Closing In

Aeolia flew out of the way of the maw of one of the hounds and countered with a quick slash, a rip of green wind tearing into its neck. She wasn’t able to capitalize on it as she was **** to dodge an attack from one of the other hounds.

‘Three on one’s a bit of a pain here,’ she groused. ‘They’re tougher than the ones from Monday and I’m not dead on my talons this time.’

She cast a glance towards Senka right as the spirit launched a spike of shadow at one of the hounds she was facing and promptly vanished before her target was killed by her last action. She felt John’s mana spike right after and he deftly dodged an attack and swiftly counterattacked.

Aeolia grinned as she swept aside her own attacker with a broad gust of wind. Her smile dimmed as she noticed the remaining hounds Senka had been fighting were beginning to amble over, the wounds she inflicted on them slowing, but not stopping, them.

“Take care of the one’s coming up behind us, I’ve got the big ones!” John shouted to her as he turned his head towards her. She caught his eye, finding his expression determined.

She nodded and focused her attention on the approaching hounds.

“Teach them not to mess with us,” she growled and launched herself towards the nearing pack. Despite their wounds they grew aggressive as she flew at them. Behind her, she felt the rush of heat from what she assumed was John’s fire ability. The wave of wind pushed her forward with greater speed and she began to spin, the wind trailing from her glaive making her look like a green screw.

The horizontal tornado crashed into the hounds, tearing chunks out of them as she flew past. She pulled out of her spin on the far side of the pack in time to see the aura around Bill explode and wash over John. Panic gripped her and she couldn’t help but to recall the fog that had separated her and Zeph from everyone else.

She was about to fly over to assist when one of the hounds she’d just attacked struck her from below, its partially removed jaw still able to crunch down on her ankle. The other two hobbled their way to attack as well, leaving Aeolia unable to rush to John's aid, even after she slashed the hound that held her, cleaving through its neck.

Before she could deal with the remaining hounds and move against Bill as he pinned John, she saw Brenda move with a swiftness Aeolia didn't think mundanes could achieve without athletic training. She dashed to John’s defense, brandishing the staff John had made yesterday like a club.

The lunge of one of the hounds distracted Aeolia from the next sequence of events, but once she had dispatched it, the fear that had begun to creep into her heart was dispelled when she saw John and Senka standing before Bill, still in the fight.

With a triumphant cry Aeolia wheeled around and slashed through the remaining hound at her heels, cleaving through it like butter. With those hounds dealt with, Aeolia was ready to rush in to join the fight against the summoner but a flash of crimson and violet began to radiate from the hounds John had burned.

“Fuck,” Aeolia spat as the hounds began to recover, then change.

John tried to maintain a confident facade, but he knew things weren’t in their favor. He was nearly out of mana, as was Senka.

‘Aeolia’s probably in a better state,’ he thought. ‘And all she has left to deal with are weakened Vine Hounds. If we can keep his attention on us, she can deal with them then get over here.’

It wasn’t the best idea, especially with his mother a scant few feet behind him, but there was no way he was going to be able to get her to safety.

‘We make our stand here,’ John relayed to Senka. ‘Keep him from summoning more hounds or healing the ones he already has out.’

‘I don’t have enough mana to cast anything,’ Senka replied grimly, ‘but I will do what I can.’

John grit his teeth, wishing he could toss Senka her vessel, but felt like any shift he made would invite an attack from Bill, especially one that would remove his sword from play. Instead, John took a breath and readied to break the standoff.

Before he could move, Bill threw his head back and let out a roaring laugh.

“Told Boss you’d be a problem if we let you run wild,” he announced, his words somewhat slurred. He let his head fall and regarded John with a stare that conveyed both hatred and respect. “Gonna make him eat his words later. That bitch Rosa too. Maybe I’ll take that sword as a trophy.”

Bill tensed to charge and the aura around pulsed. Over Bill’s shoulder, John could see the burned hounds erupt in red and purple light, their bodies unspooling and flowing together, reweaving into one large, three headed being. The cerberus threw its heads back and let out a chilling three part howl before it began to stalk towards Aeolia.

Bill craned his head back slightly towards his changed summon, a flash of confusion crossing his face before he just grinned. John quickly shot an Observe at it, hoping things weren’t as bad as he feared.

‘Crap,’ John thought, renewed panic rushing through him as he saw the level of the cerberus and the final line of its information section. ‘It’s as strong as Aeolia. Even if she stays in the air and uses ranged attacks, it’ll keep her occupied and unable to help us. And if she just heads here, it’ll follow anyway, and something about that final bit makes me think it’s going to stick around even if we kill Bill.’

However, the cerberus did not charge at Aeolia, maintaining its slow gait towards her. Aeolia, already airborne, decided to not play defensive and launched a cutting wave of wind. The cerberus didn’t even try to evade and took the strike to its center head.

The air blade barely cut through the thick bramble that made the beast and it let out a triple howl before tucking its heads down and launching the thorns on its shoulders at Aeolia. Each was several inches long and coated in red sap, making them look like they had already pierced flesh. Aeolia deftly avoided them, but her evasive flight gave the arboreal hound the opening to charge at her, the thorns growing back.

Distracted by Aeolia’s fight, John was just barely able to react to Bill’s charge at him, a left hook with a thorny knuckleduster aimed right for his head. John cast Rushing Winds for a second to give himself the speed to block the punch with the flat of his blade. The wild swing had enough **** to knock John off balance and he was **** to reactivate Rushing Winds once more to recover his footing.

