in thought, but her silence was easily replaced by the multitude of questions that the new woman among them had. The most frustrating thing about John struggling to answer her questions wasn’t that they were particularly difficult – in fact, it was quite the opposite. She asked for so many details on things so mundane that John constantly found himself explaining one thing to her by comparing it to something else she didn’t understand. Part of it was kind of adorable – like the time she asked John what the big shiny thing was in the sky.

But the questions were as rapid as they were simple, and quite often one question would spark several more. All of John’s creations had at least some idea of things in the world – even Sophia had been born with instincts and a knowledge of who he was and how the world worked, even from the moment she hatched from her egg. John had answered some of them before to his more naive creations like the Nekos, but having them fired off so rapidly…

“I think that should conclude today’s lessons, I don’t want to overwhelm you with information,” John interjected, right after he’d just finished trying his best to explain what ice cream was, what milk was, what a cow was, and what farmers were, in that order, all after Layla made an off-handed comment about how the desert had really made her want an ice cream cone.

“B-but I’m learning so much!”

“You have an entire world to learn, every day you will be learning something new,” John said, actually chuckling at the look on her face. He had a feeling that she and Orria would get along very well, at least in matters of learning about his new world. Orria seemed thoroughly uninterested in this one for the most part.

“Fine… but what else are we going to do? You said we’ll be driving all day…”

“Maybe it’s my turn to ask some questions. Adantia, I’ve been answering your questions pretty casually so far… how about a few of my own?”

The look on Adantia’s face told John her immediate reaction, not that his rather suspicious tone had helped things.

“What kind of questions did you have in mind?”

“Nothing too personal,” John immediately assuaged, not wanting to set Adantia on edge when she had barely begun to loosen up since that first encounter in the grocery store. “Just… a lot of things that aren’t really clear. Things that people besides you don’t actually know.”

“I already don’t like where this is going,” Adantia said, sighing and crossing her arms, unseeing eyes cast toward the floor of the car.

”At least she isn’t telling me to shut up this time,” John mused, glancing at her in the rear-view mirror. She was pressed between Sophia and John’s newest creation, with Layla having called shotgun the moment she’d awoken, according to Sophia.

“What exactly happened when Suula attacked the city? How was she able to surprise you so well? You and Rachel are the only ones left who know much about it, and she wasn’t exactly talkative.”

“Never was,” Adantia mused, the ghost of a smile touching her lips. “Do you know about… how much do you know about Suula?”

“Aside from being one of the Six Deities? Not much. My friend Kim told me a bit about the Deities: she mentioned that Suula was the newest one, that she used fire magic primarily, and that she was regarded as a bit… unstable. Other than that, and that destroying Paix was the feat that elevated her status, I don’t really know much about her.”

“Right… to be fair, even if you did your research on this one, a lot of the subtleties would’ve been lost to time. Guess I can’t knock you too hard,” Adantia mumbled, her posture tightening up. “Suula was my second-in-command. She was there from the beginning; we were friends a long time before Paix was even a glimmer in my eye. She was born into a rough part of the Abyss; by the time I met her, she was pretty hardened to the horrors of life in the Abyss, but I managed to convince her there was a better way. Once I gave her a thread of hope, she latched onto it like crazy. Suula helped with the planning of the city, right down to the infrastructure and the individual city blocks at times. She was one of its staunchest defenders, and I guess that’s why I never saw her turn coming.

“She set up a basic ambush… but an effective one. Caught me out because of how much I trusted her. She hired a ton of mercenaries and gathered some more loyal followers, sent them at the city like a horde. Our guard was massed to meet them, but while I was finishing up the evacuation of the city’s outskirts, Suula approached me. I thought she was coming to help and travel to the front with me. I didn’t have the ability to sense mana like I do now, and I was so distracted… I didn’t… I didn’t notice the spell in her hand until…”

Adantia’s pose had tightened further now, but this time it wasn’t annoyance that drove it. Her fingers were gripping her arms tightly, her head was tucked low until her chin was nearly buried into her chest. Adantia’s skin was running white around the joints, and yet just as John was about to tell her to stop, she took a quick gasping breath, then a slower one, and at last she relaxed.

“I wasn’t always like this,” Adantia said, pointing to her eyes. “This? This is what she did to me. Suula bound me with chains of fire, and then while I was still in shock, she hit me with one of the most powerful spells she knew back then. The last thing I remember seeing was a blast of fire, a rainbow of colors and searing heat… then nothing. She blinded me like it was nothing and then started to slaughter the people I was trying to protect. I tried to fight her, but I could barely sense mana back then. I probably did more damage than I helped. It didn’t matter either way. She left me for dead in the middle of the city I built, then burned it down around me. I can still hear them, still-”

Adantia’s words cut off as she twitched a bit in her seat, perhaps realizing how close she was to shifting her retelling from simple glossed over facts to a more personal tale.