‘Bastard hits like a truck,’ John thought. ‘And I don’t have enough mana to even use one Verdant Surge to keep up. And I can’t keep doing short bursts of Rushing Winds forever.’

Then John noticed Bill's right arm, still hanging limply at his side. It was hard to see through the red haze of the magic around him, but John believed it was bleeding and more than likely broken.

‘He didn’t heal again,’ he realized. ‘Either he can’t do it to more serious wounds or this powerup is different to what happened before and he can’t heal anymore. He looked confused at what happened with the hounds.’

With only one way to find out, John tightened his grip on his sword and readied himself to meet Bill’s attacks with his own.

Then a few familiar mana signatures tickled his perception and John couldn’t help but to grin.

Vivian pulled into the shopping market’s parking lot quickly, the rear wheel of her car hitting the curb. The redhead drove with haste to an empty portion of the lot, barely getting the vehicle to a stop before cutting the engine.

“Where’s the barrier?” Beth asked as she climbed out, hiding Thornbite as best she could.

Vivian closed her eyes and tried to still her thoughts as she searched for the barrier’s magic signature. She felt it quickly enough and flinched slightly when she touched the thorny feeling magic

“Over there,” Vivian answered, gesturing to where she had felt the magic, a part of the lot oddly devoid of cars, save for one. “I think the barrier’s making people stay away.”

“Think that’s John’s mom’s car?” Beth asked as they briskly moved closer.

“Stands to reason,” Vivian replied, her hands slightly shaking as they reached the edge of the barrier.

“Hey,” Beth said quietly, hesitantly touching Vivian’s arm. “We’re going to get them out of there. Hell, maybe Aeolia’s already beating them down and we’ll get in and watch the finishing move.”

Vivian smiled slightly, but couldn’t shake the fear that things weren’t going to be so simple. A glance at Beth’s barely veiled worry confirmed that the shorter girl wasn’t confident in her assertion. No matter what waited for them inside, they were going in.

After a quick glance around to check that they had no curious onlookers, Vivian lifted her hand to pierce the barrier but paused when she caught something just at the edge of her perception, an odd shifting of the nearby light levels.

Her head snapped to the far side of the parking lot, where a number of trees obstructed the view of the road beyond. The shadows cast by the late morning sun seemed slightly off to her now that she was paying attention to them. Then she felt a familiar presence and smiled slightly.

“Looks like we aren’t going in alone,” she said, causing Beth to blink then spin around, trying to find who Vivian was talking about.

“Teri’s here?” Beth asked, a hopeful lilt entering her voice.

“Yeah, she and maybe a few others are hiding by those trees,” Vivian relayed, tilting her head towards them. “Actually, they’re moving towards us. Slowly, since the veil array I wrote isn’t all that great for speed.”

That bothered her slightly, for many reasons, chief among them was the gripping fear that every second was one more that might bring harm to John, Senka, Aeolia and likely Brenda. Slightly behind that thought that her veil array was far too inconvenient for quick movement. It didn’t factor too much in how Aeolia used it, given her natural size and ability to fly above most observers, but for Teri and the goblins, it limited their speed, a dangerous place to be if a situation like today happened again.

The approach of Teri’s group picked up pace, their hidden forms wavering ever so slightly, and Vivian reached out to smooth over any overt visual distortions.

“Made good time,” Teri’s disembodied voice said, sounding just slightly winded. “Couldn’t have done it without the orb. Really mixes well with Kitai’s power.”

“How many you got in there?” Beth asked.

“Gryit, Grekol and H’metl,” Teri rattled off. “The elders would only let me take three.”

A small squawk emanated from the veiled space and Teri quickly said, “Plus one drakeling.”

Vivian nodded. While the three goblin warriors were relatively unknown to her, with only Gryit having a face to the name, she trusted Teri to have picked the best she could.

“OK, since you’ve got more experience with, well, everything combat related, you can take the lead,” the redhead said. The goblin nodded, something Vivian was only able to sense due to the shifting of the light as she did, then began to converse to her kin, likely forming a battle plan.

“OK, here’s the plan,” Teri said with an air of confiance. “Popping in there’s going to alert whoever controls it, but that gives us something we can work with. Between Kitai’s shadow blending and Vivian’s light manipulation, we can move unseen and hopefully confuse the assailant. Then we can strike from an advantageous position.”

“Won’t they still be able to sense us magically?” Beth asked.

“That is a possibility,” Teri answered. “But by going in unseen, we can create some confusion before we attack. Better than going in completely visible.”

Beth shrugged and said, “Guess that makes sense. Throwing them off a bit is better than just popping in to take a shot to the head. So are we going to get this cloaking field on before going in or right after?”

“Before would be better,” Vivian supplied. “I can make it so we can all see each other so we can communicate with gestures inside. Be pretty stupid to go in invisible and give ourselves away by talking. We should do it behind the car though, just to be safe.”

The party moved to the relatively safe spot, their view of the store obscured by the vehicle. After a quick glance around to ensure there were no security cameras pointing directly at them, Vivian quickly weaved a dome of bent light around them, making her and Beth vanish from sight. The goblins faded into view a second later, Teri slipping the veil orb into a satchel.

“On the count of three?” Teri asked, repeating her question in her native tongue for her companions.

Vivian nodded and readied to breach the barrier. It would be harder than normal, given both the hostile nature of the barrier and having to maintain the cloak around them, but she could manage. She had to.

Thanks again for reading this little story. If you liked the chapter, please hit that thumbs up, and if you want to support my writing, check out my Patreon at https://www.patreon.com/ScrapCrow. Get access to my chapters before they’re published here and join my private Discord.