“Once she hit me with that spell, it didn’t take long for the city to fall. Our guard was strong, but once Suula showed up on the front lines fighting for the other side, I’m guessing it fell apart pretty fast. Most people were so panicked they could barely figure out which way they were going, much less put together a plan. I was in shock, just kind of stumbling around the streets. At some point, a few retreating soldiers found me. I don’t really remember most of what they said, but they got me to a healer. They fixed up most of the damage to my body, but they couldn’t restore my vision. Whatever Suula did, she didn’t just damage my body – she put some kind of seal on my eyes, cut my vision nerves off, maybe permanently. Even Rosa couldn’t break the seal, and she was damn good.

“At some point Suula’s soldiers reached the hospital. I was sort of recovered by then, I like to think I got in a few good shots, but… it didn’t matter. Suula must have found out where I’d been moved to after she secured the front lines. Once she arrived, the fighting didn’t last long. Suula had always barely been weaker than me in a fight, and with me blinded and already wounded, I barely slowed her down. That was where she left me. Once she finished slaughtering the staff and set the place on fire, she sent her men outside so that we were alone. That’s when she told me she was doing all this to save my life, whatever the fuck that means. She said that there was something worse, that the only way I’d live was if she made everyone think I was already dead. Then she promised if I ever showed myself again, she’d come back to finish the job.”

John let the silence soak across the car for a long while, not having much to say to the story. It was brief and without what John was sure were many very important details, but it was the most that Adantia had shared since their first encounter. John hadn’t expected her to give away so many details without further prodding, but he wasn’t precisely shocked, either. Despite his worries over his own safety during their initial meetings, John couldn’t shake the feelings he got from Adantia. Feelings that greatly resembled a cornered animal, rather than a rabid or feral one – something threatened, not threatening.

Between the flat, mostly unchanging highway and the awkward silence in the car, John wasn’t sure how much time he lost to his own thoughts and the **** idle chatter before Adantia finally broke the monotony once more.

“Pull off at the next exit. There’s a small town there, used to have a motel I’d stay at when I had to leave Paix. Find the Slumbermill or whatever replaced it; we’ll stop there for the night,” Adantia ordered, pointing toward an upcoming off-ramp.

“Why do we need to stop?” John asked, quirking an eyebrow toward Adantia as he glanced into the rear-view mirror. “The only reason we stopped on the way out here was so that everyone could stay rested in case of an ambush or some other obstacle. Now that we’ve found you and we’re headed home, doesn’t it seem like we’re placing ourselves more at risk by stopping than letting you nap in the backseat there?”

“This isn’t about risks, it’s about comfort. I want a real bed, even if it’s a shitty motel bed.”

“I don’t know if we should-”

“If anyone tries to attack us, I’ll kick their asses for you. In exchange, bed. Sound fair?”

“I-”

“Psyche, I don’t actually care. Motel, now. Besides, we’re not exactly subtle with me tagging along, you realize that don’t you?”

John didn’t respond, except to flick his turn signal on as they approached the next off-ramp. He couldn’t exactly deny that if they were going to be accosted, it would likely happen with or without a pit stop. Though he couldn’t see it the way that Layla and Vallya would be able to, John knew that right now Adantia was actively forming and dismissing Barriers well below the ground, within which her massive serpentine cables were currently tunneling, occasionally shifting between Barriers to reduce their footprint in the mortal world as much as possible, leaving only a scant few inches of exposure every few miles.

“To be honest, I’m still not completely comfortable with that, either,” John said, looking skeptically at Adantia in the rear-view mirror. “I know you’re strong enough to handle almost anything that comes at us, but would you mind at least elaborating on why you absolutely refused to let me make new cables for you when we get to Springfield?”

“Yes, I would mind,” Adantia replied immediately, rolling her eyes. She’d given a response equally as blunt and only slightly less annoyed when John had asked the first time, shortly after their departure, when Layla had pointed out just how visible and obvious the massive Barriers Adantia was using were. “But I guess I mind explaining less than I mind you being so whiny about it. These are literally made from the ruined bits of Paix that were left over. Some of it was originally cabling that I had to repair, but the rest is woven together from every scrap of metal I could scavenge… not only is it important to me, but I’ve literally been pouring my mana into that city’s foundations since the day ground was broken. It’s had so much of my mana pouring through it for so long that controlling it is like second nature – I can feel these cables from miles away.”

”That explains why the range on her cables was so much farther than Vallya thought it should be,” John noted, filing that info away for later.

“So yeah, with a war coming up, you want me to have these. Trust me.”

“Alright, fine. You get your motel and your cables,” John acquiesced at last, already entering what looked like a fairly dinky rural downtown area, his eyes peeled for anything resembling the business she’d mentioned.

“And you get a badass. Seems like a pretty good trade,” Adantia replied.

“Layla, I know it’s probably a long shot, but anything we should be worried about in the vicinity?” John asked, turning his gaze to the passenger seat.

“Nothing in this town is giving off an aura stronger than a fledgling mage,” Layla said after a moment’s concentration. “We should be alright here for tonight.”

“Well… guess that’s something, at least,” John mused, mentally grimacing at the thought of sitting awake all night once again while the others slept. Up the road he saw a large, half-extinguished neon sign for a motel; with enough letters still lit, it seemed likely to be the “Slumbermill” Adantia had mentioned.